Six Chuter West LLC

Land Sailing Events 2010

A new club called The Pacific Northwest blokart Association has been recently incorporated in the State of Washington.  The purpose of the club will be to promote blokart landsailing.  One of the reasons we have formed up this private non-profit corporation is to link with the national blokart USA organization and gain access to insurance for our members.

This organization is also working in concert with other wind sport organizations to help effect changes to the Washington State Administrative code to clearly open access to Washington State beaches.

We encourage all blokart enthusiasts, current or prospective to join the club.  To do so, go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PNWBA/ and request access.  We will clear you into the club forum and will followup later with a membership application.

Contact Tim Vedder II, President of the club at Tim Vedder (sixchuterwest@genext.net) for more information.

Land Sailing Events 2010

Six Chuter West LLC

Sports and Adventures

blokart News June 2010

EVENTS

The 20^th Annual Memorial Day Rally has to this point been all about powered parachuting.  Last year as we added blokart land sails to our array of adventures and we started sailing out of Twin Firs Turf Farm in Quincy, Washington.  The sailing turns out to be quite compatible with the sport of powered parachuting, as we fly in the mornings when the winds are calm, and the get out the sails in the afternoons when typically the wind begins to howl.

Twin Firs consists of several 40 acre turf circles.  Usually at least one of these is bare providing a hard surface to sail on.  The owners love to have us sail at this location because it enhances their activity of mainly “watching the grass grow”. 

The weather at this year’s event was erratic at best.  We experienced everything from sun to total deluge of rain, and calm days to howling gusty 25 knot winds.  But we were indeed able to break out the blokarts for a couple of fun afternoon sailing sessions.

blokart vs. manta at the farm

For more information on Twin Firs Turf Farm, check out their website at

http://www.partiesonthegreen.com/Parties_On_The_Green/Home.html .  If you would like to sail this location, contact Tim Vedder sixchuterwest@genext.net 509 885-8444.

Oops! Watch those gusts!

 

Our next “show” event will be the Arlington EAA Northwest Air Show, Arlington Washington.  This is primarily a “vendor” event like last year, but we will be setting up a small demonstration race course on the ultralight runway each afternoon for a couple of hours.  And we will be training and demonstrating to serious potential customers during that same period of time.

blokart and Powered Parachutes Arlington 2009

Contact Doug Maas

maas0755@comcast.net 360 771-4047 if you would like to join us during this show.

ON THE ACTION FRONT

During the Memorial Day Rally we partnered up with Jeff Earl, Big Kid Kites, and Evans Fletcher. These guys are kite buggy enthusiasts and are on the lead in working with Washington State Parks for a series of events on the beach.  Their strategy is to gain formal authorization for wind sports organizations with insurance to gain open access to sailing the beaches in Washington State.  Tim and I are coordinating with them to provide information on blokart USA, initiating a Pacific N.W. club, and attaining insurance for our customers.

RESOURCES

blokart USA. Blokart International has opened a new website specifically for North American blokart enthusiasts.  Check it out at http://www.blokartusa.com/

The Six Chuter West website for blokart is found at http://sixchuterwest.com/?page_id=87 Stop there and download the catalogue. This form will also initiate routine bulletins about development of the sport in the Pacific N.W.

INVENTORY

Six Chuter West still has a small standing inventory of 2009 Sports at our center in Wenatchee.  Call us for special pricing on these brand new, still in the box, units. Maas0755@comcast.net

Blokart Display at N.W. PPC Coalition Memorial Day Rally

Land Sailing Events 2010

blokart International has just opened a new website dedicated to blokart land sailing in the United States.  Check it out at blokartusa.com  This is an awesome new resource that will begin to list all the cool locations to land sail and will also provide quick links to all our representatives.

Also be sure and check out the 2010 Memorial Day Rally and preregister if you plan on attending.  This is the 20th anniversary powered parachute rally by Six Chuter Inc. powered parachutes.  This rally is held at Twin Firs Turf Farm, Quincy, Washington the location of Six Chuter West’s blokart rental and training center.  And we will have the blokarts out and sailing during the days at the rally.

Ivanpah 2010

New Puget Sound Representative

Michael Escriba has joined our Six Chuter West blokart team.  Michael is a powered parachute pilot who recently retired and plans on moving several demonstration units around the area and providing opportunities for demonstrations, sales and training.  Here is a note from Michael after an exciting trip to Ivanpah:

Hey Doug , Just got back from Las Vegas. took my son and couple of friends out to Primm at Ivanpah dry lake they loved it got some great runs in . managed to my first flip over not to bad sliding  to a stop got out stood her up and off I went got some gust up to 30-mph what a rush that was . Pick up some hugh thorns flattened one tire . Got a tube repair kit and fixed it seems to hold. Leaving for Mexico Sunday the 11th be back in Nov ?

 Some Awesome Times in blokarts in the Pacific Northwest

Setting Up to Sail at Twin Firs Turf Farm

Grandpa Doug and Taylor on the Oregon Coast

Racing the Runway at Arlington Airshow

Land Sailing by Six Chuter West LLC

Six Chuter West LLC, traditionally a light sport powered parachute company, added blo.kart land sails to our network earlier this year. The sport of land sailing is relatively new to the Pacific Northwest and our experience to date has proven that most of our customers have never seen a land sail and at the same time are intrigued about the sport. We have begun to distribute blo.kart land sails to our various sales centers and have displayed and demonstrated them at several of our key events.

The first event was our annual Powered Parachute Rally at Twin Firs Turf Farm in Central Washington. This event drew approximately 100 powered parachute pilots and their families and was also a huge draw to the public. The weather worked out quite well with powered parachute flying in the mornings when the winds were calm and land sailing in the afternoons in 10-15 M.P.H. winds. Several of our aircraft sales representatives had the opportunity to try out the land sails as did numerous members of the public.

Land Sail Display at Twin Firs Turf Farm, Memorial Day 2009

Six Chuter West displayed our blo.karts at the Arlington N.W. EAA Air show in July.  This show drew a crowd of 60,000 over a five day period!  The draw and interest in the land sails was really overwhelming.  While we were not able to allow the public to try them out, we did have the opportunity to demonstrate for the crowd during a two hour window each afternoon. 

Blo.karts and Powered Parachutes Arlington 2009

Our flight center located in the Portland Vancouver area and Central Washington Powered Parachutes located in Central Washington have been our most active areas to date with the land sails.  The predominant sailing in Vancouver has been in large parking lots and our representative has begun to routinely connect with potential enthusiasts and customers to supervise demonstrations.  And in Central Washington potential customers have begun to book time at the turf farm facility.  The most common question potential enthusiasts have asked is “where can we sail these”.  As we continue to “explore” the sport in the Pacific Northwest we have found numerous suitable locations including local parking lots, the Oregon State Beaches, hard turf areas particularly in Eastern Washington and Oregon, and the dry lake beds of Eastern Oregon.

Racing at Arlington Airshow

Sailing the Oregon Coast

Interested?  Be sure and check us out at www.sixchuterwest.com or request information from sixchuterwest@comcast.net, or call Tim Vedder 509 885-8444 or Rolando Santiago 360 904-8766

2009 MEMORIAL DAY NORTHWEST POWERED PARACHUTE RALLY

The 2009 N.W. Powered Parachute Coalition Memorial Day rally was arguably one of the best powered parachute events ever in the Pacific Northwest.  This was the 18^th year for the traditional rally that was first held in 1991 by Six Chuter Inc. powered parachutes in Yakima, Washington.  The event has moved around to various locations and has in recent years been led by EAA Ultralight Chapter 127, “Northwest Powered Parachute Coalition”. Given seventeen previous rallies what rated this one among the best?

NEW VENUE

The rally was invited for the first time to “Twin Firs Turf Farm” near Quincy, Washington.  Tim Vedder, President of Central Washington Powered Parachutes worked with Kent and Kim Bacon, owners of the farm to create a community oriented event.  Kent and Kim not only farm but they have created “Parties on the Green” to share their incredible property with others.  The farm is located just ten miles east of the Columbia River as it cuts through the “Gorge at George (Washington)”.  The Quincy area provided wide open flying and awesome views of the Cascade Mountains to the West and other interesting features from Wenatchee to Moses Lake.

The flying field was one of several well groomed turf circles.  The pilots were awed by the golf course like field with virtually no ruts that you might see at a typical farm circle. Kent and Kim pitched one of their “Parties on The Green” tents with inside lights that created a central gathering location.  A small fire pit was lit each night and attracted the late night entertainment, debriefing and discussion.

The campground looked like a commercial RV resort and was located literally “on the green” situated on the skirt of two of the turf circles.  Kent even provided a nightly RV wash with sprinklers catching some of us who wanted the best views of the field. J

THE COMMUNITY

The club was not charged to camp on site and to use the farm for the event!  The only condition established by Kim and Kent was to open our activities to the public.  That was certainly not a problem for EAA 127.  The club has consistently attempted to promote and share the sport with others.  Spectators relaxed on the rim of the turf circle and enjoyed watching morning and evening launches of the aircraft.  Go Bent Bicycles, Big Kid Kites, Six Chuter West Blokart Land Sails and CJ’s Catering a food vendor were all invited to share the site and create other activities for families, friends and kids.  Club instructors and pilots conducted nearly seventy first flight lesson and discovery flights, clearly setting a record for introductions to the sport.

Thanks to Mike Lersbak for leading the discovery flight lesson team!  And what a team it was.  Thanks to Donald Oliver, Mark Martin, Steve Rambo and Scott Furham for the discovery flights and to Grubby, Rick Gutierrez, Mike Lersbak, Bill Dotter, and Doug Maas for the Introductory Flight Lessons. And kudos to Tim Vedder, David Vedder and Tom Connelly for tireless ground support keeping folks in que and shuttling to the pilots.

IT’S ALL ABOUT THE FLYING

Club members come to fly and that’s just what they did.  Most can’t remember a better stretch of weather for this time of the year.  With light winds most mornings and evenings we managed huge flights every morning and evening except for Sunday morning.  And on that day, curiously, the winds stopped at noon and allowed flying throughout the afternoon.  Pilots didn’t need to wander much to enjoy the wide open farm country of central Washington.  And many pilots flew moderate cross countries to visit the “Crescent Bar” and Amphitheatre areas located along the Columbia River gorge.

Just as Jim Groebner was completing an aerial display with smoke a paraglider pilot literally “dropped” into the event.  The pilot had been soaring for over five hours and had departed from a cliff near Chelan, Washington some forty miles to the north!  She had no knowledge of our event but told us she looked down and with some relief saw “one of her kind” and decided to land.  We couldn’t have planned this better if it was on purpose and the crowd loved it.  She called two of her friends, still in the air and shared where she was.  A short time later we were coordinating powered parachute traffic and paraglider traffic and watched two more land amongst us.

One of the most satisfying parts of the flying event for some of us was to observe the high level of competence among our club pilots.  As this is the eighteenth year for the event, several of us can attest to how far we have come.  This skill level was put to the test on two evenings when several pilots were “caught in the air” as the wind picked up to over twenty in mere moments.  The pilots were cool and calm and used great radio discipline to communicate with ground support crews. Two pilots made great decisions to land “off site” when they realized they might not make it back to home turf.

Flight operations management is always a key to success at a large fly in such as this.  Our designated operations team was supplemented by help from dozens of other club members to help launch as many as forty aircraft during each flight.

Can we ever extend enough thanks to Steve Rambo “Flight Boss”?  Steve was with the Memorial Day rally from the beginning.  And we all know that the tent wouldn’t go up, nor down, things wouldn’t get fixed, and the flights would not be managed safely without his leadership.  Tim Vedder, Tom Connelly, David Vedder, Mike Bird and Clyde Poser rounded out the designated team on the field. And thanks to all our pilots who supported each other and helped with flight ops.

We extend a huge appreciation to Grubby, Dennis Clarke, Jim Payne, Mike Bird, Bob Rector, Walt Graybeal, Mike Lersbak, Clyde Poser and many others for quick and professional support as the “pilot down” recovery team.

IT’S ALL ABOUT THE PEOPLE

Ok, the flying is cool, but without people it would of course just not be the same.  We set a record for club attendance with fifty-one registered pilots.  With family and friends the campground accommodated over one-hundred twenty-five folks.  This did not include the community members that we simply lost count of.

Club members enjoyed meeting each other, hanging out in small groups, sharing flying stories, informal entertainment and “kicking tires” on the many powered parachutes on the flight line.  The club held our annual potluck supplemented by grilled chicken and hamburgers provided by C.Js Catering.

And yes we do have some fun.  Denny Homer provided a bit of a comedy routine by formally establishing “SPA” (Sport Pilot Auxiliary).  This group of spouses sometimes refer to themselves as “S.P.L.A.T” (Sport Pilot Landing Assessment Team), and can be seen holding up cards with numbers ranging from zero to ten to rate landings, takeoffs, and as Denny pointed out, just about anything else you put in front of them!  Denny appointed himself CEO (how does that work?), and invited more nominations.

The club has established a tradition of assigning call signs for pilots based on various “stuff” that happens.  Remember “Clover” who gained her call sign after landing safely in a clover field due to winds that prohibited her return to home field?  Inaugurates this year include:

• George (aka Walt Graybeal) for putting it down in a field in George Washington because of excessive winds.  Great decision George! J
• Taxi-Man (aka Mike Miller) for aborting a takeoff during his proficiency check when an end cell failed to open in time.  When it did at the last moment he taxied forward, turned 180 degrees and all the way back to the beginning point.  He turned to CFI Grubby and asked if he was through with the taxi portion of his test! J
• Crabbe (aka George Wayne Custer) for crabbing sideways about 15 miles from I-90 to the Ephrata Airport making virtually no headway back to home field.
• Vampire (aka Clyde Poser) for nearly doing his only flying after we have all gone to bed and the sun has set. J Clyde is one of the few private pilot rated ppc pilots in the U.S. and was training Denny Homer at night. This included a night flight into controlled airspace at Moses Lake.
• Hoverman (aka Jim Webb) for literally hovering or nearly hovering for about an hour it took for him to edge to the field and land vertically!

EDUCATION AND TRAINING

Since this is the opening rally for EAA UL Chapter 127 the flying is supplemented with educational forums and training.  This year’s well attended forums included topics on Safety, Proficiency, and Maintenance.  In addition to the forums five pilots completed proficiency checks to add powered parachute privileges to existing pilot certificates.

Congratulations to Michael Clouse, Mike Miller, Kenneth Schwartz, Jack White, and Thomas Dye who successfully completed their training program with the proficiency checks.  Several pilots completed their flight reviews and others logged time towards their sport pilot certificates.

One unique aspect to the Northwest Powered Parachute Coalition is the level of professional support resources available.  The Western Powered Parachute Association assists in networking individual instructors and technicians and inviting them to events like the Memorial Day Rally.  At how many events such as this are you likely to see nine FAA Instructors, two Designated Flight Examiners, a Designated Airworthiness Representative and two maintenance rated Repairman? The training team, as you might imagine, are constantly busy providing support throughout the event.

Thanks to CFIs Clyde Poser, Bill Hansen, Bill Dotter, Jim Groebner (SPE), Rick Gutierrez, Mike Lersbak, Mike Bird, Steve Clyatt and Doug Maas(SPIE) for not just being at the event but working hard.  Their constant efforts have helped to breed a flock of powered parachute pilots who are safe and extremely competent. Clyde Poser is also the club’s support as a Designated Airworthiness Representative.  And Clyde and Perry Robertson manage Rotax Authorized Repair stations and hold Repairman Certificates with maintenance ratings. 

THE CLUB MAKES IT HAPPEN

EAA UL Chapter 127, we believe, is the largest ppc founded club in the United States.  We came into the event with one-hundred-fifteen members and signed up eight more during registration.

Thanks of course to Lynn Maas for organizing an efficient and relatively painless registration process. The paperwork isn’t the fun part, but necessary and how she keeps it all straight is a mystery to me. 

Art Smith, President of the Coalition welcomed the crowd and facilitated a club meeting where he handed out service awards to Perry Robertson (Vice-President), Jim Groebner (Secretary) and Doug Maas (Treasurer).  He also recognized Mike Lersbak, Education Coordinator, Mike Bird (Activities Coordinator, Rick Gutierrez (Puget Sound Region Coordinator) and Garey Cosentino (Willamette Valley Region Coordinator).  The club then “counter-recognized” Art for his five years of service as the President of the Coalition.

Club members contributed dozens of items for a traditional raffle that managed to raise approximately $500.  “Vana Lynn” pulled the tickets and the goodies were handed out during the closing ceremonies. The club has another tradition of turning money raised from this raffle back to the local community.  And we did that this year by writing a check to Kim and Kent and encouraging them to use that for their favorite organization or charity in the Quincy area.

The official event ended with an invitation from Kim to come back next year!  That says it all. I can’t quite imagine that we would turn that down.

Doug Maas, News Editor

EAA UL Chapter 127

360 771-4047 maas0755@comcast.net

Folks,

Giving back to the Central Washington community we live in…..for this weekend’s Soroptomist’s Tea (held in Moses lake, WA) there was a live auction and raffle that netted the local chapter of Soroptomists over $10,000.00…(this is used to fund scholarships and to improve the lives of women and girls) …..one of the donated pkg’s by SixChuterWest and Central Washington Powered Parachutes went for $390….there was such a demand that the bidding ended up with two (2) packages being auctioned off…total net was $780.00  (see description below)………At the event I set up the Blokart Pro with the green 5.5m sail…and had the SixChuter Inc. Powered parachute DVD running during the auction….it really generated lots of discussion and of course helped to run the live auction $$’s up…….one of the terms we used early on when SixChuter West became a reality was Social Return On Invested Capital…..I think we are starting to do what we set out to do…….

1. “Central Washington Adventure Package”-   Ever dream of flying like a bird? Imagine yourself floating low and slow over the countryside. Now you can in a powered parachute by Six Chuter.  Powered Parachutes offer one of the safest and most economical ways to fly. This Discovery Flight will take two people soaring over the beautiful Quincy Valley in an experience of a lifetime.  If you are flying powered parachutes what better way to compliment your fun? When the wind is calm you fly. When the wind exceeds flying limits you go land sailing!  Land Sailing is a safe and exciting way for the entire family to enjoy the beaches and wide open spaces of America!  Two people will each experience one hour of land sailing. 

To round out this adventure, the two of you will have an opportunity to experience a tandem bicycle ride on the Wenatchee trail, where you can enjoy each other’s company while peddling along the Wenatchee River.

Tim and I had a great time in Primm Nevada this past week, both learning how to land sail and picking up an initial inventory.  Check out our Land Sail page for information on the models we now have available.  We will be set up with demo units at the Memorial Day powered parachute rally in Quincy, WA.  This is a safe and fun sport and when the wind kicks up and we can’t fly…we’ll be sailing!

The annual Ivanpah blo.kart rally near Primm Nevada is scheduled March 28-April 1st.  Tim and I will be there on Friday, Saturday and Sunday morning to participate.  We are picking up inventory for the N.W. and will be learning to sail there ourselves!  We’d love to see some others from the Northwest there.  If you are thinking about making the rally, drop us an email at maas0755@comcast.net so that we can plan on meeting you there.