In a transitional January issue, new editor Douglas Hiranaka steps into the role left by a long-serving predecessor and promises a more polished format to come. The newsletter captures the club's hands-on winter spirit: members gather for the 2011 Holiday Party, share a Grob wing divot repair and waxing session that leaves the glider looking "close to new," and break ground on a custom dolly with a freshly laid fiberglass boot. Contributing member Ulrike Wustner offers a practical primer on FLARM, the Swiss-born anti-collision and datalogging system now standard on club gliders across Austria and Germany, urging readers to consider the technology for safer soaring in congested airspace. The issue also includes a nostalgic archive photograph of a primary glider at the Rheinbeck Aerodrome living museum and a full roster of Skyline Soaring Club officers at the Front Royal–Warren County, Virginia airport.
In his inaugural letter, new club president John Noss lays out a three-part vision for Skyline Soaring—fly safely, stay financially sound, and build the kind of club members want to show up to—while celebrating a fleet of well-tended gliders from the ASK-21 to the Cirrus and a hangar in its best shape in years. The issue is enlivened by dispatches from a week-long wave camp at Petersburg, West Virginia (W99), where pilots traded blowing snow for sustained lift and a Lambata motor glider scouted thermals for the fleet. A February safety meeting hosted by Charles Norman reviewed recent incidents, including a near-takeoff with unconnected ailerons and a tail dolly left on a glider at wave camp, while Mike Christensen shared his experience of a land-out near I-66. Spring check flights at KFRR saw roughly fifteen members get the Grob, K, Sprite, and Pawnee back in the air, and a thoughtful essay on “The Halo Effect” urges pilots to separate good instruction from personal chemistry and learn at the speed of a champion.
President John Noss opens the January issue by celebrating what he calls an 'all-time record year,' with 468 club glider flights in 2011 compared to 279 at the same point the prior year, driven by a surge in student training and ambitious cross-country efforts. The newsletter announces the club's first dedicated 'away day' at Bill Burner's grass-strip airfield near Woodstock, Virginia, with all four club gliders and both towplanes relocated for the event. New pilot Tony Doggett contributes a gripping first-person account of a tow-rope failure during a wake-boxing maneuver at 2,800 feet, the jolt of the snap, and the calm recovery that followed. Bill Vickland mounts a spirited defense of the humble 1-26 glider as a superior training and cross-country platform for new pilots, while Douglas Hiranaka publishes a detailed transition guide for the club's SGS 1-36 Sprite. The issue also reports that Skylines was featured in a TV3 Winchester weather segment on thermal soaring, congratulates pilots who earned badges and completed fixed-wing training tasks, and closes with an invitation to a family-friendly fly-in party at Burner's field in May.
The February 2012 issue of *Skylines* opens with a dramatic January wave-flying episode: Mike Christensen, solo in the club's Grob 103 (94E), was forced to land out in Eastern Front Royal after cloud streets closed in and lift turned to sink. Pilot and glider were unharmed, and a rapid retrieval crew had 94E de-rigged and loaded onto the trailer within 23 minutes. The issue also reports the club's January 28 annual meeting at the Samuels Library, where new president John Noss presided over reports from the club's roster of dedicated
The March 2012 issue of Skylines celebrates a record-breaking flight season—217 glider flights logged by the third week of March—and features a vivid first-person account of a member's visit to Soaring NV in Minden, where 50-to-60-knot ridge winds and Sierra Nevada wave lift carried a K-21 past 9,000 feet in a half-hour ride. President John Noss announces a new informal cross-country challenge circuit with quarterly tow prizes, a forthcoming revision of the club operations manual, and the arrival of a med-evac helicopter service at the airport. The issue also covers the annual trainer inspections (where Eric Litts discovered car wax as a torque-tube lubricant), Spring Wave Camp photos, and an invitation to a family-friendly flying party at Bill Burner's Woodstock, Virginia airport on May 5.
Skyline Soaring Club's June 2012 issue captures a club in full swing, celebrating a record 600 flights by mid-May—nearly double the previous year—and announcing its Summer Week of Flying for June 25–29. The centerpiece is John Noss's accessible walkthrough of cross-country speed-to-fly theory, showing how the simple glide-polar plots already printed on the club's cockpit cards can substitute for MacCready rings and flight computers, complete with worked examples for the ASK-21. A thorough student operations guide walks newcomers through everything from pushing out gliders and tow-car procedures to what to pack on a flying day. The issue also records a string of student milestones: fifteen-year-old John Westenhoff's first solo, Rufus Decker's CFIG, and badges earned by Trevor Roskind, Paul Pruitt, and Douglas Hiranaka. A local TV meteorologist's segment on gliders and thermals gave the club its
The July 2012 issue of Skylines is dominated by the club's 2012 Week of Training, a five-day instructional effort (June 25–29) that logged 132 sorties for 16 students and 9 rated pilots under punishing conditions. Temperatures hit 110 degrees in the shade, a wildfire was burning several hundred acres on the east side of Massanutten Ridge, and a U.S. Forest Service helicopter was based at the end of Runway 10, ferrying observers and scooping water from the Shenandoah River to drop on the flames—all while club members kept the tow schedule moving. Four teenagers took their first soaring lessons, and multiple members describe the week as the most fun and operationally demanding they had experienced. Beyond the WoT, the issue reports Vern Kline's victory in the club's inaugural cross-country circuit, Dick Garrity's long-awaited Bronze badge (nearly 20 years after his 'C'), Joe Lingevitch's SSA/FAI silver duration and altitude approvals, Chuck Stover's Flight of the Day in his brand-new glider *Romeo Whiskey*, and the club's display of gliders at the Smithsonian Udvar-Hazy Center's Become a Pilot Day. Warren County also announced the relocation of PHI Medical Aircare's helicopter operations to the Front Royal–Warren County Airport, and the newsletter notes that *Skylines* would shift to a PDF-only format beginning with this issue.
Skyliner Shane Neitzey finally claimed the elusive Boomerang trophy after a 259-statute-mile, 5½-hour flight from Front Royal, Virginia, to Harnett, North Carolina, in his ASW27B “XZ,” threading between RDU Class C airspace, a blue hole south of Farmville, and a 30-plus-minute blue-sky cruise to the finish line. The flight, a goal he had chased for years in multiple aircraft, required the tireless efforts of a long roster of landout-retrieve crews across Virginia and North Carolina, and he arrived at the FBO just 15 minutes before closing. The issue also features an in-depth pilot report on the club’s new DG 303, covering its 44:1 glide ratio, competition-style aerobatic capability, and handling compared to the ASK21 trainer, and celebrates Bruce Zivic’s hard-won solo in a brief but heartfelt note from the pilot himself.
President John Noss reports a record-shattering season, with the club well ahead of any previous year and on pace to top 1,800 glider flights, driven by an unexpected membership surge that has stretched tows, instruction, and flying days to their limits. The good news is tempered by operational headaches: the long-standing FRAS maintenance facility at the field has closed, the trusty tow-car is on its last legs, and the club is searching for a new Grob Meister to replace Rufus Decker. On the flying side, Joe Lingevitch earned Silver Badge #6899 on a 50-km cross-country from Front Royal to Burner Airport, Chuck Stover logged a 70-km silver-distance flight, and a pair of visiting pilots flew in two unfamiliar "uber gliders" from MASA's Fairfield field before re-launching and heading home. The September 8 Front Royal Airshow delivered stunning aerobatic displays and antique aircraft before a sudden squall shut the show down just as the last glider touched down. Noss closes by urging every member to weigh in on the club's future—hangar expansion, the next club glider, and student-load management—before the January annual meeting.
In a standout feature, Bill Burner recounts a visit to Greg Cole's Windward Performance shop in Bend, Oregon, where nearly finished components of the Perlan stratospheric glider—targeting 90,000 feet and Mach 0.3 via mountain waves—sit in jigs awaiting final assembly. The tour also showcased the 225-KTS DuckHawk racing sailplane (which out-glided a Schempp-Hirth Arcus at the Open Class Nationals) and the 155-pound SparrowHawk, a 37:1 club-class glider that Cole says is 'a pure joy to fly.' Elsewhere in the issue, Mike Ash gives a detailed first-look review of the newly available PowerFLARM anti-collision system, combining FLARM, ADS-B, and transponder detection in one unit; Dan Earnst and Evan Dosik report on a hands-on spin clinic at Eagle's Nest with the Shenandoah Valley Soaring Club; and President John Noss wraps up a season interrupted by Hurricane Sandy with thanks to a long list of volunteers, a reminder that scheduled operations end December 16, and a pot-luck social to close out the year. Chuck Stover's silver badge (#6907) and a formation flight at 14,000 feet over Pennsylvania round out a month of milestones.
Skyline Soaring Club's December 2012 issue leads with Douglas Hiranaka's vivid account of a glider aerobatics checkout in an experimental MDM Fox at Williams Soaring Center, California. A seasoned power aerobatics pilot with 250 hours in acro, Hiranaka describes the quirks of flying a 13-metre, short-winged acro glider—sensitive ailerons, a pronounced stall that drops a wing, and the disorienting feel of inverted flight where the stick logic flips. After a few spins and a quarter-snap roll, he works through loops, rolls, wing-overs, and two-point rolls with instructor Greg in the back seat, emerging checked out for all the maneuvers he flew. The issue also celebrates two member achievements: Tommy Childress earning his Glider Private Pilot rating in an ASK-21 at Front Royal, Virginia, and Chris Zaboji passing his SSA Bronze written exam and completing his duration task in the club Sprite. Club news includes Rufus Decker stepping down as Grob Meister, the Pawnee's door windows being upgraded to Lexan, Martin Gomez taking ownership of the SGS 1-26 "505," and an open invitation from Mike Christensen for fellow members to join a February 2013 soaring trip to Omarama Airfield in New Zealand.