Rob Dallas, Volunteer Reporter, Knights in White Dacron Team Member <<olliettt1955>> writes:

The big story here is yesterday's stellar day of cross country hang gliding with no less than EIGHT (count 'em) big scoring "C" pilots making their very FIRST EVER cross country flights! Congratulations to (L to R in the photo) Cliff Rice, Leigh Sheridan, Brandon DeKock, Erin Rapacki, Nick Maganini, Barry Klein, Mike Compton, and Matt Dittman. We love our C pilots!

Today's first order of cross country business was of course putting fuel in the furnace with a hearty on-site breakfast thanks to our cook extraordinaire Ladonna. Ollie Gregory, Team Challenge Man Behind the Curtain ( I couldn't resist an Oz reference) convened the pilots meeting with help from James Linscombe's detailed weather briefing. Unfortunately the wind gods smiled on us a bit too much as the day was blown out. But that was not all bad since it allows us all to hook-in to a full day of interesting and informative seminars from some of the best pilots in the hang gliding universe.

Mike Barber started off the series with a fascinating debrief of yesterdays changing conditions, cross country flight strategies, controlling those pesky human emotions in flight, and other topics of interest to all.

After lunch, Dennis Pagen led an excellent talk on recognizing cloud suck, T-storm development and how to avoid becoming a pilot-cicle.

There was also time for some much needed radio gear worship. Quote of the day "If you fly with a radio, you're going to eventually have radio issues."

Ollie's patented "Pearls of Wisdom" were a highlight too, I just can't seem to remember any right now. Dang, wish I'd kept notes!

Next we broke up into small gps-centric groups for some quality time staring at that new gizmo that few have had time to learn. I'm happy to report that there were no injuries among the 40 pilots & drivers simultaneously meandering around launch with their eyes glued to gps screens.

And as the sun sets (and the wind continues to howl) over the Sequatchie Valley, a thermal etiquette seminar is just finishing up on launch.