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Santa Rosa

In May the DAFers headed up to Santa Rosa for a fly-in combining wine tasting with power tools; BIG power tools! We stayed at the Astro, a renovated classic 1960s motel that's been "updated" with great mid-century modern furniture and decorations. Happy hours were held in their common room, and it was great to be catching up together as a group. With 27 people in the group, it was a big turnout.

Saturday, most of the group visited Sturgeon's Mill, a working museum lumber mill built back in 1913 and still using a steam engine to power the original saws and equipment. This was one of their demonstration days, so everything was operating and they were cutting up large redwood logs. It was great to see the volunteers running the place, although it's clear OSHA wasn't around when this equipment was made; as an old woodworker myself I found my fingers twitching as I watched! Some of the group headed over for a drive up the coast instead; a beautiful place to visit.

Afterward, the group split up to hit wineries all over the area, then met up for dinner at the Spinster Sisters restaurant. A few hardy souls even came down for a little wine session after dinner back at the Astro.

The weather for the weekend cooperated, and though there was some light marine layer and a little rain it wasn't enough to dampen any spirits or ground anyone. Another fine trip!

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On Thursday, May 19, we met for dinner at the Think Café in San Pedro. There were a few last-minute cancelations, resulting in a smaller turnout of only 14 DAFer’s. We had a choice of 5 entrees. The food was quite good, including a choice of two delicious deserts, Tiramisu and Cheesecake. Yummy! Following dinner, Chris got up and ran through the announcements. After that, we watched an interesting video of the history of Catalina Island during WWII, and how the Island supported the war effort.

Hope to see you at the June meeting at the Cabrillo Beach Yacht Club.

John

Tiger Squadron

On Thursday evening, April 21, a record 50 DAFers’ gathered at the Cabrillo Beach Yacht Club (CBYC) for our second dinner meeting with a program this year. The dinner was a buffet style chicken and beef. Dessert was also served.

DAF President Chris Harshman took to the mike and went through the various reports by club officers.

The program, featured The Tiger Squadron and was presented by DAFer’s Craig Ekberg and Peter Broen. It was quite interesting to learn ALL of the planning and work that goes into a performance. There is no room for slack.

The Tiger Squadron, is after all, a military precision air demonstration team. For the many televised events that they participate in locally, timing, and the ToT, or Time over Target, is extremely important. This in turn requires hours and hours of practice, including formation flying practice. Craig emphasized, they need to get it right, every time.

A special thanks to Craig and Peter for sharing the intricate important details of the Tiger Squadron, plus thanks to David Shaby for his input plus John Bucher who helped behind the scenes with putting the visuals together.

For the first time over in a year, DAFer’s gathered for a dinner meeting. This time we met at one of our new dinner meeting locations, the lovely Cabrillo Beach Yacht Club (CBYC), which overlooks the harbor. We had a really good showing, with 39 turning out for this. It was nice to see many DAFer’s again! Dinner was a Mexican buffet.

Thanks go to DAF and CBYC members Rick and Jeanne Shaw who have made this dinner venue possible.

We followed the regular dinner meeting format, and, for our program, we watched an interesting video documentary about the history of Catalina Island and its seaplanes, seaplane base and airport.

The next DAF Dinner meeting is scheduled for Thursday, April 21, 2022. The program is tentatively scheduled to be a presentation about the Tiger Squadron. See you there!

John Mahany
Program Chair

May 6-8 we're planning a trip to Santa Rosa to visit Sturgeon's Mill. http://www.sturgeonsmill.com/ This sawmill was built in the early 1900s and is now a working museum, with the original steam driven equipment. We'll visit it Saturday when it's in full operation. Of course Santa Rosa is in the middle of wine country, with the Napa and Sonoma Valleys nearby, so wine tasting will be an option as well.

We'll have a block of rooms available at the Astro, https://theastro.com/ a renovated classic "Motor Lodge" decorated in mid-century modern.  It's located in downtown Santa Rosa, with restaurants and attractions within walking distance. The Luther Burbank Home and Gardens is right down the street, and Juilliard Park is right across the street. We're working on setting up dinner at the Spinster Sisters restaurant for Saturday night, which is also just a couple blocks away. https://thespinstersisters.com/

More information and a sign-up sheet will be up soon. You'll need to reserve well in advance; information on that should be available next week.

Hope to see everyone there!

DAFer’s gathered for a Pre-Holiday dinner at the lovely Cabrillo Beach Yacht Club (CBYC), a private dinner venue overlooking the harbor.

Thanks to DAF and CBYC members Rick and Jeanne Shaw who made it possible!

We were able to announce our 2022 weekend fly-ins and Skylor Piper graciously led an impromptu discussion of his recent successes at the Reno Air Races. It was nice to be back together again and share stories of recent fly-ins and other flying adventures. See photos here.