So we have a slogan for the SW Section meeting for next October…. Let’s Fly Together! I can already see the effects and momentum by just putting this slogan out there. At the end of October we had 32 Ninety-Nines and 49 1/2s show up at the Spirit Restaurant representing 4 chapters; Long Beach, San Fernando, Ventura County and SLO. Then, for our November 17th fly-out, we had the largest SLO group we have seen in several years; 5 aircraft with 12 members and 2 more aircraft flying in from San Fernando with 6 more people. Given the smoke from the CA fires, we decided on a short hop to Paso. It was great learning about new aircraft, flight planning and weather management.
Because of this momentum, several chapters have committed to scheduling and hosting fly-ins in 2019. Planned flights for the next few months include:
December 15th – SLO 99s – Harris Ranch(3O8)
January 12th – SLO 99s – Death Valley/Furnace Creek(L06)
February 9th – VC99s – Santa Ynez(KIZA) – 4th Annual Valentines Day Flashmob
March 17th – SFV99s – 16R St. Patty’s Day Fly-in to Van Nuys(KVNY)
Upcoming fly-out destination for Jan 12th: Furnace Creek Airport in Death Valley(L06)
2019 is looking like a fabulous year as we get ready to celebrate the Ninety-Nines 90th anniversary and our chapter gears up to host the SW Section meeting. It is awesome to see our local section chapters take to the air. It is even more awesome to see us support one another in stretching our wings.
Lets keep up that momentum….. Let’s FLY Together!
Did You Know?
The SLO99s can receive money to support our scholarships and chapter. If you shop on Amazon, you can place your orders through Amazon Smile and .5% of your purchase will be donated to our chapter. No cost to you, great benefit to our chapter.
Donating is easy, just set the Southwest Section of the Ninety-Nines, San Luis Obispo Chapter as your charity and use the smile.amazon site - you would be amazed at how quickly those donations add up!
There is a great opportunity to increase Southwest Section of the Ninety-Nines, San Luis Obispo Chapter's AmazonSmile donations by reminding our supporters to shop at smile.amazon.com.
Saturday, November 17th, we had our fly-out scheduled for Harris Ranch. I talked to my instructor, Erin, and we planned on using this as some training time. Well, as it goes flying VFR, visibility wasn’t great at Harris Ranch, so we went to our alternate, Paso Robles. There was a total of 5 planes from SLO and 2 from SFV and 20 people! Paso was a busy airport that day. I now understand why it’s so important to fly the standard traffic pattern, especially at an untowered airport. As we were on the downwind, there was an airplane off to our right, as they decided to skip the downwind and go straight in to the base. I’m thankful Erin saw them and we diverted to follow them in. There were so many of us, we sat at 3 different tables. I got to sit with Ceci and Chuck from SFV, and they couldn’t stay too long because they needed to get home before the TFR for the President. I love hearing all the flying stories. It was time to head back to SLO and we all got in our planes, taxied to the runway, and one after another, we were off and headed back to SLO. The visibility was poor, and we decided to get Flight Following to be safe. Erin and I were deciding if we should turn back or if we would be able to make it back to SLO safely. We decided to keep going, and we made it back to SLO safely. This was my first fly-out, and I’m looking forward to many more!
Have Cessna 172 – Will Fly!
By Grace Crittenden
I started out last spring with the goal to fly every week through the summer, I have just about made that goal. It is a beautiful day and I might be flying if I was not working on this article!
I started flying in my 50s. I had been in a small plane once when I was in college and had flown commercially many times. Ultralights caught my fancy when they came on the market, but I was busy raising children - it was not the right time. When my oldest son was going to school on the east coast, I took a commercial flight across the US in October for parents weekend. There was a huge high over the country and not a cloud in the sky from California to New York. It was a beautiful flight at 35,000 feet. A little voice in my head started“I want to do this flight at 5000 feet”. When I got home that thought kept popping up and I shared it with an acquaintance was building a plane. He gave me the name of the local flight school. I called one Saturday morning to ask how much it would cost to learn to fly. The young man answering the phone(I imagine he was working for flight time) hesitated a minute and then said“about $2000” That was certainly doable, so I signed up for a lesson. It wasn’t until I had several lessons and was completely hooked that I found out that I needed at least 40 hours for a license and it would cost significantly more. Being an older student, it took me even more hours than the minimum(they say to expect to fly your age in hours before you solo…) I was surprised that I was the only woman in the flight school at the time.
While I was taking lessons, I met Heather Heaps. She introduced me to The Ninety-Nines and put me in touch with Wanda Strassburg. I started attending the meetings.
One of the memorable events that first year was a fly-out to Jackie Cockran Day at Edwards Air Force base.
It took me more than a year to get my private pilot license. I was still in love with flying and dreaming of owning a plane. When the word got around that I had my license, another acquaintance called to say there was a partnership available in a Cessna 172. The three partners were not flying very much. The plane had been on the tarmac for many years and the paint and the interior were a little worn. My buy–in money would expand the partnership to four and go to new paint and a new interior.
Since then, I have logged more than 800 hours in N64538 and had many wonderful adventures with The Ninety-Nines. I have made one attempt to fly across the continent but was turned north by weather on the east coast. It turned out to be a wonderful trip, returning through the Northwest. A cross-country flight is still on my bucket list and I am looking forward to more adventures with The Ninety-Nines!
This General Meeting Was a Tour of the ACI facilities in San Luis Obispo
Minutes of General Meeting(11/7/2018)
By Marina Luckow
Minutes for November 7th, 2018 - 99s Meeting Meeting held at ACI
Chairman’s Message
My first Fly-Out
Have Cessna 172 – Will Fly!
Minutes of General Meeting (11/7/2018)