Skyline Soaring Club's February 2019 issue packs a full month of forward-looking news into a single newsletter. President Dick Garrity rallies members for the March 3 season opener and a mandatory safety meeting, while flagging plans to qualify instructors for the club's new Discus glider ahead of a late-May Mifflin Regional contest. The January 26 annual business meeting, held at the North Warren Fire Station, revealed a club that spent heavily on a new ASK-21 glider (hailed back from the West Coast by Bill Vickland via Marfa, Texas) and tow-plane upgrades, only to be hit by a dismal flying season that left the capital investment fund strained. Keith Hilton was honored with the Bela Gogos Award for years of fleet maintenance and board service, Piet Barber debuted a Mach 1.0 glider flight simulator built around Oculus Rift goggles, and the board welcomed Evan Dosik and Pete Maynard to new terms. Perhaps the issue's most memorable page is a first-person account by 13-year-old Ava Dunphy, a brand-new student who chronicles five grueling Sunday ground-school sessions with instructor George Hazelrigg—complete with mini-quizzes, SKEW-T charts, a reassuring line about stalls and spins, and Maruta's chili. The newsletter also points members toward the SSA's eight new $2,000 youth flight-training scholarships (deadline March 31), a fresh 'Soaring the Sky' podcast, and an urgent appeal for SSEF donations to fund two additional 2019 youth trainees.
Spring has finally arrived at Skyline Soaring Club, and this issue is packed with the energy of a season about to explode. Tim Moran recounts his Mt Mitchell Wave Camp experience (Feb 26–Mar 7), including a 14,000-foot birthday flight in the primary wave and a dramatic upwind transition from secondary to primary — only to learn the camp's best day, with pilots topping 26,000 feet, came the very day after he left. Safety Officer Erik Van Weezendonk delivers a no-nonsense deep dive into 14 CFR 61.56 and 61.57, walking members through the difference between legality, currency, and proficiency with the memorable case study of "Joe M. Pilot," and follows with an IMSAFE-style self-assessment covering illness, medication, stress, alcohol, fatigue, and emotion. President Dick Garrity reports on the Grob's custom trailer refit, the club's push toward ADS-B compliance, and a May that will see members scattered across contests in Albert Lea, Mifflin, and Moriarty. Bill Burner lays out plans for the Woodstock Fly-In/Family Day on Memorial Day weekend, complete with vintage Bergfalke and 1-26 gliders on a soft grass strip. The issue also carries a heartfelt memorial for towpilot extraordinaire Jim McCulley, who passed in late April, remembered by friends for his F-86 stories from Korea and his low passes over Warrenton. Rounding out the newsletter: a detailed guide to filing NASA ASRS voluntary safety reports, Jim Kellett's decades-spanning "See and Avoid" anecdotes from a 707 near-miss to modern TCAS alerts, a soaring poem by W.G. Hill, and a 1985 DG-300 (N8RX) listed for sale at $39,000.
The July 2019 issue is dominated by the club's decision to outfit every glider and tow plane with ADS-B Out transponders, a $26,000 fleet upgrade prompted by multiple near-misses with business jets in the Dulles approach corridor. Keith Hilton lays out the prioritized installation schedule, the Trig equipment choices, and the funding plan drawn from the avionics fund, a maturing CD, member loans, and a possible $200 assessment. Pete Maynard and Steve Wallace deliver a richly detailed recap of the Week of Training at W99, from the parents' lasagna and fajita dinners to the Husky brake swap and a safety stand-down after a wing-tip bump. Joe Rees pens a moving remembrance of charter member Jim McCulley, a Korean War ace who drove a MiG into the ground and later shaped Skyline's early culture. The issue also introduces a wave of new youth and adult members, reprints Bill Burner's 2012 visit to Windward Performance in Bend, Oregon, where Greg Cole's Perlan glider was being built for a 90,000-foot stratospheric record attempt, and features Reynolds Renshaw's discovery of a historical marker in Afton, Virginia, commemorating Richard duPont's 1933 record-breaking 121.6-mile soar down the Shenandoah Valley.
Piet Barber's vivid account of supporting the US Juniors at the Region 3 Harris Hill contest dominates this issue, chronicling a first-day land-out in a tall-grass field marked by a single tree, a 150-degree ground loop that left the glider backwards on a gentle hill, and a gaggle of excited kids clamoring to sit in the cockpit. The newsletter also celebrates Andrew Melanson's calm first solo on Labor Day Weekend, confirms the club's ASK-21 will fly the Fairfield, PA contest in early October with seats open for member co-pilots, and offers a gripping family history of Joe Revelli's father, a WWII CG4A glider pilot who hauled troops and a 75 mm howitzer over the Hump into China. A thorough Safety Corner walks members through Breaking the Chain, the Swiss Cheese model, and Threat and Error Management, while Shane Neitzey lays out practical contest-preparation advice for newcomers. Rounding out the issue: a Perlan 2 stratospheric flight update, a call for the October 6 Family Day at Burner's Field in the Shenandoah Valley, and listings for a 1984 LS-4 and a 1985 DG-300 both seeking new SSC homes at KFRR.
October 2019 marks a fresh start at Skyline Soaring Club, with Jim Kellett stepping in as newsletter editor and John Noss assuming the role of chief flight instructor. Noss's inaugural column urges students to distinguish between procedure and technique when different instructors offer varying advice, while Bill Burner delivers a gripping safety piece on what to do when a tow pilot waves you off rather than simply releasing—describing the terrifying moment a tow plane 'stops in mid-air' and begins losing altitude while the glider coasts on. The issue also covers the club's first ADS-B OUT installation on N321K (a Grob, upgraded for roughly $2,500), the Grob 103 hitting the Wings & Wheels market, a January 25 annual meeting with two open director seats, a Family Away Day at Burner Field, and a lighthearted introduction to the Skyline Cycling Club, a self-described subsidiary whose members favor motorless land transport as much as motorless flight.
President Dick Garrity opens with a warm thank-you to the volunteers who cleaned the hangars and ran the October 13 Away Day at the Burners' grass strip near Woodstock, Virginia, then lays out the Club's six volunteer groups (Chiefs, Meisters, Officers, Service Members, and Webmasters) and invites members to claim a role. The safety content is the issue's backbone: Keith Hilton's "Dufus Report" recounts a Cessna pilot who drifted into IMC, iced up the windshield and wings, and made it to San Angelo by the skin of his teeth, drawing five hard lessons for glider pilots about cloud clearances and see-and-avoid. Erik van Weezendonk follows with a detailed Safety Corner on landing-pattern communication at Front Royal, walking through what happens when a glider calls the 45 and the launch crew is already pushing out. Bob Sallada reprints the SSF's approach-speed formula (1.5 Vso + ½ steady wind + full gust factor) and urges pilots to keep it on the fast side. A Federal Air Surgeon article warns that unregulated CBD oil can fail a DOT drug test and is not an affirmative defense, while a separate piece on marijuana's aeromedical implications reminds readers that federal law, not state law, governs FAA certification. On the lighter side, Carlos Troncoso earns his FAI Silver Badge in the Club's K-21, George Hazelrigg celebrates joining the United Flying Octogenarians at a party hosted by the Neitzeyes, and two new members—Richard Good, a former marine engineer and solar-industry CEO, and Molly Grear, an ocean engineer at the National Science Foundation—introduce themselves. The issue closes with a six-month Board summary covering ADS-B Out installation, a new spin-training requirement in the ASK-21, a $43,900 listing for the Club's Grob, and plans for an "Advanced Flying Guide" by Ron Wagner.
Ginny Fleet Pawlak offers a deeply personal account of growing up spending weekends at New Market and Front Royal airports with her glider-flying father, Kevin Fleet, from the treks down Route 340 through Bela's Gap to the water-balloon contest she won from the back seat of an ASK-21. Her story, tinged with the bittersweet reality of her father's declining health, closes with her hope to fly him one more time. The issue also features Erik von Weezendonk's vivid report from a Region 4 North soaring competition at Fairfield Airpark near Gettysburg, complete with compressed grids, a 2.5-hour retrieve, and hard-won lessons on tactics and crowd management in the start cylinder. In the Instructors' Corner, Ron Wagner—a 10,000-hour jet pilot and USAF Presidential Wing alumnus—describes the thrill of flying wingman with a bald eagle in a thermal, a joy he says surpasses even supersonic flight. Club business includes a $5/month dues increase, hangar door repair proposals, and an urgent call for Director and Corporate Officer nominees ahead of the January 25, 2020 Annual Meeting. The SSA Convention in Little Rock (February 20–22) is highlighted, along with a safety bulletin on K2 battery/charger compatibility and a Safety Corner on expectation bias and complacency.