Skyline Soaring Club wraps up a solid 2002 season with a new Ask-21 on the horizon and the Pawnee in recovery, but the real headline is soaring's post-9/11 fight for survival: a detailed, impassive call to arms against the P-40 airspace expansion threatening Region IV glider operations, with M-ASA, SSA, and AOPA all weighing in. On the flying front, two members deliver thrilling wave-soaring dispatches—George Hazelrigg's eight-day, 16.9-hour odyssey at Omarama, New Zealand, where he climbed to 15,000 feet in a Janus, logged 80-mile sorties in an ASH-25, and found the whole experience cost roughly $75 USD per hour; and Dave Weaver's 'proof of concept' Saturday at Front Royal, where he spent nearly four and a half hours above 10,000 feet riding the Eastern wave system from Signal Knob toward Petersburg, WV, and declared a 500-kilometer cross-country 'definitely attainable' and a 1,000-kilometer Diploma 'a clear possibility.' Rounding out the issue: Greg Ellis earns his 2nd Lieutenant in the Civil Air Patrol's Virginia Wing glider program, Bill Malick steps back to inactive status, Commander Aircraft files for Chapter 11, the TSA accepts an invitation to speak at the January SSA Convention in Dayton, and the club schedules its Annual Meeting for January 19 and a Safety Meeting with parachute repacking demonstrations for February 8 at Warren County Airport.
The February 2003 issue of Skylines opens the new soaring season with a safety meeting, the arrival of a $75,000 ASK-21, and updates on the Pawnee tow plane's long-awaited repair. The star of the issue is Chris Williams' breathless account of driving 2,200 miles in 48 hours to pick up a used LS-4 in Orlando—complete with a suspiciously cheap price, a questionable Comfort Inn, and a 3 a.m. doughnut stop. Carlos Roberts and Greg Phillips recount their first SSA Convention in Dayton, where they marveled at the actual Wright Brothers Flyer III, met a 15-year-old who had just inherited Roberts' first glider, and sat through a TSA briefing that left them less than reassured. From the Antarctic Peninsula, Piet Barber reports albatrosses riding the ship's wake in what appears to be dynamic soaring, while Glenn Collins details M-ASA's hard-won waiver to operate under a 10-nautical-mile Temporary Flight Restriction. The annual meeting brought a Sustained Service Award to founding member Jim McCulley, news of a planned youth scholarship program, and the airport commission's green light on 16 new hangars. Rounding out the issue: a Hawaiian glider that missed the field from 7,200 feet and ended up on a beach, Greg Phillips' behind-the-scenes role in the long-awaited 737 rudder fix, and a moving tribute by Phil Jordan that weaves John Gillespie Magee's 'High Flight' through the bond shared by all who fly.
The March 2003 issue of Skylines opens with the club's beloved Pawnee tow plane locked in a full overhaul after a brutal winter, its ailerons, flaps, and canopy freshly painted by work parties led by Shane while the fuselage awaits recovery. The detailed inspection uncovered a litany of hidden defects—broken aileron hinges, a crimped fuel line, rotted wooden wing-tip bows, frayed cables, and a broken static system—that could have become serious failures in the air. The club sits grounded, and the newsletter's tone is one of patient, slightly antsy waiting. The issue is steeped in the shadow of the Columbia disaster: new Safety Officer Stan Pawlowski launches a recurring 'Safety Net(work)' column that meditates on the shuttle loss and the interdependence of every person in the flight chain, while club member Steve Wallace reports from Houston, locked into the Columbia Accident Investigation Board for an estimated 60 to 90 days, and recounts a surreal session flying the shuttle's motion simulator down from 200,000 feet. The broader soaring community is in its own bind—M-ASA's three Pawnees are all grounded, the organization is still absorbing the post-9/11 expansion of P-40 and the traffic surge into Dulles, and a new TSA 'pilot insecurity' rule has drawn a blistering letter from Congressman Don Young. Against that backdrop, the newsletter carries a gripping first-person safety essay, 'Grow Old With Me,' in which a retired military pilot distills a career of near-misses into a single rule—'Never take anything for granted'—and recounts the deaths of two friends whose overconfidence cost them their lives. Other pages report an Aeronca flat-spin crash at Front Royal witnessed from the air, three Skyliners' evening at the M-ASA banquet where Steve Fossett's high-altitude Perlan project was presented, a book review of a Hungarian glider pilot's eleven years in the Soviet Gulag, and a call from the membership to finally discuss acquiring a second tow plane so the club is never again one broken Pawnee away from silence.
This April 2003 issue of Skylines captures a season of contrasts at the Skyline Soaring Club in Front Royal, Virginia. The club mourns the March 1 passing of member Dick Feierabend, a retired Navy commander and longtime friend of the flight line, while simultaneously publishing a detailed joint SSC/SVS safety report on the March 8 incident in which the SVS Pawnee N7298Z departed the runway, struck a concrete drainage ditch, and lost its landing gear and a propeller blade. On the other end of the spectrum, Brigadier General David E. Clary, the United States Air Force Director of Homeland Security, visited the region and experienced both a glider ride and a Maule tow with Skyline CFI Jim Kellett, an event covered in the Winchester Star and the Washington Post. The issue also features a passionate defense of the 1-26 sailplane as the ideal cross-country training aircraft (with Jo Shaw and Bill Vickland weighing in), a safety column on situational awareness coining the memorable term "NAFOD," a thorough discussion of Pawnee approach and landing energy management, a charming account of hiking Bull Run Mountain's ridge to watch thirty vultures and a red-tailed hawk, and an ongoing club debate over whether a second towplane should be a motorglider tug.
After a long, hard winter, the Skyline Soaring Club's beloved Pawnee 90866 tow plane is back in service and the flying season is officially underway, with multi-hour flights already in the books and the spring check-out list dwindling. President George Hazelrigg Jr. reports the fleet is in its best shape ever—praising the new K-21 and the Grob (fresh canopy seals and seatbelts)—and offers hard-won advice on choosing between the two trainers versus the more economical 2-33, urging students to master one ship before jumping to the next and to consider the Sprite or a personal single-place glider like the 1-26 as they advance. Safety officer Stan Pawlowski delivers a memorable reminder that the 's' in SKILL stands for SAFETY, while tow pilot Bill Bentley gives a rare behind-the-windshield view of what happens during a rope hookup. A particularly pointed Part 43 article by mechanic Eric Litt warns that several club gliders may have been technically 'out of license' due to missing annual-inspection language in their logbooks. The issue also features Jenn Player's announcement of a flight-simulation game built around the 1903 Wright Flyer and 1911 Model B, complete with ridge-soaring wind models and the Wrights' twin-joystick controls; a lively email debate over a new runway-light circuit-breaker procedure and the human-factors hazards it might create; a report on Time Pieces, a startup offering 50-hour shares in classic Piper J-3 Cubs; and a pair of competing 'snake sighting' reports from the field that prompt an official proclamation subjecting all serpents in Class E airspace to the club's Operations Manual.
President George Hazelrigg Jr. opens this issue by rallying members for a three-day fly-in weekend at Eagle's Nest, Virginia, hosted by the Shenandoah Valley Soaring Club, and urging students to practice landings at a field other than home. Safety Officer Stan Pawlowski rejects the club's long-vaunted “safety culture” as empty lip service and launches a loud, anonymous “Dufus Personal Safety Report” program built on the idea that quiet safety officers are ineffective ones. The issue's most vivid personal account belongs to Kevin Fleet, who, after a ten-year hiatus, launched his hang glider at Nags Head, North Carolina, in 40-mph winds and logged a 3½-hour flight along the dunes, pushing his career total past 1,000 hours. Steve Wallace recounts a two-day seaplane rating course in Winter Haven, Florida, complete with 55 water landings in a J-3 Cub and a musing about the club collectively buying one. The newsletter also carries Centennial of Powered Flight dispatches—including a Wright Model B crash and ticket sales for the Kitty Hawk commemoration—profiles the newly opened Silent Wings Museum in Lubbock, Texas, notes the Soaring Society of America's search for a new executive director, and closes with a batch of aviation humor ranging from a crying toddler broadcasting on London's ATC frequency to NORAD F-16s chasing a fox over Washington, D.C.
The July 2003 issue of Skylines is anchored by a gripping first-person account of an aerospace engineer and his two sons, George and Geoff Hazelrigg, racing each other toward the FAI Silver Badge at FRR. After a six-year flying hiatus broken by a stroke, a divorce, and a move to Korea, the father relives his passion for flight alongside his teenage sons, culminating in a 3-hour-37-minute cross-country from FRR to Winchester to Luray—188 circles, a closed-field detour, a 5-knot sink over a blue hole, and a triumphant landing at a field he'd never touched before. The issue also features Chief Flight Instructor Jim Kellett's incisive breakdown of FAR 91.113 right-of-way rules as they apply to gliders sharing pattern work with power aircraft, new operational procedures at FRR following the opening of a taxiway and ramp area, the Virginia Wing of the Civil Air Patrol's acquisition of a surplused USAFA 1-26 glider, and a wry dispatch on Chicago's Meigs Field being converted into a ping-pong emporium. Rounding out the newsletter are safety bulletins from the Dufus Report program, a welcome to new member Rear Admiral Craig Steidle (retired, former Director of the Joint Strike Fighter Program), and a recommendation to see the film *Winged Migration* before it leaves Fairfax's Cinema Arts Theatre.
This September 2003 issue of Skylines leads with a remarkable "Meet the Member" profile of Rear Admiral (Ret.) Craig Steidle, former head of the Navy Test Pilot School and director of the Joint Strike Fighter program, who has recently taken up glider flying at Skyline Soaring Club and earned his "B" badge in the Sprite. The issue also documents a pulled-tow-tow incident on August 23 and the student pilot's detailed lessons learned, a first-flight transition report in the Cirrus glider praising its 44:1 glide ratio, and a thorough review of the newly released FAA Glider Flying Handbook. President George Hazelrigg reports on a rewarding weekend of soaring after a difficult weather season, welcomes ten new members, and outlines plans for additional hangar space. A safety article by Stan Pawlowski reviews ridge-soaring hazards along the Massanutten Range as fall winds approach, and the issue closes with aviation news items, a soaring poem by Susan Gogos, and a Washington Post quote praising a member's "legendary backyard landing."
When Hurricane Isabel barreled toward the coast, Skyline Soaring Club members scrambled to cram roughly nineteen aircraft into five hangars in a single day, then reassembled the fleet the following Saturday in what President George Hazelrigg called "two days of the fine cooperation that has come to distinguish our operations." The October issue also details the upcoming M-ASA Oktoberfest (October 11–13 at Fairfield, PA), where pilots may need a Secret Service TFR waiver if President Bush is at Camp David; announces the release of the Wright Experience's aerodynamically accurate flight simulator covering the 1902 Glider, 1903 Flyer, and 1911 Model B; and outlines the club's push to formalize a dedicated Safety Officer position. Other highlights include Skyliner Dave Dawood's deployment as a tow pilot and CFI(G) near Bagram, Afghanistan; Joe Lingevitch earning his PPG and Raul Fumagali logging three solo flights in a Cessna; the club's Grob loan dropping below $10,000 with a stated goal of 80 members; and SSA news on the Young Eagles 10,000-ride campaign and efforts to preserve the M-ASA Fairfield soaring site against expanding Camp David restricted airspace.
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| 2003-01 Newsletter (January 2003) | 0 |
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| 2003-02 Newsletter (February 2003) | 0 |
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| 2003-03 Newsletter (March 2003) | 0 |
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| 2003-04 Newsletter (April 2003) | 0 |
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| 2003-05 Newsletter (May 2003) | 0 |
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| 2003-06 Newsletter (June 2003) | 0 |
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| 2003-07 Newsletter (July 2003) | 0 |
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| 2003-09 Newsletter (September 2003) | 0 |
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| 2003-10 Newsletter (October 2003) | 0 |
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