Marin County 99s

Part of the North Bay chapter of the California Disaster Airlift Response Team, or CalDART, the statewide network of volunteer pilots has been delivering masks, ventilator equipment, personnel and other supplies throughout the state and the West during the coronavirus pandemic. Last July, 2020, Val Westen and Dan Bedford flew 1,000 plastic face shields from San Diego (made by the student-run Youth Golf Alliance in Carlsbad) to Marin County for use by various facilities badly in need of them.

“It was just really exciting to see this generation stepping in, and this was all their idea,” Westen said after landing at Gnoss Field on Thursday afternoon.

Last Fall, 2020, Marielle was asked by Paul Marshall, President of CalDART, to create an independent DART operation at Angwin. She took on the task of starting one, and since then has been working hard to meet the challenge. Today, they are 14 pilots and 17 aircrafts strong, along with 6 ground volunteers, each specialized in a valuable field (logistics, ham radio communications, finance management, and data processing). Today, they are recognized by CalDART as being a certified DART Operator. Marielle is currently the director of operations for Angwin DART and will serve as its Incident Commander if a disaster were to hit tomorrow.

Photo below: this flight to San Martin served as their official “annual exercise”, as required by CalDART to be considered operational. They picked up 500 face shields and 500 face masks for the essential workers of Napa County, which were delivered to the Napa COAD for distribution.

Photo below: Marielle flew right seat with Bob Edwards in his newly purchased Cirrus out of Angwin under the TFR that reserved the airspace for the Lightning Complex firefighters. They received special permission to fly out and back into Angwin.

Maddie here. Sorry I haven’t reached out in a bit, I wanted to wait until I
had some exciting news! I passed my Checkride the other day! Been a lot of
hard work but I couldn’t have picked a better program. I’ll keep you updated with my milestones! Thank you so much for helping me get started, that truly made an impact and has inspired me to do the same. I’ve attached a photo that was taken right after my practical test. Btw- I get to fly the coolest planes! Cirrus SR-20 pictured below. 

Gretchen outdid herself again as the best cook/hostess in San Francisco!! We all had a blast telling flying stories, eating the scrumptious paella and other dishes brought by our aviatrixes. Of course, we washed it all down with some mighty fine wines.    

Marin 99s take another seaplane flight in the Beaver thanks to Alyssa Abbey.
After the flight, we all enjoyed a fun-filled dinner and evening at Sue’s
house.  Super fun time!!