Phil Jordan steps back into the editor's chair after a two-year sabbatical, calling his return a matter of 'kicking and screaming' and thanking Dennis Johnson for holding the fort. The issue is rich with human stories: Fred Mueller, whose sailplane graces the masthead, shares a candid update on his slow recovery from a spinal cord injury, writing that he is 'guardedly optimistic' about returning to work; the club mourns the passing of Janie Regan, wife of member Rick Regan; and Bill Vickland delivers a passionate, 49-year defense of the Schweizer 1-26 as a cross-country glider, recounting 250-plus landouts and the quiet camaraderie of the 1-26 Association. Craig Bendorf's President's Report calls for board volunteers and a push toward the best year yet, while the Skyline Soaring Education Foundation takes its first steps toward 501(c)3 status. Rounding out the issue are a NASA report on the SOFIA infrared jumbo jet's first in-flight telescope door opening, a photo essay from an Alaskan gliderport, a Christmas party spread, and an invitation for members to trade cold-weather flying memories for the February edition.
February 2010 brings a dramatic mix of near-misses, heartfelt remembrance, and organizational growth at Skyline Soaring Club. Chief Tow Pilot Dick Otis recounts a harrowing December session in the Pawnee, where severe rotor off Massanutten Ridge sent a K-21 into a close downwind and snapped the tow rope mid-air, followed by a second bout of violent turbulence that ended his day early. The club also presented the 2009 Bela Gogos Memorial Service Award to Spencer Annear, accompanied by a deeply moving letter from Susan Gogos, who reflected on 52 years of marriage and her late husband's enduring love of the club. On the organizational front, the Board formally established the Skyline Soaring Education Foundation, elected its first board of directors, re-elected Craig Bendorf as President, and approved a new Tow Pilot Manual. Mike Ash issued a six-month OLC contest challenging new online-contest pilots to post a 100-kilometer flight for a DVD of the classic film The Sun Ship Game, while the annual safety meeting was relocated to the Samuels Library in Front Royal to accommodate a growing membership and a new risk-assessment questionnaire.
The March 2010 issue opens the new flying season with a dramatic account of Airport Manager Reggie Cassagnol and Captain Rock Skowbo flying a Cessna 310 out of the snowbound Front Royal field to deliver medical supplies, cots, and a generator to Cap-Haïtien in the aftermath of the January 12 earthquake, operating under the auspices of the nonprofit H.O.P.E. The newsletter also celebrates Skyline flight instructor Jim Kellett's receipt of the Soaring Society of America's Exceptional Service Award in Little Rock, Arkansas, recognizing his work securing special transponder codes for sailplanes in the greater Washington, D.C. airspace. A sobering NTSB preliminary report on the February 6 mid-air collision between a Cirrus SR20 and a Piper towing a Schweizer glider near Boulder, Colorado—killing three—serves as a stark safety reminder. Club operations news includes the Grob's return from its 3,000-hour inspection in Pennsylvania, the Pawnee's completion of its annual check, and spirited debate over adopting winch launching at an alternate site. Members share first-hand accounts of the SSA convention in Little Rock, from motor-glider demonstrations to a CONDOR simulator training session and a riveting talk by competition star Uli Schwenk. The issue closes with board minutes, a reminder about expiring paper pilot certificates, and a welcome to new students Spencer Wilson and Nicholas Duckworth.
This April 2010 issue of Skylines carries a remarkable announcement: two new Skyline student members, Nick Duckworth and Spencer Wilson, are training in the club's Husky and a Capstan to become tow pilots for the U.S. Naval Academy's soaring program, which will fly roughly 150 midshipmen at Fairfield, Maryland, over the summer. The club is also pressing forward on its 2010 Strategic Plan, with a member survey on the table for acquiring a third two-place sailplane and a working group negotiating hangar expansion with the Warren County Airport Commission. Chief Flight Instructor Piet Barber offers a fresh twist on student training with his home-built glider flight simulator, while former editor Dennis Johnson delivers a vivid, sometimes rueful tour of the largely dormant soaring clubs he visited across New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York—concluding that Skyline's porch-side camaraderie and active fleet are rarer than most members realize. The issue also reports on the Skyline Soaring Education Foundation's push for 501(c)(3) status to fund local soaring scholarships, Dick Otis's experiments with a GoPro helmet camera for instruction videos, and a pointed sidebar from Jim Kellett on a retired Edwards test pilot's prediction that the last manned tactical aircraft will be the F-35.
A busy May at Skyline Soaring Club opens with President Craig Bendorf urging members to get back to the field and join the Mike Ash OLC cross-country challenge, while the calendar fills with a June 5 Away Day at High View Farm Airport and a July 19–23 Instruction Week featuring a prototype soaring simulator. The month's most dramatic visitor is Bacil Dickert, who drops his hang glider out of the sky onto Front Royal after a 2½-hour flight from Woodstock Tower. Meanwhile, Chief Tow Pilot Curtis Wheeler puts Naval Academy midshipmen through their paces in the Husky, Rob Creedon reports on a surprisingly realistic tow-and-soar session in Piet Barber's basement using a TrackIR head-tracking rig and the Condor simulator, and Hotel 3 (the ASW-20C) gets fitted with a SPOT satellite Personal Locator Beacon so crew and family can track flights in real time. The issue also carries word that charter member and K-21 owner Fred Winter is recovering from a serious LS-4 accident, that Ryan Hatfield is in Marine Corps boot camp at Parris Island, and that George Hazelrigg has unveiled the club's new “Skyline Soaring Club Fecal Roster” to shame no-shows off the duty roster.
This issue of Skylines delivers a vivid passenger account from John Noss, who spent a day in the back seat of Karl Striedieck's Duo Discus at the Region 2 contest at Mifflin County Airport, watching the nine-time world-record holder thread 219 miles at 58 knots through sketchy lift over the Pennsylvania ridges. The newsletter also announces the founding of the Skyline Soaring Educational Foundation of Virginia, a new 501(c)(3) dedicated to youth flight scholarships and soaring outreach, and carries a tribute to Rudy Opitz, the 99-year-old chief test pilot of the Me 163 Komet who passed in May. Jim Kellett contributes a tongue-in-cheek but genuinely useful primer on "Kellett's Law"—the unshakable principle that no forecast replaces standing on the field at Front Royal. President Craig Bendorf reports 330-plus tows for the spring, a new treasurer in Tom Parks, and plans for a Week of Soaring in late July, while a May 9 ADO report captures a rare wave day that sent three pilots soaring for hours over the Shenandoah Valley.
The July 2010 issue of Skylines marks a milestone month for the Front Royal club. The Skyline Soaring Educational Foundation of Virginia (SSEF), a 501(c)(3) brainchild of club founding father Spencer Annear, has received state incorporation and is soliciting donations to fund youth flight scholarships, orientation flights, and school presentations, with a first scholarship targeted for the September Front Royal Airshow. The club simultaneously announces a nine-day Week of Training (July 17–24) featuring a roster of instructors, a prototype flight simulator built by Chief CFI Piet Barber, and ground instruction. Safety Officer John Noss delivers two gripping first-person accounts of near-fatal heat stroke episodes on Memorial Day, urging members to recognize symptoms in themselves and others. SSA Chairman Phil Umphres issues an urgent reminder about proper electronic flight-recorder declarations to avoid losing hard-earned badge and record flights. In lighter news, club stalwart Fred Winter—recovering from a hard-landing injury—showed visitors his VW Jetta modified to run on filtered vegetable oil scavenged from local restaurants, and the newsletter closes with SSA regional updates, a candidate slate for the Region 4 Director seat, and a preview of the January 2011 'Gathering of the Clan' conference in Philadelphia.
Skyline Soaring Club's August 2010 issue is dominated by the club's second annual concentrated training week (July 16–25), during which members logged 122 flights, earned two new soaring badges and a new FAA private pilot certificate, and ran a club-first 'hare and hounds' cross-country exercise led by Jim Garrison in his ASG-29. Steve Rockwood recounts a thrilling five-glider round-robin launched in rapid succession by tow pilot Dick Otis, with the crew chasing thermals along the Massanutten Ridge and coordinating on a single radio frequency. The issue also features Mike Ash's dramatic spin-recovery story from a sweltering July afternoon, his account of flying the H3 hang glider into the challenging Sky Bryce Resort field for a July 4th fly-in, and the club's Online Soaring Competition results, where Gyoergy Gulyas claimed the top flight at 234.85 km. Membership Officer Steve Rockwood reports the club has reached 100 active members, welcoming a former Air Force test pilot and a pair of Argentine visitors among the new probationary members. Rounding out the issue are notices of the Skyline Soaring Education Foundation's upcoming first scholarship, a vintage sailplane meet at Massey Aerodrome, and the EAA's B-17 'Aluminum Overcast' tour stop in Leesburg, Virginia.
Skyline Soaring Club's September 2010 issue announces the appointment of member James Garrison as the new SSA Regional Director for the newly merged Region IV/II, a role he will assume in January 2011 after serving as understudy to outgoing Director Jim Kellett, who is stepping into a new coordinating role for the Virginia Gliding Association. The newsletter also calls for volunteers to support the Front Royal–Warren County Air Show on September 11, details the club's new 12-volt battery and laptop power setup in the hangar, and welcomes a wave of new members including fourteen-year-old Trevor Roskind, who joined as a student pilot after his first flights on FAST vouchers. President Craig Bendorf issues a reminder about crew-duty attendance and runway safety, while the club mourns the passing of longtime pilot and instructor Robert Lee Michael and celebrates Carlos Troncoso's first solo. Rounding out the issue are notes on the SSA's upcoming Philadelphia conference, a Navy MQ-8B Fire Scout drone that lost its data link and drifted toward Washington, D.C., and the birth of member Marta and Sobek Dziadek's son, Anatol.
The October 2010 issue of Skyline Soaring Club's newsletter is anchored by a heartfelt "Folded Wings" tribute to Captain Leo Meacher, USN (retired), who passed on September 4 at age 89. A highly decorated WWII Navy carrier pilot and Korean War veteran—holding the Distinguished Flying Cross, Silver Star, and seven Air Medal stars—Meacher was also a founding member of Skyline Soaring, a towpilot, instructor, and the longtime "weekday guru" at the Warrenton Soaring Center. Fellow members share vivid memories of his war stories, his salty personality, and his role in helping the club relocate to New Market Airport in 1991. The issue also reports a successful Warren County Front Royal Air Show in which 23 members displayed five club aircraft and awarded youth orientation flights through the Skyline Soaring Education Foundation, which had just received IRS public-charity status. Membership stands at 103 active members, Curtis Wheeler earned his 50 km Silver Distance by flying 161 km to a remote OKV start, and Chief Flight Instructor Piet Barber shares an inventive experiment logging a full day of student instruction with a GPS watch and visualizing the flights in 3-D Google Earth.
November's Skylines opens with a moving account of the Arlington National Cemetery burial of Leo Meacher, a longtime club friend and demo-flight pilot, whose farewell was marked by a four-ship F/A-18 flyover that briefly held commercial traffic in a holding pattern over Reagan National. The issue also chronicles the club's October 22 appearance at the 5th Annual Aviation Education Expo at Leesburg, where SSC and the new Skyline Soaring Education Foundation shared a booth with a sailplane static display before several hundred high-school students; John Noss's gripping first-person report of towing a Husky at the M-ASA Region 4 North contest in Fairfield, Pennsylvania, where 40 gliders were launched in 50 minutes under punishing conditions; and a substantial feature by Commander Brian Randall of the U.S. Naval Academy detailing VT-NA's expanded 2010 Summer Soaring Program, which safely flew over 900 sorties for 400 midshipmen using M-ASA's Fairfield gliderport and volunteer instructors drawn from the Front Royal soaring community. Membership news welcomes new pilots including 14-year-old John Westenhoff and 13-year-old Christopher Zaboji, both pursuing glider ratings together, while the club's 102 active members continue to grow. Rounding out the issue are notes on the FAA's pending rule to add photographs to pilot certificates, a Florida winch-launch training opportunity, and a link to a 2010 Vintage Gliding Club rally video from Tibenham.
Skyline Soaring Club wraps up a strong 2010 season that has already surpassed last year's 1,274-tow mark, and the December issue is packed with milestones. Chief among them is Piet Barber's September 4 high-altitude wave flight, in which he climbed to 17,600 feet above the Fort Valley ridge, rode mountain wave past 14,000 feet for the first time in his career, and made a 110-knot ground-speed dash to Harrisonburg and back—all while breathing through a brand-new oxygen cannula that smelled, in his words, like a bottle that had been sitting for a year. November 12 proved to be a rare double-header: Ertan Tete passed his PP-G checkride and Craig Rodarmel earned his PP-SEL on the same afternoon, and just two days later 14-year-old Trevor Roskind nailed a perfect first solo under instructor John Noss. Curtis Wheeler also collected FAI Silver Badge #6791, logging a distance leg roughly three times the required 50 km. The issue closes with practical details for the Winter Ad Hoc flying season (December 13–February 19), the December 11 pot-luck Holiday Party at the Neitzey home in Broad Run, a modest $3-per-month dues adjustment for 2011, and reminders for the January 22 Annual Membership Meeting and the mandatory February 19 Safety Meeting at the Front Royal library.