Skyline Soaring Club closes out a record-setting 2012—club-best totals in glider flights and student training, a paid-off fleet debt, and a growing cross-country appetite—before turning its collective gaze skyward. The issue's centerpiece is Mike Ash's extensive, location-specific guide to mountain wave soaring out of Front Royal, walking pilots through forecasting, tow technique, finding the lift line along the Massanutten and I-81 corridor, managing physiology at 12,500 feet, navigating the club's FAA-arranged wave window at New Market, and the peculiar hazards of 50-knot headwinds and persistent wave sink. The holiday potluck brought out a crowd that included legendary airshow pilot Charlie Kulp, the “Flying Farmer,” and saw SSEF present a soaring scholarship to new student Matthew Linger. Two students—Steve Polk and fourteen-year-old Alexandra Burgard—earned their first glider solos on the season's final flying day. The issue also carries a brief, heartfelt notice of the passing of longtime member Clarence See, and a lighthearted passenger's-eye account of an Air France A380 transatlantic crossing, observed through the curious lens of a glider pilot.
The February 2013 issue of *Skyline Soaring Club* captures a club in a rare moment of financial freedom and forward momentum. President John Noss reports that the club has just finished paying off the internal debt from acquiring the Husky and Cirrus, opening the door to strategic planning for the next fleet acquisition and much-needed hangar expansion. The annual membership meeting at the Front Royal library covered survey results, awards, and the re-election of Noss and Martin Gomez to second board terms. On the flight line, Bill Vickland and Eric Litt were deep into recovering the Pawnee's tail for its annual inspection while the Husky's prop was being overhauled, and the club logged an impressive 37 flights in January. The big event on the horizon is the mandatory safety meeting on February 23, immediately followed by a week-long wave camp at Grant County Airport led by Dan Ernst and Shane Neitzey aboard the ASK-21. The issue also features a substantial review by Bob Creedon of Wolfgang Langewiesche's classic *Stick and Rudder* (1944), a congratulations to Craig Bendorf on his SSA Gold Altitude badge, details on the March 16 annual-inspection work party, and updates on intermediate cross-country training and the upcoming XC clinic.
The March 2013 issue of Skylines is dominated by the club's Petersburg Wave Camp, where a group of Skyliners, Shenandoah Valley Soaring, and Mid-Atlantic Soaring Association pilots converged at Grant County Airport for a weekend of high-altitude wave soaring. Joe Lingevitch provides a vivid, technical account of his 18,000-foot flight in the club's DG-200, describing the eerie calm of the primary wave, six-knot lift with near-zero ground speed, and the challenges of the new Mountain High oxygen system at altitude. Joe and fellow pilot Ertan Tete unofficially reached Gold altitude (3,000 m) during the camp. The issue also covers the club's annual safety meeting, including a parachute-rigger briefing and a review of mid-air collision avoidance during gaggling; Chuck Stover's practical explainer of the Gibbz1 arrival procedure and its close proximity to the New Market wave window; Doug Hiranaka's thoughtful essay on cross-country badge flying and the mindset shift from local soaring to five-hour flights; and the awarding of an SSEF scholarship to Warren County High School senior Maria Haas, who aspires to become an aeronautical engineer at Virginia Tech. A work party for the ASK-21 and conditional inspections is scheduled for March 16.
May 2013 brings two extraordinary flight stories from the Skyline Soaring Club community. Chief Flight Instructor Piet Barber recounts a March day near Petersburg, West Virginia, where he climbed into a wave window and held steady at FL220—22,000 feet—managing cold feet, a full-face oxygen mask, and the discipline to turn down just 200 feet below the top of the window to stay out of Class A airspace. Meanwhile, member Hugh McElrath and Greg Read log a 2,500-nautical-mile, five-day coast-to-coast journey in a 2006 Pipistrel Virus touring motor glider, riding a storm-generated tailwind from San Jose to College Park, Maryland, with stops at Rosamond airpark and a first-ever flight through the Flight Restricted Zone over the Capitol. The issue also carries a sobering safety report on a fatal Schleicher K7 accident in Littlefield, Texas, where a portion of the right wing separated during cruise; planning updates for the June 24–28 Week of Training and a parallel cross-country course; an Away Day at Bill Burner's grass strip near Woodstock on May 19; weather-forecasting tips tailored to the Shenandoah Valley microclimate; and welcome notices for new probationary members Gary Mason and Eric Tarring plus eight introductory students. Robert Gray reports the arrival of a 1-26D glider from Bill Bentley, and the club rallies volunteers for the Smithsonian's 'Be A Pilot Day' at Udvar-Hazy and a glider display at the Manassas Air Show.
The June 2013 issue of *Skylines* is anchored by a vivid, multi-page account of the club's Family Away Day at Bill and Sharon Burner's private field, where 31 tows produced a wave climb to 10,000 feet, Shane Neitzey's 2-hour-44-minute flight of the day, and a legendary sausage extravaganza from the Zaboji family. The newsletter also reports that Bill Elliott and Rand Baldwin set a US National Open Class Multiplace 3-Turnpoint Distance Record in the club's Blanik trainer, that Mike Christensen completed a four-year, 2,815-mile quest to tow a DG-300 (N-8RX) from Arlington, Washington, to Front Royal, and that longtime member Joe Rees deploys to Brussels as a Customs and Border Protection attache, promising to file dispatches on Belgian soaring. With the Week of Training and a new cross-country camp both scheduled for late June, President John Noss issues an urgent call for volunteer instructors and towpilots, while Safety Officer Charles Norman reviews a fatal Schweizer crash on Long Island as a reminder to stay current and proficient. Rounding out the issue are six new introductory members, a Virginia Daily feature on the club, and a humorous verse by Rob Creedon celebrating the day at '2 B Soar Inn.'
A turbulent month at Skyline Soaring Club opens with the rear canopy of the club's Grob tearing free in flight, grounding half the training fleet just days before the Week of Training and triggering a full safety review under Safety Officer Charles Norman. The issue carries a somber tribute to aerobatic pilot Charlie Schwenker and wingwalker Jane Wicker, killed June 22 while performing in a Stearman at the Vectren Air Show near Dayton, Ohio, with memorial services held at the Bealeton Flying Circus Aerodrome. On the positive side, member Shane Neitzey recounts his first-ever contest in Sports Class at Caesar Creek, Ohio, where a third-place finish on his debut day and a second-place showing on the final day earned him fifth overall. The club also welcomes Keith Hilton as its new ASK-21 K-Meister, a former Air Force Chief Master Sergeant whose 24-year career included weapons integration on the F-117A, B-2, and the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle. Additional items cover the Week of Training's scaled-back but successful run, a planned AWOS installation at Front Royal for late August, a Become a Pilot Day appearance at the Smithsonian's Udvar-Hazy Center, mechanical upgrades to the club Sprite, and a call for disciplined radio use on the field frequency.
The August 2013 issue of the Skyline Soaring Club newsletter is dominated by the dramatic saga of the club's Grob-103, which was damaged in a June 22 accident and spent 34 days out of service. The repair became a cross-country odyssey: a borrowed canopy that turned out to be in Horseheads, New York rather than Philadelphia; a second canopy that was supposedly available but actually sitting in South America; and a brand-new canopy ordered from Germany that got stuck in customs at Philadelphia before a friend-of-a-friend arranged its delivery to a composite shop in Perkasie, Pennsylvania. Steve Rockwood made two round-trip drives to the shop, and a team of members reassembled the glider under the watchful eye of new Grob-meister Evan Dosik. The total tab: $8,347, or $83 per member. On the brighter side, the club celebrated two new Private Pilot Glider ratings earned in July — Keith Hilton and Chris Zaboji, the latter a 16-year-old who passed his checkride just ten days after his birthday and is headed for the Air Force Academy. The issue also features two first-person land-out accounts (one in a young cornfield, one in a field he'd spotted on Google Earth), a report on the 84-sortie Week of Training, a winch-launch endorsement clinic at Eagle Field, Pennsylvania, the 13-year-old Ellie Renshaw's Sky Ghost Scholarship win from the Women's Soaring Pilots Association, the repair of the Pawnee's inoperative Tost tow-line reel, and the announcement that long-time editor Phil Jordan is retiring after 55 years of self-employment.
This September 2013 issue captures the Skyline Soaring Club at a rolling peak. August closed with a record-shattering 33-flight day on Saturday, August 24—the busiest weekend in the history of Front Royal (KFRR)—and the club tallied 1,040 flights for the year, matching its 2011 pace. The training pipeline is surging: Robert Gray, Chris Zaboji, and Keith Hilton all earned their private glider ratings within a two-week span, and Hilton, emboldened by his new certificate, immediately purchased a 1977 LS-3 sailplane and hauled it back to the field in a Dodge truck. The issue introduces a new monthly safety series by Jim Kellett that quizzes members on fire-extinguisher locations, first-aid kit contents, and the club's Emergency Response Plan; lays out detailed radio-discipline guidelines from Martin Gomez to keep club chatter off the shared CTAF frequency 123.0; and announces the board's purchase of six FRS radios for ground-crew use. Members share vivid travel dispatches from Dillingham Airfield on Oahu's North Shore—where gliders, skydivers, windsurfers, and kiteboarders share the same stretch of coastline—and from a K-21 tow at Sugarbush in remote western Maine. Dave Collier recounts a cross-country flight that ended not at the home field but in a grass strip belonging to a farmer named Larry Omps, where a man showed up ten minutes later to mow the runway. The issue also announces the club's participation in the September 14 Virginia Air Show, profiles nine WSPA scholarship recipients, and notes the passing of EAA founder Paul Poberezny at age 91.
The October 2013 issue opens with a vivid photo-essay from the September 14 Front Royal Air Show, where retired two-star Navy Admiral and top-30 all-time aerobatic pilot Bill Finagin stuns the crowd in his Pitts S-2, Boeing engineer Scott Francis flies his $400,000 MXS, and a Flying Circus Stearman line stretches the taxiway. Club photographer Dick Otis captures it all from the cockpit of the club's Husky and from a perch beside a parked Pawnee in the middle of the field. Elsewhere, Dan and Marie Ernst recount their 4,825-mile, 220-gallon odyssey towing a 1-26 glider on an open trailer from Virginia to the New Mexico 1-26 Championships and back, surviving a lost elevator batten, a cracked trailer frame, and one very angry SUV driver in Colorado Springs. Ken Ekman shares hard-won lessons from a year of soaring at 4,200-foot White Sands Regional Airport, where density altitude, the sprawling White Sands Missile Range, and 12,000-foot thermals forced him to install oxygen, rethink his landout kit, and fly in wool socks. The issue also reports that four Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellows from California, Montana, Ohio, and Alaska spent time at Front Royal learning to fly gliders, that Trevor Roskind earned his Private Pilot Glider rating, and that the club is planning an Away Day at Bill Burner's grass strip near Woodstock on October 20 and a holiday party at Aspendale Winery in December.
Skyline Soaring Club's November 2013 issue is packed with news on every front. President John Noss details a sweeping set of policy changes—suspending walk-in FAST flights, capping new student memberships, and standardizing instruction scheduling—after a 56-response member survey and a four-hour board session revealed the club was simply too popular to sustain its old open-door model. On the competitive front, Shane Neitzey reports a thrilling M-ASA Fairfield, PA contest in which he placed second on the strongest day and third overall, navigating a 204-mile task through wave, ridge, and thermals over the Tuscarora and Shade Mountain ridges. Curtis Wheeler announces a newly FAA-waivered aerobatic box half a mile north of Front Royal, making the ASK-21 available for aerobatic instruction in the K. The issue also features a vivid first-person account of a flight in a 1929 Ford Tri-Motor at Manassas, a photo-rich recap of the 35-flight Family Day at Bill Burner's field, a safety review of 2013 NTSB glider accidents, a visit to Tidewater Soaring Society by WSPA scholarship recipient Ellie Renshaw, and details on the December 7 holiday celebration at Aspen Dale Winery.
The December 2013 issue is anchored by Robert Gray's long-awaited account of his 42-year odyssey to a Private Glider Pilot certificate, a journey that began with two flights in a 2-33 at Warrenton in May 1971 and ended with a checkride in an ASK-21 at Front Royal on August 2, 2013. Along the way Gray collected lessons at half a dozen fields, bought a 1-26D #470 from former Skyline member Bill Bentley, and jokes that the SSA may need a new record category for 'slowest student.' The issue also celebrates Dick Otis's Cirrus photo of Steve Rockwood earning the centerfold of Soaring magazine, recounts a bone-chilling November 24 flying day when a 33-knot gust blew the windsock off its pole and two pilots turned back with frozen toes, and announces the 2014 Carolina Wave Project (Feb 11–20) and the SSA Convention in Reno (Feb 27–Mar 1). Round out the issue with Jim Kellett's meticulous aircraft-cleaning guide, FAA errata for the new Glider Flying Handbook, a Toy Lift drive for Fort Lee children, and the club's holiday party at Aspen Dale Winery on December 7.