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

Max Droege, Oakville WA, started working with CFI Jim Groebner just about the time this winter when the rest of us stopped flying.  The pay off was that Max successfully completed his sport pilot practical test a couple of weeks ago.  Holly Barnes, Olympia, WA, another “Grubby” student likewise braved some very cold winter weather to complete her sport pilot license. And we just got a report from Grubby yesterday that Bob Paysee completed his solo course.

Steve Rambo reported that Ed Zumbuhl completed his ultralight solo course in Napavine, Wa.

John Hollis, Manteca California completed his sport pilot practical test, thnx to his patience, long- term hard work and the great assistance from Tracy, CA CFI Stephen Brandon.

CFI Mike Lersbak traveled to the Central Washington Powered Parachutes flight field (Twin Firs Turf Farm) in March. The result was the Kevin and Kyle Cox, Wenatchee, WA completed their solo course.

Mike and I returned to Twin Firs Farm for the entire past week for the first group-accelerated course of the season.  We were challenged with the weather throughout the week, but managed to complete solo flights for Tim Vedder and Tom Connelly, Wenatchee, WA, Jim Webb, Goldendale, WA, Tom Pratt, Moses Lake, WA and Michael Clouse, Pasco, WA.

I am nearly sure I have missed someone in this brief summary.  But you get the idea. We are starting this season with quite the flurry of activity.

Note too how much activity is suddenly occurring in Central Washington.  This is thanks to the leadership of Tim Vedder a new powered parachute pilot, and President of Central Washington Powered Parachutes.  If you would like to learn more about our newest flight center, go to http://sixchuterwest.com/?page_id=296  

Tim Vedder congratulates Tom Connelly (mutual) On First Solo Flights

Left to Right, Jim Webb, Tom Pratt and Michael Clouse-First Soloes!