Desert Skywalkers

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Club News



May 3, 2010
XC CLINIC WAS A SUCCESS!
World class XC pilot Honza Rejmanek came to Las Vegas on May 1st and 2nd to teach a Thermal/XC clinic. Twelve of our club members took advantage of this opportunity to learn from one of the best. After the clinic, a party was held at Ron's house for all club members, with food and drink provided by the club. From Honza: "Thank-you to the Desert Skywalkers for your support and warm hospitality!" For those of you that dont know Honza, he recently placed third in one of the most grueling races on the planet...the 2009 Red Bull X-Alps. He also holds the state distance record for Idaho with 139.6 miles flown off Bald Mtn on 8/4/08 for a total flight time of 7hrs and 43 minutes.


APRIL 5, 2010
Week out at NABX
This past week has been great for tethered aviation. It started with the NABX meeting on the Ivanpah drylake. There were 70 or so people flying kites, zooming around in kite buggies, captaining land sailors, and every other thing you can think to do with the wind. The land speed record for a kite buggy was broken at 82 mph last Wednesday. This last Thursday, Friday, and Saturday were great days for flying HG and PG. Todd had his first thermal flight. Harold (HG) and Janell(PG) were thermaling together like a beautiful mating ritual with a strange cross species twist. We also saw new club member Adam Huston reach his highest altitude flight this past week. Speaking of new members, I would like to welcome Adam Huston, Safak Safin, and David Stevens to the club. We are all looking forward to flying with you.
The Skywalker's flying season is officially opened.


APRIL 5, 2010
Good food supplied by Tony Lang!
For those of you who couldn't make it out to the drylake on Friday night, you missed a great feast. Tony Lang was Vegas' Top Chef that night. Here are the before and after photos of the roasted beast. Thank you Tony.


March 14th, 2010
Alternative fun!
Yes, I know that for the last three weeks the weather has been bad for flying. I don't have any good HG or PG stories to post. I can report that the Desert Skywalkers were representing last week on the ski slopes of Park City, Utah. Skiing is like winter flying, it's cold, the weather is crap, and most of the time it's just a sled ride down. The best part was hanging with my friends.

For all those with weather blues, don't despair! The official Skywalker flying season starts in 21 days.


Feb 28th, 2010
Winter flying!
Wow!! What a great winter for flying we’ve been having. I have logged 13 days of flying since the start of 2010. People in other parts of the country must be jealous.I knew this was going to be a great winter flying season because of our Skywalker winter test. Yes, for all you new members to the Desert Skywalkers club, we have our own winter flying indicator. Just like the rest of the world has Phil the Groundhog to signal how the winter will be, we have Tony Lang. Tony normally puts his flying equipment away in October and we normally don’t see him again until spring but his year he has popped his head out early and we all are benefiting from his prediction. Thank you Tony.


Reserve Repack Party
Last week’s Reserve Repack Party was a great success. I hope everyone who attended learned to be more confident with the repacking and deployment of their reserves. The reserve is our friend. Of the 14 attendees who practiced deployment we learned about 4 who would have had problems. It’s great to catch those types of problems in practice. As a club we should make this party an annual event.


Ivanpah Drylake Party
It is that time of year again for those crazy Land Sailors and Kite Buggy people to have their meet at Ivanpah Drylake. I went last here and it was great fun. The Land Sailors start on the 20th of March and the Buggy guys get there the 27th of March. Both stay for a week. This year I personally will be camping out on the Ivanpah Drylake the weekend of the 2nd of April. If you can make it out it should be a lot of fun.