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February 16, 2000

Daryl Hegyi, President
Jeff Rochon, Vice-President
Glenn Ursel, Treasurer & Acting Secretary

Mail to: Pacific Ultralight Flying Association
102-16071 82 Avenue
Surrey, B.C. V3S 2L6

PUFA Newsletter published by Glenn Ursel


From The President
by Daryl Hegyi

On Sunday of February 13th there was a fly-in to George (Geordy) LeLoups airfield out near Langley.  It was a beautiful day: blue sky and warm.  Seventeen aircraft showed up and we all enjoyed frolicking in the sun, taking pictures, eating hotdogs and rating everyones landings.

The pictures should show up on our web site soon (eat your heart out, Ontarians).  Thanks to Fred Glasbergen for arranging it on such short notice.

Speaking of the website, its back up at http://www.1all.com/pufa with Mario LeBel taking care of it.  Thanks to Mario for hosting the PUFA web page for us.

This months meeting topic is Navigation in the Lower Mainland.  Ill lead it off by covering the navigation methods available to us and find out what we actually use.  Then we can try to plan an actual trip.

Some flying planned for this year:

- more at George LeLoups field
- Hatzic Lake
- Skukumchuck River north of Harrison Lake
- Powell River annual fly-in
- Arlington annual airshow


Editorial Note

by  Glenn  Ursel

We lost Patrick Stanleys help with the publishing of the newsletter as well as member of PUFA Executive as Secretary since he didnt renew his PUFA membership this year.  Thanks to Patrick for his assistance these past two newsletters.  If anyone else would like to assist or even take over the newsletter, please let us know.

For this newsletter, we have another of Fred Barons amusing anecdotes, this one on a story of some little hitchhikers who turned out to be mice that he discovered were riding with him on a flight over Georgia Straits toGaliano Island in the Gulf Islands.  I can just visualize the 5 little terrified mice hanging on for dear life to the back of the front seat of Freds plane while he made a dive bomb approach to Montague Harbour to get landed as quickly as possible and away from the pesky critters!

The Transport Canada Flight Instructors seminar was held at the Sheraton Guildford hotel last month.  Ultralight Flight Instructors from various areas of BC attended the seminar as noted in this newsletter.

On the same weekend, I had a flight to Chilliwack with a friend in his older conventional small aircraft.  It was a great flight but it did open my eyes to some special hazards of flying in real aeroplanes.  We were about 2000 feet ASL just south of the Cloverdale race tracks heading west when we heard another pilot advising the Langley control tower that he was in that position flying east inbound for landing.  We hurriedly looked around  but never saw the other plane.  It is quite a bit more understandable now to me how that collision occurred over 64th Avenue last November.  Both the restricted vision of these aircraft and their 100 mph air speed make it imperative that all pilots keep a sharp lookout, particularly in these at times congested airways of the Lower Mainland.


March, 2000 Flying Events
Sunday, March 5, 2000, 9:00 am to 11:15 am
Delta Airpark, RAA Chapter 85 monthly pancake breakfast
$3, 9:00 am to 11:15 am
Listen to the pre-recorded arrival procedures for Delta Heritage Airpark, Phone 878-9050


Hitchhikers

Well, as the flying season is winding down for us fair weather fliers, we are all wintering our planes to be ready for the unveiling when the weather gets better in the spring.

In my area here near Vancouver, BC, the humming birds arrive on the 24th of March with their amazing flying feats.  Inspires me to go and take my pusher 2 place Beaver amphib float plane with all the bells and whistles out of moth balls.  We make sure the floats are tight and that the amphib gear is retracting properly which means that you have to suspend the plane and retract the wheels up and down while it is precariously balanced on your blocks.  The bearings in the main wheels and the cables to retractable gear are lubricated.  All in all its a great time of the year, getting ready for the up and coming season.  The gear oil in the reduction gear is changed.  I mean it is a major effort! You check and you try to think of everything, almost.

This bird is going to take you hither and yon and it must be ready.  We know our brave, strong aviator is ready for everything (he thinks).  The radio is put in the plane.  The old gas is drained and new gas put in.  The cables are checked along with ailerons, rudder, wings and elevators.  We are ready!

The engine is run up to full rpm with the nose wheel retracted.  It is a beautiful, warm, spring day with the daffodils and humming birds out.  All of the spring ingredients are here and our brave, macho pilot is ready for take off.  In the distance, sits the Gulf Islands - Galiano, Mayne, Saturna and Pender.  A perfect place to fly to!  We get ready to go.  The wind is blowing right down 26 at the Intergalactic Aerodrome.

The take off goes great after the winter hiatus.  There are a few wispy, white clouds in a beautiful, blue sky.  The sun feels warm on your face.  Life is good.  What could be better than this?  You have an eager craft at your command.  You are at altitude.  The Gulf Islands are off in the distance, looming like a far off picture in a post card.  The Gulf of Georgia is calm.  To the left of the plane, a pod of 4 Gray Whales catches your eye.  The whales are migrating from the Sea of Cortez between Mainland Mexico and the Baja Peninsula on their way to summer feeding grounds in Alaska.  We are half way across the Gulf of Georgia.  The engine is at cruise and is performing flawlessly but, still, you cinch up your seat belt a little tighter.  There is always a bit of relief when the islands are reached.  It is about a 35 minute flight from my back yard where I live so it is a real bonus to see a pod of Killer Whales going through Active Pass, making their way to better feeding grounds.  Im hoping that does not include those Gray Whales seen earlier!

What a day!  Nothing could spoil this, nothing.  Well, maybe a slight problem for our brave, macho, strong, 200 lb. aviator who looks over his shoulder into the back seat of his plane and sees 5 hitchhikers.  There is a nest of mice who are not as happy as their captain!  They want out of his plane!  They are hanging from the back of the pilots seat.  In the back seat, our brave captain looks for his parachute but doesnt have one.  Now some people would not be bothered by these uninvited hitchhikers but our pilot was not happy.

We were at 1,200 feet above sea level.  I put the nose down and planned my approach.  I was near Montague Harbour on Galiano Island, looking for a wind direction.  From a flag on a anchored sail boat, I had the wind direction.  Making sure my wheels were up and locked, I prepared for a hurried landing on the water.  It is a distraction when you have mice that want off the plane.  Dont know who wanted out more - me or the mice.  I made a small bounce on landing and taxied up to the shore, shut off the engine and jumped out of the plane.  The mice by then occupied my empty seat.  I was not about to touch these dirty little pests.  What do I do?  I know I was not about to let those hijackers take over my noble bird when all of a sudden 4 knights in shining armour appeared like Don Quixote rescuing Dulcinea!  Four little boys, about 8 years old, showed up, acting like fearless, grown up men.  I said Boys, you get the mice out of my plane, I will give you a dollar a mouse.  They were climbing over that plane like a McDonalds play station and, before I could say Ali Kazam,  they had those pesky critters by their tails and out of my noble bird.  Of course I could have done it myself, hmm, but I thought I would let those boys make a few bucks, likely story!  So, after being rescued by those little tykes, I pulled the noble bird up onto the beach.  Looked under the back seat cover and there was a large mice nest, all nestled in there.  >From now on, I will put it on my check list after getting rid of the nest.

Got my big hammock out of my storage bag, put it under the wing from the strut to the fuselage, stretched out and had a much needed nap, rocking to and fro.  Gazing at the sky above, listening to the lap of the waves on shore, I drifted off to a pleasant slumber.  Safe at last from those pesky critters!

Fred Baron
November 18, 1999


Transport Canada Instructors Seminar

While I am not an flying instructor, I dropped in for a half hour during the morning of the first day (Saturday, January 29th) of the two day seminar to see what was happening.

The Green Timbers conference room on the second floor at the Sheraton Guildford Hotel was full of familiar faces, Fred Glasbergen, Beverly Lawrence, Rob Leimer, Ron Smit, Stuart Lumgair, Stephane Marois, James Sheremata, Julius Szalontai and Jeff Rochon of the local scene and Gary OBrien from Duncan among others not familiar to me.

I had a quick perusal of the course outline and noted that it dealt with memory and learning factors.  Dave Dixon did an introduction which revealed the demographic facts that the ultralight pilots are generally an older group than the current conventional pilots and then another Transport Canada speaker, Steve Bailey, launched into a talk on memory factors.

He asked the group to write down three series of numbers from 1 to 20.  Then he displayed a set of 3 random letter combinations and asked the group to try to remember as many as they could for writing down after the end of the display.   He next displayed a series of  random 3 letter word combinations and for the group to remember.  One word was tit and the other sex.  The others were words like dog, law, won, saw, etc.  The last set of words involved parts of the body in a systematic fashion from the top of the head to the foot.

Steve then displayed a graph of previous results.  Of course the randow letter combinations showed the poorest results and the systematic description of the body the best.  The two words of sexual connotation in the random word selection were also predictably well remembered.

At this point, I left the seminar and didnt hear the rest of the session.  I took the ground school part of Airflows instructor course years ago and always thought since that the psychology stuff was all the instructor had to wade through to get his instructors rating.  However, Fred Glasbergen told me since this seminar that once the instructor passes his medical he (or she) then has to go through 5 hours of instructional technique which covers my concerns; i.e. what to teach the student pilot in pre-flight ground checks of the aircraft the student is to receive instruction on and how to conduct in flight training.

The instructional technique also includes complete briefing and debriefing procedures for pre-flight and post flight instruction of student pilots.

The flight instructor trainee must then undergo a minimum of 5 hours dual flight training.  Stephane tells me the dual flight training can be as much as 20 hours before the instructor is accepted.

At my enquiry, Beverly Lawrence sent me the following email advising me of her assessment of the seminar:

Glenn,
Transport Canada had put on a very well prepared and complete seminar.  Flight instructors from Vancouver Island, Lilloet, the Okanagan, Shushwap Lake and the Lower Mainland, with all levels of experience, attended the seminar.  Material presented reviewed the Flight Instructors Ground School, how to teach inflight training exercises and the paperwork required by a flight training unit.  The most experienced instructors found the review refreshing and the beginners less overwhelmed by the tasks ahead of them.  TC is mandated to reduce the number of accidents and this seminar was a first step in the process.  The communication developed this weekend between TC representatives and Ultralight Flight Instructors has set the stage for constructive and useful dialogue in the future.
Beverly  January 30, 2000  9:44 pm

Fred Glasbergen said that at the completion of the seminar on Sunday, January 30th, there was some discussion of the passenger carrying privilege with TC advice that this should be incorporated in CARS by March 28th of this year and, if accepted, will come into operation after the regulations have been rewritten.  The next step will then be for TC to select designated flight instructors for the flight test.  It should be noted that the ultralight pilots who pass the requirements can only exercise this privilege on an advanced ultralight aeroplane.

Fred said that the program for implementing endorsement of ultralight pilot permits for passenger carrying privileges is expected to be in place by this coming June.  The program will also include an endorsement of pilot permits for float plane operation.  Existing float plane pilots are to be grandfathered.

Glenn Ursel
February 1, 2000


Paradise in Baja, Mexico

Gordon Denham and Claude Leclair had been planning their holiday in Baja, Mexico for months before the great day arrived on Friday, October 8th, 1999 when we finally embarked on our (to me at least) epic adventure.

Gordon and his wife, Beverley, had travelled to Baja with Claude and Ray Crottey several times previously and always raved about the experience.  Ray had been planning to go but had dropped out at the last minute due to health concerns.  I had been invited to go this year and was able to do so due to my recent retirement.

We had agreed to meet at our airfield at Glen Valley on the afternoon of October 8th and start out from there.  Gordon and Beverley  were travelling in their 1 ton Dodge van, pulling a heavy 20 foot camper trailer and Claude was driving his Dodge diesel 3/4 ton pickup with a large camper perched on top.  I was driving my faithful Hyundai Sonota packed with tenting equipment and my white kayak strapped on top.  My friends always had CB radios in their vehicles for communication while driving so I had outfitted my car with one as well.  Prior to the commencement of our trip, we had each secured automobile insurance for the portion of our trip in Baja, Mexico from a Cartmell Insurance Services Inc. located in Chilliwack.  It cost us $175 CAN for 6 months insurance which was the cheapest option for the month or more that we planned on being there.

We left Glen Valley about 4 pm in the afternoon and headed south along 264th Street to the border crossing south of Aldergrove and then drove south to Bellingham where we joined the I-5.  When we got to Arlington, just north of Seattle, we stopped to visit with some of Gordon and Claudes friends at the Arlington airport.  Gordon, Beverley, Claude and Ray go down to the Arlington airshow each July and have built up a real community of friends there.  We soon decided to carry on, being concerned with having to wade through the Seattle rush hour traffic.  It was predictably bad but we eventually got through.  Our CB radios greatly assisted in keeping us together in the swarm of cars and trucks.

Our goal for camping that night was the home of another set of Gordons friends, Ernie and Marlene Moreno, who live in Independence, Oregon.  We arrived there late at night and went to bed in our campers without disturbing them.  I didnt realize it in the dark but the next morning I discovered that Ernie and Marlene had the pilots dream home, being not only a nice bungalow with a large garage on the side but what was really extraordinary, a large hangar on the back of the house with a taxi way leading to an adjacent airport.  Ernie had four planes in the hangar!


Ernie Morenos hangar

After a nice visit with Ernie and Marlene, we left about 10 am on Saturday, October 9th bound for Redding California.  We made frequent stops during the day since Gordons van was burning a lot of fuel to pull his heavy house trailer.  The campsite we stayed at in Redding had a hot tub and adjacent swimming pool we enjoyed after the day of driving.


Glenn, Claude, Gordon and Beverley at Redding

Every time I go down to California, I am always a little surprised at the great distance from the north boundary of the state to the Mexican border.  On Sunday, October 10th, we drove south all day, making frequent stops for fuel and other reasons and got only as far as Kettleman City which is north of Los Angeles.  The campground here also had a hot tub and small swimming pool which we enjoyed after the days travel.

The next day, Monday, October 11th, we drove across a long flat plain called the San Joaquin Valley and then climbed up a large mountainous hill named the Grape Vine on our way to Los Angeles.  Claude and I drove ahead to the crest and waited for Gordon who eventually arrived with his radiator steaming due to the heavy pull up the long hill in the California heat.  Gordon mapped out our strategy for getting through the heavy traffic of Los Angeles.  His plan was to divert from the I-5 to get onto the San Diego freeway which had more lanes than the I-5.  It turned out to be a good decision since we whistled right through Los Angeles and were soon on our way to San Diego and the Tijuana border.

Now there is a mad house!  Gordon and Claude coached me to watch for a green light before starting forward at the border.  When you get the green light, you move forward and watch for a customs inspector to wave you over.  Gordon and Claude said they normally do this only for campers and that cars are allowed to go through without stopping.  When it came my turn to go through the checkpoint, I wasnt sure I went on the correct green light since the adjacent car lanes are very close.  When I did move through, there was such a confusing melee of cars that I didnt know where to stop and wait for Gordon and Claude with the result that I was swept along by the traffic into Tijuana away from the border.  I stopped at one point and called repeatedly on my CB radio but got no response.  Being in a mild panic that they would pass me by, I drove around until I found the road to Ensenada and then followed that out.  As I drove into the deepening darkness, I was very apprehensive about missing the others and kept calling out periodically on the CB.  Then, finally, I heard them yakking to each other as they drove south to me.  I called and they heard me and advised me to wait for them.  In a few moments I was greatly relieved to see their lights appear and we carried on south to a village called La Mision, about 60 kilometres south of Tijuana, to camp for the night. The campsite here consisted of a large sandy area perched on a cliff overlooking the ocean with a toilet facility and large water tank used for showering.  There was a $5 US charge per vehicle for camping one night.  The flush toilets in Baja reminded me of my long ago 1966-67 travels in southern Europe and the Middle East.  You cannot put the soiled toilet paper in the toilets because it will plug the sewage system and all such paper must be deposited in a pail stationed beside the toilet for that purpose.  Takes some getting used to!

On Tuesday, October 12th, we drove south to Ensenada and stopped at a bank to take out 3000 Mexican pesos or about $475 CAN.  We then went to the customs and immigration office to purchase the mandatory tourist cards which cost each of us 153 pesos for a six month stay.  After securing the tourist cards, we embarked for our next camping destination that night, El Pabillon, which was about 17 kilometres south of San Quintin and about 305 km south of the Tijuana border.  Gordon and Claude called this the fish camp and I soon found out why.  The endless beach beside the camp was dotted with fish boats which local fishermen launched each morning before day light.  We bought a few pounds of large clams and cooked them up for a delicious dinner that evening. Next day, Wednesday, October 13th, we drove south to a town called El Rosario and fueled up since there was a long stretch without gas to another town called Guerrero Negro.  Gordon had carried extra cans of gas to refuel his thirsty van.


Fuel stop on the way to Guerrero Negro

At Guerrero Negro we passed through an agricultural inspection station where they charged us 10 pesos to spray our car tires with an insecticide.  We then carried on all day in an intense heat to San Ignacio (about 850 km south of Tijuana) where we stayed at a campsite in the middle of this small town.  The campsite was like an oasis in the desert with large palm trees surrounding the campsite that had a small restaurant at the entrance.  We had dinner in the restaurant with a number of great tasting tequila drinks and turned in for the night.

On Thursday, October 14th, we motored on for the final days travel, stopping at Santa Rosalia to pick up 3000 pesos from an ATM in a bank there.  Because there was no bank with an ATM further south at our destination and all our expenses, including fuel purchases, had to be in cash payments because of the lack of credit card facilities, we wanted to make sure we had enough money to last us a while.  We then drove south to the last town, Mulege (pronounced something like Mule a hay), and picked up some ice and provisions before proceeding to Playa Santispac on the shore of Concepcion Bay which is on the east side of the Baja Peninsula with the Sea of Cortez separating the Baja Peninsula from the Mexican mainland.  Santispac is approximately 1020 km south of Tijuana.  We had arrived at last after 6 1/2 days of travel!

Playa (meaning beach) Santispac is a beach resort which has a number of palapas which are shelters consisting of frond covered roofs over a number of posts with no walls.  Some of the palapas adjacent to the highway have been bought by Americans who have  enclosed them with plywood and other material to make them into more substantial recreational homes.  The charge for camping under a regular palapas was 60 pesos per night or about $10 CAN.  For this princely sum, one got the palapas shelter on the shore of the starkly beautiful Concepcion Bay as well as access to a rather


Santispac with Anas (above) and Rays (upper right)

dilapidated outdoor privy.  Gord and Claude proudly announced on our arrival that we had reached paradise.  While the scenery was magnificent in a desert sort of way and the sea water of Concepcion Bay was always warm to swim in, I would venture to say that the Baja holiday may be an acquired taste for some.

We quickly set up camp and prepared for a lengthly stay.  Gord and Beverley were comfortable in their trailer.  Claude had his camper.  I set up my tent under the palapas and perched my camper stove on a card table that Claude lent me.  Most of our meals we cooked ourselves but occasionally we would eat out.  There were two restaurants on the beach.


Our campsite at Playa Santispac

Rays was owned by a Cuban by the name of Ray who was very personable, greeting everyone very graciously and giving excellent service.  His restaurant was really only a fancy large palapas with a dirt floor but very clean with a hard to define atmosphere that seemed to appeal to the majority of local foreigners holidaying there.  A chicken dinner at Rays would run you about 75 pesos with another 15 pesos for a beer.  The only other restaurant on the beach was called Anas which was a more substantial building with a cement floor and had been the original restaurant on the beach before Rays was built.  A chicken dinner at Anas would set you back only about 40 pesos with another 8 pesos for a beer.  Anas lacked the party atmosphere of Rays though.

There was no shortage of characters on the local scene.  Right next door to our camp site was a German born Canadian who the locals called Disco Jon because of his constant playing of loud disco music as he partied far into the night with his Mexican senoritas.  There was a fellow off a trimaran sail boat who distinctly resembled Willie Nelson who we often saw at Rays and seemed to know everybody but us.  Another fellow, an American by the name of Larry, camped on the beach in his motorhome and went fishing for trigger fish every day.  He was about 60 years old and retired from the American Navy and would stop by every day to chat during his daily bicycle tours of the beach.  There was also an American female nurse, Jan, slightly younger than Larry who we also met.  She was camping on the beach all by herself in her Volkswagen van with a big dog for protection that she called Zelda.  She told us she was on her way to the Mexican mainland to learn to make copper crafts and possibly make a living at it to get away from her career of psych nursing that she had tired of.

Each day the sun would come over the mountains to the east of Concepcion Bay about 6 am.  About 8:30 on most days, a couple of local mobile merchants would come by and honk the horns of their Japanese pickup trucks to signal their arrival.  We would then buy some eggs and vegetables from them as we need them.  The temperature would slowly climb until about noon when the convection wind currents would come up and a steady breeze would blow in off the bay to keep one reasonably cool, especially under the palapas.  These breezes would die down, however, each evening as the sun went down about 6 pm.  Until November, the nights were very hot and humid and it was difficult to get to sleep until about 2 am in the morning.

Besides Playa Santispac, there was a beach called Los Naranjos a couple of miles to the north.  Gordon, Beverley and Claude had friends there from previous visits to the Baja and we visited them a few times.  To the south in succession were several other beach resorts called Pasada Concepcion, Escondida, Los Cocos, El Burro and El Coyote.  All of these beaches were equipped with palapas and outdoor toilets.  None had running water.  Everybody got their water in 20 litre containers from a purified water company in Mulege.  Twenty litres of water cost 6 pesos or about $1 CAN.

There was a water tap on the street near one of the grocery stores which could be used for washing but it definitely wasnt recommended as drinking water for us gringos.

We would go into Mulege for water and provisions about every 3 days.  Mulege is an old village with very narrow streets dating back to the beginning of the 18th century.  It was mostly a fishing and farming community but also was a penal colony for mild offenders.  The prisoners were let out each day to work in the fields and then called back to the prison each evening by a muezzin blowing a trumpet.  In the 1880s, Mulege lost much of its population to Santa Rosalia during the copper mining boom of the day.  The completion of the Carretera Peninsular highway in 1973 has since opened up the town to tourist traffic.  The village has about 3,100 people and there are a number of restaurants and bars besides several grocery stores.  We shopped for groceries at Tienda la Y de Mulege run by an old man named Poncho who always wore heavy sweaters and a toque whenever the temperature dropped below 80oF.

Mulege also had some very good and reasonably priced auto mechanics which Gordon found a need for shortly after we arrived at Santispac.  His van had been overheating for much of the drive down the Baja peninsula which he later found out was due to the fan not running properly.  This resulted in a blown head gasket.  We asked Disco Jon next door if he knew of a good mechanic in Mulege and he recommended a fellow named Oscar. Oscar installed a new head gasket for about half the money it would have cost back home.


Gordon, Claude and Glenn overlooking Playa Santispac

I divided my days into energetic morning periods of paddling around the nearby islands and lazy afternoons of reading books.  A couple of times Gordon, Claude and I climbed the adjacent mountains to get a view of the surrounding landscape.  The mountains were covered with several species of cactus and mesquite and were said to be populated with rattle snakes.  We didnt see any snakes but some people walking along the road


Cactus and Mesquite on mountain slope looking east

at the base of the mountain adjacent to our camp had seen a rattler wriggling across the road one evening.

After a couple weeks of camping at Playa Santispac, I grew restless and decided to drive down to Cabo San Lucas to see the sights.  It took me a full day to drive the 675 km and I arrived at Cabo in the dark.  Gordon and Claude had warned me repeatedly about not driving in the dark on Baja because of the free ranging cattle that are on the highway after dark which night driving extremely dangerous.  They were right!  I barely missed a couple of cattle between San Jose Del Cabo and Cabo San Lucas.  At Gordons recommendation, I stayed at a hotel called Club Cabo which was on the east side of Cabo San Lucas.

Martin, the manager of the hotel, had an ultralight parked in a grass field adjacent to the hotel.  Unfortunately, I missed seeing him fly it off the 300 foot grass strip.  I dropped by Fred Barons condo unit but he was not yet down as I later found out.  I had two rather scary experiences while in Cabo.  One was paddling across the harbour to Lands End I believe it was called which as a little scary because there were numerous powerful motorboats roaring by leaving 3 foot wakes in their path which I had to watch carefully for fear of swamping my kayak.


Cabo San Lucas Harbour

The other experience was temporarily losing my debit bank card down a non-functioning ATM which I didnt realize was defunct.  I managed to retrieve my card from the ATM box by dangling a wire down with bubble gum stuck to the end!  That evening I had a nice dinner at a seaside restaurant called Billigans Island which had a beautiful view of the harbour.  I let myself be talked into buying a Mexican blanket from one of the many entrepreneurs plying the tourists and regretted it later when I looked at it in the daylight and found it to be soiled.  It cost me as much to get it cleaned as to buy.

After a  couple of days, I was ready to return to Playa Santispac.  I left early in the morning so that I would be sure to make it back before dark.  I went north to Todos Santos and visited the Hotel California which is now closed due to bankruptcy.  The highway is narrow and you have to take care when passing trucks on curves in the mountains because the trucks often cross over the centre line on blind curves.


Return trip showing narrow lanes of Baja Highway

When I returned to Playa Santispac, I decided I had had enough tenting and bid goodbye to my friends and headed home to BC.  It took me 3 days of marathon driving, one day to San Diego, one day from there to Redding and the last day home from Redding to Surrey.  I got back on November 10th.

Claude returned the next week after that and Gordon and Beverley got home on December 28th.  It had been a great adventure!

Glenn Ursel
February 11, 2000


Airflow Hotdog Fly-in at George LeLoups Airfield

Fred Glasbergen put on one of his periodic hotdog fly-ins at George LeLoups airfield on Sunday, February 13th.  It was a beautiful day as we headed out from King George Airpark to fly east to Georges field which is south east of Cloverdale along the Nicomekl River. Some of us who got there first landed downwind which generated some ribbing.


Fred Glasbergens brisk sale of his $3 hotdogs
 
 


The hotdog gang at George LeLoups
 
 


Ron Smit coaching Stephane Marois on the finer points of downwind landings





The King George ultralighters were augmented by a Delta Airpark contingent of mostly former ultralighters who now fly a mixture of conventional aeroplanes.

Glenn Ursel
February 13, 2000