Big time mountain flying is ten minutes away from your home.
Everything is ten or fifteen minutes away.


Here in Carpinteria you'll find the world's oldest Torrey Pine. It's right
downtown next to the Rincon bicycle shop.


I was very surprised to see all the beautiful pasture lands to the west of Santa
Barbara. The absence of sprawl was almost shocking. The only answer I can figure
out from the answers I got when I asked about this is that the developers aren't
powerful to control the county commission (which is normally what they do in
California in particular).


If the air is crystal clear this is a good sign that it will be good flying.
East, southeast winds are not what you are looking for.


They have an incredible free bicycling map here and a strong biking community.
Most of the bike paths are not separated from the roads though. Although in
Golieta and at UCSB you'll find more of this.
http://www.trafficsolutions.info/bikemap.htm.


Interstate 101 has twelve exits in Santa Barbara and six in Carpinteria.
This really cuts down on the size of the exits and entrants, makes for a much
friendlier freeway, and cuts down on the feeder traffic in the town.


You'll want to walk any of the LZ (other than the beach) before you take off. If
you scratch low be prepared for a fly on the wall landing in the bushes.


Hang gliding and paragliding are seen right over town in Santa Barbara.
Thousands of people know about it happening here. There is a great training hill
in town, right near down town. For now there is a top notch hang 2 altitude
site. Still the hang gliding and paragliding community is not growing here. Most
of the people that learn here come from some where else for the great weather to
learn in, then they go away.


There are plenty of paragliding instructors and one hang gliding instructor.
They don't do any local advertising. Apparently they don't find it useful.
The local pilots would love to increase the pilot population to increase support
for their sites. It is super convenient to go flying here and they have plenty
of mountainous cross country sites and routes. The flying season here is
in the fall, winter and spring when other more northern sites are closed down.


Unlike at Berkley they don't have a hang gliding club at UCSB. In the UK
apparently they have a lot of hang gliding and paragliding clubs at
Universities.