Tracy and Lisa at Cloud 9 have informed us that they will be unable to host a competition that they originally proposed and we hoped to organize. We love going to Michigan and looked forward to a great competition there in the green flat pasture lands. It is unfortunate that they are restricted by their agreement with their neighbors. Maybe they can get that changed in the future.

In the mean time, the Florida Ridge will again be holding their competition (I assume that it won't be the nationals, once again), on April 8th through 13th.  I love flying in south Florida with all the gators, snakes, birds, and such. I'm going to be there, scoring, doing weather, helping with tasks. Come and have a great time in Florida.

So far there are no plans for a Flytec Competition at Quest Air in Florida this coming year, so the Florida Ridge Meet will be the only national competition in Florida. This may mean that fewer pilots are attracted to Florida to compete there in April. We shall see.

Speaking of the Flytec Meet, it looks like it will be held in Arizona in 2008, at the Francisco Grande. Dustin Martin, the organizer of the 2007 Santa Cruz Flats meet there, is the meet organizer for 2008 also. The meet will take place April 20th through 26th, one week after the Florida Ridge meet.

The Santa Cruz Flats meet was a great success last year, although not as well attended as we'd like (it was its first year after all). Hopefully, the California pilots will realize that this high level meet is being held only a few hours away from their homes.

We get to stay at a golf resort (in rooms that are reasonably priced) and land back at the resort at the end of the task. They are going to put some material on the runway to keep down the dust (last year we just ran a water truck). The flying there is great.

There will be an East Coast Championships likely to be starting on June 7th. We should learn more soon about it. This is a great competition over the open Maryland and Delaware country side and shouldn't be missed.

David Glover is proposing to run the US Nationals at Big Spring. His 2007 Worlds there was very successful (but it meant that most US competition pilots couldn't come to Big Spring in 2007), and the Big Spring folks want the US Nationals in 2008. They are the US town that is by far the most supportive of hang gliding.

David is likely to propose that the Nationals begin August 13th and go for a week. David would like to see the Nationals winding up the 2008 US competition season. Of course, the flying around Big Spring is the best in the country. There will be a sport class nationals there also (if all goes as planned).

We'll know a lot more after the USHPA Competition Committee meeting October 12th through 14th.

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