Go When You're Ready!

"Go When You're Ready!" Brad's quiet but authoritative command is still ringing in my ears. Thanks to everyone who came together to make Hawaii's first maneuvers clinic an amazingly fun and successful event. It was great to see so many of our pilots expanding their horizons under Brad's instruction. During two improbably perfect weather days at Makapuu, and one day grounded by less perfect weather, the country's top maneuvers coach shared his wealth of knowledge with an enthusiastic group of fourteen pilots. I hope we can put together another clinic like this next year: I look forward to seeing more Hawaii pilots falling out of the sky with Brad's reassuring voice in their ears!

We were incredibly lucky with the weather: up until the day before the event, it looked like we might have light southeast flow, or even due south, and we'd be trying to run this at Nanakuli and Diamond Head! But at the last minute, the sea breeze came to our rescue and offered sweet soaring conditions on the first two days. The clouds were low at Makapuu, not much higher than hang launch, and at times the air was crowded with up to twenty pilots at once. But despite the low clouds, most clinic participants were able to get as high as 1,500-1,600 feet, and make up to six or seven runs each day over the two excellent weather days, with time for several maneuvers in each run.

Participants included many maneuvers veterans and also many first timers, and everyone was able to make progress at their own pace. By the end of the first day, things were running so smoothly that Brad was able to call out two pilots at once for simultaneous practice runs. It was a sight to behold. By the end of the second day many pilots had made enough progress to work on full stalls! What a great confidence boost this event was for everyone. It's a testament to Brad's skills and judgement that none of our clinic participants had to throw a reserve or land in the water. Poor Pete was stuck in his boat with nothing to do the whole time!

We've dreamed about the possibility of having a maneuvers clinic here for years, but we've never quite figured out how to make it work. Thanks to Pete for having the vision to invite Brad over here despite my misgivings about running a clinic like this at our sensitive club sites. That is a unique distinction for us here. I'm not aware of any other club in the country that has tried to pull that off. I think there were three main reasons it worked so well for us: (1) We had the country's top instructor working with us; (2) the clinic was exclusively for Hawaii pilots; and (3) we were blessed with two perfect Makapuu weather days.



Thanks to everyone for their many contributions to this event:

To Pete, for making it all work (and sitting in his boat all day)...
To Brad, for coming over with no idea what he was getting into!
To Dave Goto and the HGA for putting up with all our craziness...
To Thom and Donna, for hosting Brad and Miriam at their house...
To Ray and Noell, for their generosity with barbecue and beverages...
To Ray, for taking Miriam tandem for photo work...
To Thom and Five-0 Mike, for shade tents and other infrastructure...
To "Mallard", for a feast of a dozen pizzas on the last day...
To Scrappy and others, for launch assistance...
To Joey, for loaning me his "collapsible" FreeStyle 2...
To the many others who shared food and beverages...



I've surely left out many other valuable contributions. Please chime in with comments if you can think of anyone else who should be recognized. Also please add a comment if you have any memorable stories to share from this weekend! And let me know if you have pictures and videos to share so I can include them here.



Weekend roll call: Brad (and Miriam), Pete (and Annette and Tyler), me, Duck, Thom (and Donna, Maile and Kalei), Jim, Kauai Dwayne and Rayna, Maui Tim, Maui Rich, Sawzall Rich, Steve, Bonnie, Five-0 Mike (and Ces), Sharky, Kauai Joe and Courtney, Joey (and Robin), Fireman Dave, Frank, Maui Doug, Cheree, Scrappy, FlyStrong, Dave Goto, Mike Benson, Leo, Eagle Eye Tim, Ray (and Noell and Lilliana and Chelsea), Woody, Allegra, Roland, Bay Area Derek, Brent, TommyRD, Ken Berry, Oregon Jon and Justin, Seattle Matt, Alaska Price, AK Jason, Lake, and probably a few others I can't think of...