EASTER AT PANORAMA

What great weather we had for this event.

Friday was still a bit unstable and we had 10 pilots flying. Later in the afternoon John McIsaac certainly was the highest and longest in the air. The snow conditions where excellent, best conditions of the year. Our landing zone (future Driving range) still had enough snow to land.
I would like to thank here again the crew of Panorama for their excellent and always very friendly support for this event.

On Saturday we had 15 pilots and again picture perfect conditions. The minimum was a about 2 flights per pilot. Some of the flights lasted longer than an hour and everything was just like in a picture book. The evening got wrapped up with 2 pilots landing in front of the lodge.

The sunniest day was on Sunday. We started early with the flights and met at 1:00 pm at Lustie's Rental shop for the wind-down.

The winner of the Snow blades this year was 
Cyril Bottoron

After receiving the prices some pilots where going for a other flight and Greg Hemmingway did his first X-Country flight from Panorama to Juniper Heights.
Thanks to our Volunteers Gill, Debbie (Joes's Girlfriend) and Garry to have such a great event.
I also would like to thank the crew of Panorama and all our sponsors and we are looking forward for a other Easter meet in 2002

The Sponsors:

The Pilots:

Greg Hemingway, Mark Jennings-Bates, Cyril Botteron, Bruce Busby, Peter Bubik, Andy Gamp, Chris Wilson, Joe Hildes, Frank Kernick, Andy Besserer, Glen Comfort, Mike Waddington, Ron Ford, Garry Conway, Max Fanderl

Write up by Greg Hemmingway:

Easter Panorama Meet

The Easter meet once again proved my strange karmic theories on weather forecasts. As some pilots remember the forecast was calling for crappy weather but as the pilots who came out remember the weather was anything but crappy, hell most pilots got soooo much flying they were almost disappointed at the lack of skiing they managed to accomplish. 

For those of you who haven't heard of the Easter meet, it's a fun "competition" where points are awarded for estimating your own flight time, dropping an Easter egg (shopping bag full of snow) on a marked target (Easter Basket) and then managing to drop, excuse me land yourself on a separate target. Some pilots decided that it was more efficient to kill two birds with one stone and land in the area where you where supposed to drop your egg. Hmmm now that I think about it, that seems to be a smart tactic, considering the fact that few pilots managed to get either their eggs in the basket or themselves on target. In the end though, points really didn't matter because everyone who participates gets a prize. 

Saturday was the first day of the meet, and all the pilots were treated to excellent flying conditions. It was almost non-stop flying, with some pilots getting over 4 flights in that day. Mike Waddington and I were last to launch for the day and before takeoff we both estimated our flight times to be around 15min. After takeoff we were both treated to a huge bubble of lift that got us 1000+ over the peak of the mountain. Then the two of us had our own little competition; who could stay up the longest therefore getting the least amount of points possible. I lost after spiralling down due to my hands turning into a pair of ice cubes. I'll be back next year though, with bigger and better gloves, then we will see who will come in last place. 

We all awoke to a beautiful Sunday morning with perfect cumulus forming over the east ridges. After warming up in some early thermals we headed down for the awards ceremony at 1:00, were many pilots experience beer induced ground suck. Cyril Bottoron
(The Lumberjack) was the winner of the snowblades, and each pilot who entered received an excellent set of prizes. A big thanks goes out to our sponsors and to Max and his lovely volunteers, without them none of this would be possible. After receiving the prizes I went up to continue with some great flying. After thermaling for over 40 minutes I managed to get up over 10,000 feet at which point I went for glide across the valley. After arriving on the other side of the valley I saw a sailplane heading to cloudbase around Juniper Heights, and I made a valiant attempt to join him only to end up sinking out. My total distance was around 25k, not bad for my first X-C eh? 

Once again I'd like to thank Max for organizing the event and for bringing paragliding to Panorama Village. A big thanks also goes out to the volunteers who helped out with the meet, without their help none of us could have such a great weekend of flying. The Panorama Easter meet is a great way to enjoy some flying, skiing and is a great way to spend your Easter. Hope to see you next year.