1991 / 1992 / 1993 / 1994 / 1995 / 1996 / 1997 / 1998 / 1999
The inaugural issue of the Skyline Soaring Club newsletter chronicles a stormy November 16, 1991 meeting so heated that the restaurant band asked the members to keep it down. From the smoke, three key resolutions emerged: the club will operate out of Warrenton Airpark for an indeterminate period (Front Royal was rejected over a lack of hangar space and a cancelled airport improvement plan), the Pawnee tow plane will be purchased outright for $22,500 cash rather than financed, and the planned purchases of an ASK 2-33 and ASK 1-26 sailplanes were shelved as over-capitalizing. With over $28,000 raised, the club will be left with roughly $5,500 in operating capital, and the editor wryly notes that the club is, for the moment, a glider club that owns no gliders. Hopes are pinned on member Jim McCulley purchasing the 2-33 privately and leasing it back, while another member explores a shared-ownership arrangement for the 1-26. The issue also announces a new 'Who's Who' member profile series, a standing Flight Safety column warning that Warrenton's pattern is no place for macho talk, a next meeting set for December 16, and a running joke about the club's checks being printed with the name 'Skyling Soaring Club.'
The Skyline Soaring Club announces the launch of its flying operations with a Pawnee tow plane and an ASK-21 glider, celebrating a successful first flight on a beautiful Saturday, November 23. The newsletter lays out the club's new fee structure, establishes a detailed eight-point Duty Officer system for daily field operations, and sets basic rules for members including check rides for rusty pilots and proper equipment care. Bob Leyendecker, the club's point of contact, urges members to attend the December 14 meeting at Bela's house to sign up for positions and bring three months' dues, emphasizing the need for a "tight ship" as the club builds its flying program.
President James Postma opens this issue with a flurry of club news headlined by Jim Kellett's 15,300-foot wave flight over Waynesboro on January 18 and an upcoming wave camp at Petersburg, West Virginia (Feb. 15–23). The club's most dramatic story, however, is the rapid $9,000 fundraise to purchase a 2-33 glider (N2743H): members voted to raise the money at the December meeting, delivered the cash to WSC the following Monday, and Shane Neitzey spent an entire Sunday driving the territory collecting payments—his van now reads "Shane's Armored Car Service" instead of "Shane's Signs." The club now owns the 2-33 and a Pawnee, leases an ASK-21, and is negotiating a 1-36 lease. Seven new members (Carson, Collier, Farr, Soule, Vickland, Winchester, Wentzel) bring the roster to 36, with a stated goal of 60. Postma also reports that the Front Royal Airport Master Plan has been approved and hangar improvements are underway, urges members to keep dues current amid slow winter operations, and calls a General Members Meeting for February 8 at Jim Kellett's home, where officer elections and membership growth will be on the agenda. A full 36-member telephone tree rounds out the issue.
In a landmark issue, the Skyline Soaring Club announces its unanimous decision to relocate all operations to Front Royal Airport by April 1, 1992, a move that will reshape the club's future. President James Postma, writing from what may be his final tenure, details the February 8 members meeting where 17 attendees voted to establish four working committees—Front Royal relocation, trailer transport, portable runway lights, and a quonset-hut hangar plan to attract private glider owners. Postma, a contract engineer whose assignment has ended, graciously withdraws his presidential nomination, urging members to step forward. The March 14 meeting will see formal elections for officers and directors, with nominees including Bob Leyendecker (VP), Bela Gogos (Treasurer), Jim Kellet (Secretary), and new maintenance and hangar directors Jim Miles and Spencer Annear. The issue also calls on all members to submit updated information forms by March 21, underscoring a club in active, purposeful transition.
The March 1992 issue of Skylines marks a watershed moment for the Skyline Soaring Club: at the March 14 membership meeting, the club officially elected its first Board of Directors, with James Postma as President, Bob Leyendecker as Vice-President, Bela Gogos as Treasurer, and a full slate of operational, maintenance, and membership officers. Equally significant, a Front Royal Airport Safety Committee was established the day before, with Leo Meacher named the club's representative, setting the stage for the first official flight patterns to be defined for all airport users on March 23. The newsletter also carries dispatches from the SSA Convention—Gren Siebels's moving keynote, Bob Wander's second consecutive new-member recruitment award, Bermuda High Soaring's move to Lancaster County, South Carolina, and a showcase of exciting new Eastern European gliders including the SZD-55 and Blanik L-25. Woven throughout is an urgent, good-humored plea from the editors: the club is off the ground, but it needs every member to volunteer for duty-officer shifts, help draft an operations manual, install hangar lighting, and simply show up. A staffing schedule for April and May, a for-sale listing for a yellow 1-26 glider, and a note welcoming fourteen-year-old new member Michael Yarger round out an issue that reads less like a newsletter and more like a rallying cry for a young club finding its footing.
In a special announcement dated March 28, 1992, the Seyline soaring club called on all members to attend a two-day field exploration and fly-in at New Market Airport (Valor Field) in New Market, Virginia, on April 4–5. The airport features a 5,850-foot paved runway (24/6) with a parallel grass strip, hangars, tiedowns, fuel, operations buildings, a picnic area, and a shop. The owner, Ed Raney, expressed strong interest in hosting the club and invited members to come down and fly. The Board of Directors endorsed New Market as a highly desirable soaring site, citing safety, available space, light traffic, and its proximity to Massanutten Ridge, and noted it may prove more attractive than the club's current location at Front Royal. Members were urged to inspect the site firsthand and discuss a possible relocation at the April 19, 1992 club meeting. Seyline planned to station its towplane and gliders at the field for members to use. A detailed area map of the New Market region accompanied the announcement.
In a decisive April 18 meeting, Skyline Soaring Club members unanimously approved the Board's recommendation to relocate operations to New Market Airport, a site that visiting members have embraced without exception. The newsletter captures a club in transition: founding president James Postma, the driving force behind the club's creation, is set to leave the area by May 21, prompting the nomination of Spencer Annear to complete his term, while Shane Neitzey steps in as Vice President following Bob Leyendecker's resignation. Operations face a practical crisis as extensive rust damage is discovered in the towplane's rudder and horizontal stabilizers, grounding the fleet for at least April 25–26 with no firm return date. On a brighter note, a custom dolly engineered by Charlie Lee finally allows the 2-33 glider and towplane to be stored in a hangar, and member Phil Jordan has donated a striking new club logo and layout services. The issue also includes the club's first member phonebook, a stern dues-collection notice, and an invitation to the next meeting on May 30 at the new airport itself, complete with a do-it-yourself picnic to mark the transition.
With the move to New Market nearly complete—just two trailers still in transit—the Skyline Soaring Club is settling into what members are calling a 'world-class gliderport,' with the Pawnee, 2-33, K-21, and 1-36 all flying from the new site. The spring season delivered memorable flying, including a record 23 flights in a single day on May 7 and a classic five-hour up-and-down-Massanutten flight by Bela on May 13. The newsletter lays out an ambitious restructuring: the Safety and Instructors Committees merge into a new Operations Committee under Leo Meacher, a Facilities Committee replaces the old Hangar Committee, and the Maintenance and Membership Committees are formalized under Jim Miles and Shane, respectively. Volunteers are urgently sought to chair the Competition and Social Committees. The Board is also weighing a proposal to soften the club's by-laws for greater flexibility, and a recruitment drive targets 60 members to cover fixed dues. A combined fly-picnic-meeting is set for Saturday, July 11, with an agenda covering fee adjustments, new-member introductions, and social planning. Secretary Dr. James C. Kellett, Jr. signs off from Fairfax, Virginia, as the club looks to build its next decade from its new home.
This issue of the Skyline Soaring Club newsletter captures a club in full organizational bloom. The headline story is the remarkable achievement of Matthew Jones, who started as a "line boy" at the Warrenton Soaring Center and has now earned his Certificated Flight Instructor (Glider) rating—a feat the club calls "a terrific achievement for this young man" before he heads off to school in North Dakota in late August. Charter Member Paul Dawson has also earned his CFI and brought a Grob 103 to the gliderport, while two new members, Gordon and Eric Loucks of Manassas, have begun instruction after approval in June. On the administrative front, the club has fleshed out six standing committees (Operations, Facilities, Maintenance, Membership, Competition, and Social) and formed a special ad hoc committee, chaired by Bela Gogos, to revise the club's By-Laws ahead of a September membership vote. Directors are also weighing the cost-benefit of becoming an SSA Chapter to access group insurance savings before the November renewal. Dues have been restructured to an annual schedule, founding President James Postma has relocated to Huntsville, Alabama, and the club's August–September duty and tow-pilot schedule is printed for members' reference.
The September 19, 1992 issue of the Skyline Soaring Club newsletter captures a small club in the thick of operational growing pains. Treasurer Bela Gogos reports a healthy $13,000 in the bank, but the Pawnee tow plane's annual inspection looms with the possibility of costly repairs, and the Schweizer trailer is in such disrepair that the club fears losing it altogether. The most pressing concern is a shortage of qualified tow pilots—insurance rules demand 100 hours of taildragger time and 25 tows before a new pilot can be cleared—prompting a lively debate over honorary memberships, non-member arrangements, and, most intriguingly, Spencer's suggestion of a winch as an alternative to aero towing. The club also wrestles with leaking hangars, a $250 counter-offer to buy out the Warrenton Soaring Center's parts inventory, a leadership transition in the membership director's chair from Shane Neitzey to Phil Jordan, and the prospect of affiliating with the Mid-Atlantic Soaring Association. With by-laws still in draft and a 1993 budget on the horizon, the newsletter reads as a candid snapshot of a young club determined to keep its gliders in the air through the coming winter.
The September 1992 issue of the Skyline Soaring Club newsletter opens with a close call that should make every towplane pilot pause: a major bolt in the main landing gear had broken, but a vigilant pilot caught it during preflight inspection. Maintenance Director Jim Miles used the incident to urge all pilots to open cowlings and check for exhaust leakage that could cause costly engine damage. The issue also marks a new era of club governance, as a new interim secretary steps in following Jim Kellett's move to inactive status, and the board votes to require students to pass a written examination before earning solo privileges. Kit Carson is named the new Chief Tow Pilot, the club reports roughly $7,200 in reserves earmarked for a future Pawnee engine replacement, and a generous donation from Joe Rees brings a sunshade canopy to the field. The newsletter closes with an invitation to the September 19 cookout at the gliderport, where members are encouraged to bring burgers, hotdogs, and friends for a post-flying picnic.
Marking the close of its inaugural operating season, Skyline Soaring Club looks back on a hard-fought first year of winter, spring, and summer flights at New Market and turns its attention to building a 1993 operating plan. President Spencer Annear calls on every member to weigh in on a sweeping set of questions—staffing, aircraft maintenance, recruitment, competitions, funding, and a three-to-five-year vision for the club's size and role in the broader soaring movement. The treasurer reports more than $13,000 in the bank but warns that the Pawnee's annual inspection and daily operating costs will test the reserve. A pressing tow-pilot shortage dominates the meeting, with Chief Tow Pilot Kit Carson outlining insurance requirements and membership options still to be resolved. On the human-interest side, fourteen-year-old Curtis Phillips earned his solo on September 20, and veteran pilot Piet Barber returned to the flying fold. The newsletter also covers a negotiated $250 purchase of the Warrenton Soaring Center's parts supply, ongoing hangar-leak frustrations, a draft by-laws still in the works, and a consensus to keep the club flying through the winter. Phil Jordan, art director of Air & Space magazine, steps in as the new membership-committee chairman, and the club's newsletter, Skylines, is now being typeset on a Macintosh with Quark X Press.
The Skyline Soaring Club newsletter out of Alexandria, Virginia, is dominated by a good-natured retelling of a new pilot's initiation, muddled by a communication mix-up that left the members uncertain of the full sequence of events. President Spencer Annear recounts how, after the initiation was carried out, a message went missing, and the club ended up chucking the new member in good fun while still not entirely sure what had transpired. The issue also notes that a pilot named John intends to take on some of the soaring in Virginia, and a photograph accompanies the account. It is a small, warm snapshot of a tight-knit soaring community welcoming a new member with equal parts tradition and mischief.
The December 1992 issue of the Skyline Soaring Club newsletter is packed with the kind of drama that makes a small glider club feel like a major enterprise. The board's year-to-date report reveals a net loss of over $4,000 and a blunt prescription: get more members in the air. The club's Pawnee towplane has been grounded at Warrenton-Fauquier Airport for an annual inspection that will require new brake discs, airframe patches, and a recently replaced engine cylinder after a valve seat came loose in flight. Meanwhile, the club celebrated a hard-won IRS tax-exempt status, welcomed Jim McCulley as the new Maintenance Director, and approved a 1,000-brochure marketing push to recruit new flyers to the New Market, Virginia site. On the lighter side, interim secretary Ralph Wentzel returns from a Thanksgiving sojourn to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he and his family were swept into the White Sands Soaring Association's "Turkeyfest" at Alamogordo, trading Eastern hurry-up for 9,500-foot desert mountains and what he calls "spectacular" flying. The issue also details the club's holiday schedule (operations pause December 13 through January 2), a proposed doubling of the towplane reserve to $20 per hour, a pending dues increase, and a January 22 annual meeting at Shane's Signs in Manassas Park where six members will stand for the board. For anyone curious about what it took to keep a volunteer glider club alive in the early 1990s, this single newsletter is a front-row seat.
The February 1993 issue of the Skylines newsletter carries the minutes of the club's first annual membership meeting, held January 22 at Shane Neitzey's office in Manassas, Virginia. Treasurer Bela Gogos reported that the young club—founded in 1992 by Gogos, Bob Leyendecker, Leo Meacher, and James Postma—logged 465 tows across 50 operating days at the New Market airport, with membership holding steady at 33 active members. The books closed the year a mere $94 in the red, a result President Spencer Annear called 'excellent for a new organization.' The meeting elected a new six-member board (Annear, Gogos, Kit Carson, Neitzey, Jim McCulley, and Ralph Wentzel) and settled on a slate of officers. Board discussion touched on the money-losing ASK-21 lease, a donated radio for the Pawnee towplane, the feasibility of a club answering machine, and reciprocal membership with the Mid-Atlantic Soaring Association and Ridge Soaring. A recruitment handout laid out two options for prospects: a $30 'donation' ride in a two-place glider to 3,000 feet, or a ten-day trial membership for $20. Phil Jordan announced that the club brochure had gone to print, the Operations Manual was 99% complete, and Sporty's-branded polo shirts, caps, and a silk-screened T-shirt bearing the slogan 'Soaring is flying pure and simple' were available for group orders. The issue closes with the March 1993 duty-officer and tow-pilot schedule.
This issue of the Skyline Soaring Club newsletter opens with board minutes covering a healthy $6,500 treasury, new tow-letdown procedures, and the long-awaited Operations Manual finally heading to press. The real drama, however, lives in two dispatches from the wave world: a tongue-in-cheek account of an Air Traffic controller at Petersburg, WV, who told a flight of Marine A-6 attack aircraft to watch for gliders in the wave window, only to be met with the question, "Why should we care about some gliders?" — answered, smugly, with "They're above you, sir!" — and a sobering safety article by Jim Kellett that traces the physics of mountain-wave rotors from his own near-fatal tail gust in a 1-23 over Mt. Mitchell to the March 1991 crash of UAL Flight 585, a 75,000-pound Boeing 737 slammed into the ground near Colorado Springs in nine seconds by the very same microbursts glider pilots seek out for lift. Kellett's close timeline of the 737's final 90 seconds, with its oscillating airspeed and sudden 4-g inversion, lands as a stark reminder that no one is immune to the rotor. Rounding out the issue are circle-diameter and time-to-fly reference tables contributed from the Mid-Atlantic Soaring Association, a detailed May-through-August duty-officer and tow-pilot staffing schedule, and a proposed student-pilot competition pitting the earliest solo and Private certifications against one another.
The April 1993 issue of Skylines carries the minutes of the Skyline Soaring Club's board meeting alongside a thrilling first-person account from Secretary Ralph Wentzel, whose routine 200th flight in the club's ASK-21 turned into a nearly four-hour, 65-to-70-mile cross-country that he dubs a "Fantasy Flight." Launched with young local pilot Matt as passenger, the pair rode extraordinary thermals—vario pegged at 10 knots, climbs estimated at 1,200 to 1,500 feet per minute—over the Massanutten, through the Fort Valley, and up to 8,200 feet AGL near Mount Jackson before a hard, spoiler-full return to New Market. The board minutes cover a range of club business: a declining membership count (28 active, 5 inactive), a debate over ending the Temporary Member category and offering a $50 "blue light special" initiation discount, Ed Rainey's offer to sell and finance a club radio, bird-nesting problems in the Pawnee towplane, and a request to ATC for a dedicated wave window west of New Market. The issue also solicits member articles and requests updated contact information for the club's address list.
The Skyline Soaring Club's June 1993 edition of SKYLINES arrives brimming with fresh energy. A new editor steps in at the helm as Phil Jordan steps back from publishing duties, and the board minutes from the May meeting reveal a club in visible growth: two new tow pilots (Jim McCulley and Paul Dawson) have been checked out, relieving the veteran tug crew of Spencer Annear and Shane Neitzey who had been flying overtime. Jim McCulley also marked a personal milestone, logging more than five hours in a single flight in his Schreder sail plane on June 6, the same day new member Joe Smith signed on. Piet Barber earned his Private Pilot-Glider certificate, and Fred Winter squeezed in time to get the club's ASK-21 through its annual inspection. The board debated the safety of the Schweizer tow release on the Pawnee, tightened landing-threshold policy, and approved a reduced initiation fee to spur a membership drive ahead of the July 24 Front Royal Airshow, where the club has been invited to fly and display its gliders. Rounding out the issue is a warmly nostalgic essay by Jim Kellett, "Contrails," which transports readers back to the 1966 Capitol Area Soaring School at Godfrey Field, recalls the era's soaring statistics and aircraft prices, and closes with a reproduction of Sam Wright's 1966 poem "Listen to the Wind." Duty schedules for July through October and detailed end-of-day checklists for duty officers and tow pilots are included as practical appendices.
The August 1993 issue of Skylines, the monthly newsletter of the Skyline Soaring Club, carries the minutes of the July 28 Board of Directors meeting, in which the club formally adopted a revised Article IV of its bylaws establishing a detailed tiered membership structure spanning Charter, Full, Probationary, and several Special categories (Trial, Transient, Event, Service, and Affiliated Club), along with a published fee schedule covering a $500 initiation fee, $240 annual dues, and per-minute aircraft-use rates for the club's ASK-21, 2-33, and 1-36 sailplanes and tow operations. The club also welcomed three new members—Tim Ettridge, Wolfgang Frauenfeld, and Joe Parrish—reported a successful recruiting effort at the Front Royal Airshow, and announced an ongoing experiment in running operations from a hilltop overlooking the grass strip, with water and power provided courtesy of FBO Ed Rainey. Maintenance notes covered the 2-33's recurring Braunschweig tube issue and the tow plane's pending tire replacement, while the board directed that the runway's displaced threshold be marked to improve safety. A general membership meeting was set for October 1 at the Falls Church Civic Center, and the editor, Ralph Wentzel, apologized for a two-month publication gap before promising a more robust issue to follow.
The Skyline Soaring Club's October 1993 issue opens with minutes from the club's annual membership meeting at the Falls Church, Virginia Community Center, where Treasurer Bela Gogos reported a record 457 tows (up from 369), a shrinking loss, and a modest membership dip to 33. The newsletter carries a heartfelt update on Gogos's successful open-heart surgery for a major arterial blockage, performed just days after the meeting. The issue's centerpiece is a thought-provoking safety article arguing that soaring training equips pilots with instincts power pilots lack: a 1985 fatal accident near Los Angeles in which a 7,000-hour power pilot tried to out-climb a powerful sink and was killed, contrasted with the glider pilot's instinct to lower the nose and accelerate. Pilot-instructor Steven Philipson's ongoing (and largely ignored) campaign to get the NTSB and FAA to recommend basic sailplane training for power pilots is recounted. A second technical piece warns members about the flutter-speed trap at altitude, where true airspeed can exceed limits while the indicated needle still looks safe, in anticipation of the club's mountain-wave season. Rounding out the issue are calls for tow pilots and CFI-Gs, a volunteer effort to repaint the PAWNEE's wing struts, a safety seminar on tie-down ropes and runway-crossing discipline at New Market, and a reminder that all club maintenance must be cleared through Director Jim McCulley.
The November 1993 issue of *Skylines* carries the club's most consequential news in years: Maintenance Director Jim McCulley has secured what appears to be a near-final FAA approval for a designated "Wave Window" that would allow Skyline members to fly above Flight Level 180 (18,000 feet) in wave conditions, with a go-ahead expected by mid-January. The proposed flight area stretches from New Market to Sky Bryce along the Blue Ridge. The issue also recounts a remarkable 75-minute flight on November 6, when McCulley and the newsletter's editor towed the newly airworthy ASK-21 (N341KS) to 5,000 feet and discovered a narrow, fast-moving band of 400-to-800-fpm lift that neither could immediately identify—later attributed to the convergence of a cold easterly air mass pushing ahead of a low-pressure system. Other items include the Pawnee tow plane's winter annual inspection (Dec 15–Jan 15), the 2-33 glider's upcoming inspection, hangar-floor gravel work, Paul Dawson's near-completion of tow qualification, a new membership-participation committee chaired by Joe with a report due at the January 14, 1994 meeting, and an invitation to the Kelletts' Christmas party on December 11.
The January 1994 issue of the Skyline Soaring Club newsletter carries the board's sobering report on the club's Piper PAWNEE towplane, where a late-discovered Airworthiness Directive led to the removal of wings, struts, and the spray hopper, revealing a severely rusted-away longeron and widespread fuselage corrosion traced to years of water seeping inside the fabric skin. With a repair bill expected to approach $2,500, the board also voted to relocate the PAWNEE to a drier adjacent hangar. On brighter notes, the club logged 588 flights in 1993 (up from 465), Jim McCulley secured a certificate of authorization for a new 'Wave Window' soaring area stretching from New Market toward Mount Jackson and the Sky Bryce ridge, and membership committee chairman Joe Parrish prepared a data-driven participation report for the annual meeting at the Falls Church Community Center on January 14, where 1994 directors would be elected. The issue also records the semi-inactive status of long-time member Phil Jordan and includes the full 1994 club duty and tow-pilot schedule.
In a rare special edition issued outside the normal monthly cycle, the Skyline Soaring Club board issued an urgent call to every member to write a letter to the FAA in response to Airworthiness Directive 93-21-12, which mandates wing removal and inspection of Piper Pawnee PA-25 aircraft to check for corrosion caused by agricultural spraying chemicals. The club's own Pawnee, used exclusively for glider towing, was inspected and showed no such damage, but the directive's compliance costs are significant. The board outlined five specific arguments members should weave into their personal letters—ranging from the fact that many PA-25s never carry ag chemicals to the safety risks of repeated wing removal—and urged writers to submit copies in triplicate to the FAA docket office. The issue also carried a revised member duty schedule reflecting requests received to date.
The Skyline Soaring Club opened its 1994 season with a safety-and-kickoff meeting featuring Jim Kranda, the local FAA Designated Flight Examiner for gliders and a former Warrenton Soaring Center instructor, who urged members to stay vigilant amid a new wave of low-altitude military flights, a recent fatal sailplane accident, and the FAA's expanded staffing. Kranda proposed a club-run 'Wings' proficiency program modeled on the AOPA/FAA initiative and stressed that the FARs represent only a minimum standard. The newsletter also celebrates a remarkable stretch of soaring over the Massanutten ridge: M-ASA visitors Chuck Forrester (LS-6) and Jonathan Gere (ASW-20) topped 14,750 feet, advanced student Curtis Phillips reached 7,400 feet in a 2-33 training glider, and member Shane Neitzey logged a four-and-a-half-hour wave flight to 14,000 feet in his new LAK-12, even penetrating upwind at the top of the wave with minimal altitude loss. On the administrative side, the club announced a new digital answering machine for field-status reports and ship reservations, a cash-deposit policy for trial members flying club gliders, and early planning for a summer field-day event featuring precision landings, flour-bombing competitions, and a barbecue.
This issue of the Skyline Soaring Club newsletter, filed from the Manassas Park, Virginia, flying community, is equal parts tender farewell, gruff exhortation, and ambitious program planning. The club bids a fond goodbye to French student pilot Pierre "Pagu" Aumont, who has returned to his native country, and to founding Vice President Bob Leyencker, displaced from his Vint Hill Farms government post by a base closure and now bound for Vancouver, B.C. In their place, the board welcomes new members Tom Bryce—a professional pilot whose father is the namesake of Sky Bryce and Ski Bryce—and A&P mechanic Charlie Shonduby, while Matt Little and his tail-dragger-qualified father are expected to join as well. Maintenance Director Jim McCulley, in a characteristically blunt and unedited "Club Philosophy" column, lays out a pointed list of recurring neglect—unhooked hangar doors, a tow car parked on a glider wing, a vario left draining a battery over the weekend—and issues a rallying cry: Skyline Soaring is a club, not a commercial operation, and every member owes "tender loving care" to shared equipment each time they drive to New Market. The newsletter also details a proposed club adaptation of the FAA Wings Pilot Proficiency Award, a nine-phase recurrent-training program spanning ground school, thermalling, proximity flying, physiological (hyperbaric-chamber) training at Andrews AFB, and progressively more demanding flight phases, each earning a distinctive lapel pin from plain bronze to gold with rhinestone. The June flying extravaganza, delayed by weather, is rescheduled to June 18, with Joe Partish coordinating logistics, and the next board meeting is set for June 25 at Shane's Signs in Manassas Park.
This issue carries board minutes from the April 28 and May 1994 meetings and captures a club in visible transition. The Skyline Soaring Club welcomes a new tow car—a serviceable Dodge graciously provided by Ed Raney of the New Market FBO—along with newly installed hangar tracks for the Pawnee tow plane and a replacement canopy for the Sprite (SGS 1-36). Membership rosters shift as Tom Bryce, son of the man for whom Sky Bryce and Ski Bryce are named, joins as a member and tow pilot, and A&P mechanic Charlie Shonduby is accepted, while student pilot Pierre Aumont departs for France and founding member Bob Leyencker relocates to Vancouver, B.C. Maintenance Director Jim McCulley contributes a pointed "Club Philosophy" essay urging every member to treat the club's gliders, hangar, and tow car as their own, listing specific chores from hangar-door security to mowing the tie-down area. The newsletter also discusses the FAA Wings Pilot Proficiency Program as a possible model for a club recurrent-training scheme, notes the postponement of the Summer Event to June 18, and closes with a revised duty roster running through August 1994.
The October 1994 issue of Skylines carries the minutes of the board meeting held at Shane Neitzey's sign shop in Manassas Park, where the club approved a new Duty Officer incentive (one free flight with a tow to 3,000 feet and up to an hour of aircraft time), set the 2-33 for a multi-week annual inspection and horizontal-surface recovery, and began implementing Bela Gogos's long-awaited plan to repay Charter members. The newsletter's standout feature, however, is Jim Kellett's dispatch from England, where he spent a summer at the Lasham Gliding Centre—the largest gliding club in England and possibly Europe—describing its two double-drum winches, fleet of K-13s, Grobs, and Nimbuses, and its welcoming guest-privilege policy for visiting pilots. Kellett recounts a 48-minute soaring flight from a 1,200-foot winch launch, an hour of thermalling in sight of Heathrow and the Thames with a check pilot who doubled as a London police officer, and the surprisingly low cost of a full day's flying. For anyone curious how the sport is practiced across the Atlantic, this issue offers a rare, first-hand glimpse into British gliding culture alongside the club's own operational business.
The November 1994 issue of the Skyline Soaring Club newsletter reports a busy board meeting held at Shane Neitzey's sign shop in Manassas Park, Virginia, where the club celebrated its growth to 44 members and a healthy $13,369 in savings. The board debated expanding its structure with a new Vice President role for day-to-day operations, and Joe Parrish accepted a committee chairmanship to present the pros and cons of SSA affiliation to the membership at the January 20 annual meeting in Falls Church. On the flight line, the PAWNEE tow plane sat grounded with a fuel leak, the 2-33 awaited its annual inspection, and the ASK-21 and 1-36 each needed attention before returning to service. Looking ahead, the club planned a Wave Camp at Petersburg, West Virginia, using the tow plane and ASK-21, and Kit Carson and his wife graciously offered their new Alexandria home for the club's December 17 holiday party, with members asked to bring food and drink to the 6 p.m. gathering.
The Skyline Soaring Club's January 20 annual meeting at the Falls Church Community Center produced a newsletter brimming with momentum for the club's fourth year of operation. Treasurer Bela Gogos reported that 1994 tows rose 18 percent and total flying time jumped 28 percent to 429 hours, while outlining a board-approved plan to use initiation fees to pay down capital debt to $1,000 by year's end and eliminate it entirely by 1996. President Spencer Annear called 1995 a "landmark year," citing New Market airport's new management under Linda Rainey, a host of field improvements, and a packed calendar that includes a wave camp at Petersburg, West Virginia (featuring the Pawnee, 2-33, and 1-36), a Spring Fun Day with contests and picnic, a Community Day with public rides, the Vintage Sailplane Regatta at Waynesboro, Virginia, and a Fall Fun Day. A unanimous vote elected the 1995 Board of Directors, welcomed new director Joe Parrish, and set the tone for a season the club hopes will cement its long-term viability. The issue closes with the full March-through-December duty roster, assigning duty officers and tow pilots for every scheduled weekend of the year.
The Skyline Soaring Club's April 1995 newsletter is dominated by Joe Parrish's vivid first-person account of the club's Petersburg, West Virginia Wave Camp (February 18–26), where he logged a Gold Altitude flight to 17,800 MSL in the ASK-21, describing the wave as a perfectly smooth, panoramic ride with the oxygen system kicking on past 11,500 feet and radio contact with pilots as far north as Cumberland, Maryland. The issue also records the induction of four new full members — Tom Brice, Colombe Chappey, Rich Pickett, and Jean-Francois Gibrat — the signing of a one-year hangar lease at New Market's Valor Field, and an urgent maintenance warning about the ASK-21's aging canopies. Board minutes cover a new takeoff protocol at New Market, the Schweitzer 2-33's return to service after lengthy maintenance, recruitment efforts over the early Internet, and plans for the Annual Safety Meeting (May 5) and the Skyline Spring Fun Day (May 13, rain date May 20). A full 1995 duty roster, running from April through the Christmas break, rounds out the issue.
A remarkable month of soaring achievements anchors this issue: Treasurer Bela Gogos completed his FAI Diamond Badge with a 5,000-meter climb out of Minden, Nevada, becoming just the 806th American pilot ever to earn the distinction, while Joe Parrish logged his FAI Gold Altitude leg at Wave Camp in West Virginia and Kevin Fleet picked up his SSA A badge. The club's calendar is packed with the Spring Fun Day on May 13, the New Market Community Day on June 10 (featuring a hot-air balloon dealer, a skydiving outfit, and the local Pilot's Association), and an International Vintage Sailplane Meet in July drawing antique sailplanes from Europe, Canada, and the U.S. The board also approved trial memberships for Civil Air Patrol cadets, set aside funds for a hyperbaric-chamber altitude-physiology training session at Andrews AFB, and appointed a Chief Duty Officer to address recurring no-show problems. A full duty roster for the remainder of 1995 rounds out the issue.
This July 1995 issue of Skylines celebrates the June 10 Community Day at New Market Airport, where the club provided 25 glider rides to local residents and airboss Tom Osinkosky logged 179 flights. A newly appointed Secretary—stepping in after Ralph Wentzel's request for inactive status—welcomes members with an open invitation to contribute letters, opinions, and stories, and proudly announces the club's new World Wide Web home page, built by Piet "Hammy" Barber and Joe Parrish, featuring photos of Charlie Lee's plane and Emie Klimonda's famous "grey Poupon". The issue also highlights the club's growing connections to the broader soaring community via the Soaring Society network, with members from Shenandoah Valley Soaring, Blue Grass Soaring, and the Mid-Atlantic Soaring Association already active on the net, and a new member directory with e-mail addresses in the works
This August 1995 issue of Skylines opens with a dramatic first-person account from Spencer Annear, who describes an off-field glider landing near Lexington, Virginia, in which he bounced from hillock to hillock across a rolling hillside he had mistaken for flat ground, only to be rescued by a Super Cub that had to claw for altitude to clear a tree line on its own landing. The issue also reports that 16-year-old Curtis Phillips passed his private pilot (glider) examination at the Bermuda High Soaring School in Lancaster, South Carolina, and profiles member Jan Makela, a Searle Pharmaceuticals executive preparing for his FAA checkride after a year of flying with Skyline. Club members Jim Kellett and Shane Neitzey recount their attendance at the inaugural International Vintage Sailplane Meet at Harris Hill, New York, where roughly fifty vintage machines drew about 200 participants from a dozen countries, including a Shempp-Hirth Minimoa once owned by Wolf Hirth and designer Rudy Opitz himself. The newsletter closes with a reminder that the DuPont Regatta, commemorating a 1930s record flight from the Blue Ridge to Frederick, Maryland, will be held September 22–24 at Waynesboro Airport, alongside a pointed call for members to pitch in with field work and scheduling rather than waiting for a commercial operation.
This September 1995 issue of the Skyline Soaring Club newsletter is a lively snapshot of a small Virginia glider community at the dawn of the internet age. The star of the 'Meet the Member' feature is Piet (Hammy) Barber, a 23-year-old George Mason graduate who maintains the whois database for the U.S. military's classified SIPRNET network by day and is working toward an instructor rating in engineless flight by weekend. Fellow member Jonathan Kans, a genetics Ph.D. from the University of Chicago now at the National Center for Biotechnology Information, describes being 'hooked' on his very first tow and enjoying the ground time with clubmates as much as the flying. The issue also carries the editor's good-humored self-incrimination for dinging the right wing of the club's 2-33 glider on a hangar-door post, a plea for the anonymous culprit behind a major K-21 fuselage damage to 'fess up,' a correction to the 1995 DuPont Regatta dates at Eagle's Nest in Waynesboro, a Civil War reenactment at New Market Battlefield, and the unanimous Board vote welcoming Linda Raney as Skyline's newest honorary member.
The October 1995 issue of the Skyline Soaring Club newsletter leads with what it calls the "REALLY BIG NEWS": the early-September escape of Ed Raney, the ostensible owner of New Market Airport and a 1994 felony tax-fraud convict, and his armed confrontation at the field on September 8. According to the report, Raney approached the airport office with a knife after allegedly writing a death threat against his wife, Linda, who had been managing the airport in his absence. A flight instructor present in the building held the escaped prisoner at gunpoint until the New Market Police chief, who had been at the office warning Linda of the escape, took control of the situation. No one was injured. The issue also covers the Fall Membership Meeting held at the Falls Church Community Center, where the updated Duty Officer Checklist and a new "Do It Right!" training videotape were highlighted; a one-day FAA hyperbaric-chamber altitude training course available for $20; the FAA's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking #95-11, a sweeping rewrite of FAR Parts 1, 61, 141, and 143 that would establish separate powered and non-powered glider class ratings, with a comment deadline of December 11, 1995; and the upcoming Fall Fun Day soaring competition and pot-luck cookout on Saturday, October 14 (rain date October 21). Two "Meet the Member" profiles introduce Stephen Szibler, a multi-talented runner, musician, and aspiring astronaut, and veteran pilot Jim Kellett, who has logged roughly 1,100 glider hours since earning his license in 1966, holds a Gold badge with one diamond, and serves as Director of the Mt. Weather Emergency Assistance Center near Winchester, Virginia. A closing section, "Getting Wired…," lists the e-mail addresses of Skyline and neighboring-club members, a snapshot of the early days of the internet in the soaring community.
The November 1995 issue of the Skyline Soaring Club newsletter captures a club in rapid growth and reaching beyond its own fence. Members are rallying around a proposal for a proper long hangar with curtain walls at Valor Field, modeled on the M-ASA Frederick facility, while a broader inter-club movement takes shape along the Shenandoah Valley: the Shenandoah Valley Soaring Club has formed a working group, the Skyline Board has voted to waive guest security deposits for M-ASA and SVS members, and a suggestion has surfaced to create a multi-club "council" stretching from Tennessee to Pennsylvania, echoing the old Appalachian Soaring Association. Three new members join the roster, including Fred Daams, who brings a lovingly restored Romanian Lark to New Market and simultaneously lists his French-built Pegase (ASW-19) for sale. The "Meet the Member" section delivers two extraordinary biographies: Joe Parrish, an MIT aerospace engineer on NASA assignment at the University of Maryland developing a spacecraft-servicing telerobot, and Bela N. Gogos, a WWII Hungarian Air Force pilot who flew ME-109s and Stukas, was sentenced to twenty-five years by a Soviet military court, endured the Lubianka and a labor camp above the Arctic Circle, and went on to earn an FAI Diamond badge and five international patents. Shane Neitzey is congratulated on the club's first altitude diamond at New Market, and the calendar fills with a FAR Part 61 briefing, two CFI(G) clinics, the club's first all-hands planning meeting in January 1996, and the tantalizing prospect of hosting the 1996 DuPont Regatta for vintage sailplanes.
The December 1995 issue of the Skyline Soaring Club newsletter is a lively snapshot of a small Virginia glider club at a moment of growth and self-reflection. The club announces its first-ever all-members brainstorming session (January 6, 1996) to set direction on everything from tow-pilot scheduling to the future of the airport, followed by an annual membership meeting and officer elections. A packed 1996 calendar includes Tom Knauff's CFI clinic at Frederick, the Soaring Wave Camp at Petersburg, the SSA Convention in Huntsville, and the DuPont Regatta. The "Meet the Member" pages deliver two vivid biographies: Spencer Annear, who went from CAP cadet spotting B-36s and B-50s to Boeing 727 and Minuteman missile work, to law school, to the US Patent and Trademark Office, and finally to soaring instruction and club presidency; and Rob Shallenburger, a US Fish and Wildlife Service bureaucrat who rebuilt a Stinson L-5, flew it across the Hawaiian islands, and joined Skyline to finally make the jump from power to gliders. The issue also congratulates new member Matt Little on his solo in the club's 2-33 and his FAI "A" Badge, celebrates Curtis Phillips' feature in SOARING magazine, and reminds members that the club's website now posts the newsletter days before the hard copy arrives. A potluck Christmas Party at the home of Piet and Stacey Barber closes out the year.
In a landmark issue for the Skyline Soaring Club, the January 1996 newsletter delivers the full report of the club's first Strategic Planning Session, held at New Market Airport on January 6 and attended by nearly 40 percent of the active membership. Over a six-hour brainstorming chaired by President Spencer Annear, members laid out ten broad goals—from fiscal solvency and hangar improvements to a push to grow membership from 38 to 50 and a renewed emphasis on safety culture—along with specific 1996 recommendations including a disaster financial plan, acquisition of radios for all club sailplanes, and a formal Duty Officer training program. The newsletter urges every member to attend the January 27 Annual Membership Meeting at the Falls Church Community Center, where the Board of Directors will be elected and the strategic agenda ratified. Rounding out the issue: a richly detailed “Meet the Member” profile of charter member Jim Miles, whose aviation journey spans a Piper Cub at Sembach Airbase in Germany, a rebuilt Curtis F9-C2 biplane from the NASM collection, and a career as CFIG and tow pilot at Warrenton Soaring Center; the bittersweet farewell to founding treasurer Bela Gogos, who is relocating to Minden, Nevada, leaving behind the club's beloved “Gogos' Gap”; welcome notes for new members Ralph Vawter, Bill Vickland, and John Ayers; and congratulations to Rob Shallenburger and Steve Szibler on their commercial and private glider licenses, respectively, earned at Bermuda High, South Carolina.
The Skyline Soaring Club enters its fifth year of operation with a membership that has nearly doubled from the 23 charter members of Fall 1991 to 43 active pilots, and a new Board of Directors freshly elected at the January 27 annual meeting. President Spencer Annear's state-of-the-club address looks back on a 1995 season that saw 74 of 85 available days flown and ahead to a 1996 calendar headlined by the Petersburg Wave Camp (February 17–25) and the DuPont Regatta in September. The issue features a richly detailed “Meet the Member” profile of Shane Neitzey, tracing his path from a queasy first tow at Warrenton Soaring Center in 1975, through a memorable off-airport landing in a Blanik L-13, a stint building time at Maryland Airlines, and a sign business that bankrolled his flying, all the way to earning his Gold Badge and two Diamonds in a LAK-12 in 1995. Also included: planning details and local hotel listings for the wave camp, a retirement reception for longtime member Jim Kellett, the club's consideration of SSA Chapter status for better insurance and dues savings, a new three-month duty roster for March through May, and a call for members to return outstanding flight-record forms to their insurance carrier.
The March 1996 issue opens with a revised three-month duty roster for April through June and the announcement of Stacey Barber as the club's new treasurer, elected at the March 6 board meeting. A tender In Memoriam section reports the 1994 passing of Helmut Muller, a beloved figure from the old Warrenton Soaring Center days and an accomplished soaring photographer. The issue's two 'Meet the Member' profiles are standout reads: charter member Bill Vickland, a retired aeronautical engineer who built his own Schweizer 1-26, flew Peace Corps assignments across seven countries, and worked alongside the late Fred Cuny on humanitarian projects in the Balkans; and Jim McCulley, a U.S. Air Force veteran who flew 100 combat missions in an F-86 against MIG-15s in Korea, piloted test aircraft over atomic bomb detonations in Nevada, and contributed to NASA's Gemini and Apollo programs. Ralph Popp recounts an aerobatic lesson in a Grob 103 at Estrella, Arizona, and a check flight in a Lark at the Soaring Club of Victoria in Australia. Joe Parrish's report on the 2nd Annual Petersburg Wave Camp, held jointly with the Mid-Atlantic Soaring Association from February 17 to 25, describes a week of snow-blocked ferries, a 37-knot gale that kept most pilots grounded, and a final day of smooth 15,000-foot wave riding above Seneca Rocks, punctuated by a gear-extension incident that sent a DG-300 into the airport fence. Jim Kellett's enthusiastic dispatch from the 24th annual Soaring Society of America convention in Huntsville, Alabama, highlights a keynote by British soaring columnist Mike Bird, a CFI clinic, and a Civil Air Patrol/SSA memorandum of understanding. The issue also notes Fred Daams' plan to outfit his Lark with a Cambridge L-Nav system and seek up to five partners for serious dual cross-country work, and bids a fond farewell to Charlie Lee, who is selling his 1-35 'Shark' and heading to Hawaii.
The April 1996 issue of Skylines opens with an urgent call to all members for a mandatory safety meeting on 27 April at New Market Airport, where input on the club's top priority—safety—will be solicited over a continental breakfast of bagels provided by Joe Parrish, with the amusing warning that absentees will be required to watch the official SSC safety video. The club welcomes Jim Garrison, a commercial-rated glider pilot and former regular at Warrenton Soaring Center, as a new probationary member who plans to enjoy the local ridge in his ASW-19. Meanwhile, Shane Neitzy is rallying volunteers to build a dolly and approach for the club's SGS 2-33A in the hangar, and Fred Daams has his water-ballast-capable Pegase "5 Fox" up for sale. The New Market Spring Fun Day is set for 11 May with a rain date of 19 May, and the EAA chapter's Young Eagles fly-in on 18 May invites members to carry local youth in the front seat. The issue also features a "Meet the Member" profile of Bill Westerman, a patent lawyer and SCCA Mazda RX-7 racer who grew up in Tulsa and first took to the air at Warrenton, before editor Piet Barber issues a plea for more member autobiographies to keep the column going.
In a report that reads like an adventure novel, Skyliner Bill Vickland recounts the flight that finally completed his triple diamond badge in a 1-26 glider (No. -238) at Petersburg, West Virginia. The Diamond Altitude leg—a 5,000-meter climb in one of the smallest and slowest gliders in the sport—had eluded him since 1980. On a Saturday in late February 1996, tow pilot John Ayers hauled him into a violent mountain-wave rotor where the tow rope went slack four times and the glider nearly climbed over the Scout. After a harrowing release and a 43-second dive through the rotor, Vickland found smooth lift and began a grueling climb in freezing air, only to discover he was being blown backward by winds stronger than forecast. He ultimately scraped past the 5,000-meter requirement by a mere 70 meters, landed with nearly frozen heels, and spent the evening in a cold-sweat over a barograph conversion error before confirming the score. The newsletter, written by Jim Kellett, also celebrates the web of friends—Dudley Mattson, Bob and Tracy Collier, Al Dresner, Key Dismukes, and others—who dedicated days, tow planes, and 4 a.m. phone calls over roughly two decades to make the achievement possible, and it includes a detailed description of the Petersburg wave site and its geography.
The July 1996 issue of Skylines announces a major milestone for the club: thanks largely to the efforts of member Shane Neitzey, the fleet—including a Pawnee, a 2-33, a K-21, the club car, glider trailer, and tent—has been stored safely under a new closed hangar, complete with newly constructed north-side doors and a purpose-built dolly for moving the 2-33 sideways into the space. Plans are already underway to add two adjacent hangars for additional gliders and trailers. The issue also features richly detailed member profiles: Bob Collier, a physicist with three degrees from Rensselaer and Ohio State who spent a decade working on RF antenna research alongside Apollo 13 astronaut Jack Swigert, holds the Region 4 1-26 100 km triangle speed record and is the only pilot ever to replicate Richard C. DuPont's 1933 Waynesboro-to-Frederick flight; and Phil Jordan, a Washington-area art director who has designed Priority Mail, Express Mail, and numerous commemorative U.S. postage stamps, recounts how a 1979 demonstration ride at Warrenton hooked him on soaring and how he is working to regain proficiency after an 18-month hiatus. New members Mike Fournier and Richard Linenberger are welcomed aboard, and the 'Pegasus Ponders' column looks back at soaring moments from 1966, 1976, and 1986, including Karl Striedieck's 1,015-mile out-and-return in an ASW-17 and the first Bolkow Phoebus delivery to the United States.
The Skyline Soaring Club gears up for a landmark September: its first hosting of the Richard C. DuPont Memorial Regatta for vintage sailplanes, with calls for volunteers to man the airboss, registration desk, and duty-officer posts. The excitement is tempered by a tense August 17 meeting at New Market Airport, where FBO Linda Raney will brief members on IRS rulings that could force a sale of the field. The issue also features a remarkable
Skyline Soaring Club's September 1996 issue opens with a genuine operational scare: the club's Pawnee towplane has fallen out of compliance with an expensive Airworthiness Directive, prompting the board to ferry the aircraft to Elmira on August 31 for a permanent Schweizer-engineered fix. In the interim, the club is borrowing a towplane from Scott French at New Market to keep members flying. The issue also welcomes new member David Nichols of Reston, Virginia, and announces that longtime layout artist Phil Jordan is stepping up to become the full-time editor of Skylines beginning with the October issue. In the 'Meet the Member' column, Ralph Vawter recounts his unlikely path from a $25 introductory ride in a Schweizer 2-22 nine years earlier to earning his SSA B badge, including a memorable stint of auto-tow flights in flat southeastern Virginia where most sorties lasted a mere four minutes. The 'Pegasus Ponders' column offers a nostalgic look back at SOARING Magazine articles from 1976 and 1966, including the first Mid-Atlantic Soaring Championship and the MASA purchase of its Fairfield, Delaware site. Finally, the Safety Corner carries an urgent call for the club to appoint an Airspace Chairman, set against the backdrop of FAA Administrator Hinson's pointed challenge to the SSA to find a way to eliminate midair collisions or face regulatory intervention.
The 16th Richard C. duPont Memorial Sailplane Regatta at New Market, Virginia, delivered a weekend of drama and altitude that no one at the Skyline Soaring Club will soon forget. Torrential rains and flooding had the airport's runways under water, but when the sky cleared on the 13th, 36 pilots from four clubs launched 19 gliders for more than 86 hours and 300 miles of soaring over three days, improvising an ad-hoc set of field procedures that worked perfectly. Len Dolhert claimed the annual Flight to Frederick trophy in his DG-200, Jim Garrison took the duration title in an ASW-19 after a self-designed 200-mile POST, and the wave on Saturday sent pilots above 11,000 feet, including Shane Neitzey to 12,500 in his LAK-12 and Bruce Barrett from a mere 1,500-foot save in a K6CR. Bill Cloughley made his first glider solo in a K-4, and VSA President Bob Gaines joined the field. Beyond the regatta, the issue covers the club's December 14 Christmas potluck, an invitation to M-ASA's Oktoberfest, a rare two-day open house at the Paul E. Garber (Silver Hill) preservation facility in Suitland, Maryland, a glider ground school in Falls Church, and a wry new-member profile of Navy officer Tony Bigbee.
Skyline Soaring Club's November 1996 issue leads with a remarkable 'Meet the Member' profile of Fred Winter, a former CBS television maintenance technician who helped cover Watergate, Nixon's resignation, and the Johnson funeral before trading the broadcast booth for the Warrenton Soaring Center desk and a Commercial glider rating. The newsletter also welcomes three new members—including Gary Rubus, a 5,000-hour USAF pilot with his own Ventus—and marks the close of the 1996 flying season with reminders about biennial flight reviews, a December 14 Christmas party at the Barber residence, and a January 4 planning meeting at Valor Field, New Market. Club members Shane Neitzey and Kevin Fleet volunteered in the search for two-year-old Karynne Sheldon, missing from Prince William County, while the 'Pegasus Ponders' column looks back ten, twenty, and thirty years through SOARING Magazine, recalling a John Denver–narrated ESPN film on the Barron Hilton Cup, a Goldwater bill to extend ADAP funding to private airports, and the early days of the Schleicher K-13. Classifieds list a SH-1 Austria and Shane Neitzey's LAK-12 (the glider in which he earned all three diamonds in eleven months) for sale, and a note flags the Pawnee towplane's recent illness as a prompt for members to consider acquiring a backup taildragger.
Skyline Soaring Club closes 1996 with a milestone—its fifth consecutive accident-free year—and a president's note urging members to carry that gratitude into 1997. The issue is packed with practical and reflective material: Jim Kellett publishes a thoughtful essay on civic leadership and board service, Joe Parrish sounds the alarm on a growing CFI shortage (five active instructors, a need for at least three more), and the club issues an urgent request for members who flew on October 13 to re-submit lost payments. A charming 'Pegasus Ponders' column revisits SOARING magazine's December issues from 1966, 1976, and 1986, tracing three decades of soaring culture from a National Geographic feature to barograph disputes. The newsletter also details the SSA ABC badge program, announces the 25th SSA Convention in Arlington, Texas (Jan 30–Feb 1), and carries a passionate appeal from the SSA Youth Committee to meet a $20,000 CADET scholarship goal by year's end, with Skyline's board approving a $100 club donation and a generous benefactor matching individual gifts dollar-for-dollar. Rounding out the issue, a 'Meet the Member' profile follows lobbyist Joseph M. Rees from small-town Indiana to a lobbying career in Washington and, finally, to the 'sunny sky over the Virginia countryside' that hooked him in 1983, and the club congratulates Matt Little on earning his Private Pilot certificate.
The January 1997 issue of Skylines documents the club's fifth anniversary and the election of a new board of directors, with Joe Rees stepping in as president after Spencer Annear's five-year tenure. Annear's State of the Club address highlights a remarkable safety record—over 3,200 tows and 13,000 flight operations since December 1991 without a single accident involving club or member aircraft—while also flagging the loss of their home field, Valor Field, to the real-estate market. The issue announces a three-club wave camp at Petersburg, West Virginia (February 15–23) co-sponsored with MASA and the Shenandoah Valley Soaring Club, a cross-country training program, and high-altitude hypobaric chamber training at Langley AFB. A vivid 'Meet the Member' profile of Kevin Fleet recounts two harrowing hang-gliding crashes—one in which paramedics declared him dead in the ambulance, another that left him with seven titanium plates in his skull—before he found his way to Skyline and the 2-33 at New Market. The newsletter also carries a practical safety column on base-leg discipline, by-law amendments, and a call for member contributions to keep the pages full.
This issue of Skylines is dominated by the raw thrill of wave soaring. Jim Garrison recounts, in rich first-person detail, his first wave flight in an SGS 1-23 out of the then-operational Warrenton Soaring Center—climbing through a rectangular hole in the rotor cloud deck to 14,700 feet ASL, watching lenticulars hang like sirens above the cloud plateau, spotting a commuter plane ten thousand feet below, and wrestling frozen spoilers on the way down. The Third Annual Petersburg Wave Camp (Feb. 15–23) drew 24 pilots and roughly 60 tows, with several reaching 11,000–14,500 MSL and an excellent safety record, while visitors from the Illini Glider Club hauled a freshly restored 1-26 all the way from Champaign, Illinois. Rob Shallenberger bids a fond farewell as he departs for Midway Atoll to become refuge manager of the newly established national wildlife refuge, promising to
The April 1997 issue of Skylines opens with Jim Kellett's exhilarating account of a wave flight at Petersburg, WV, where a four-knot ridge wave carried him to 14,500 feet and a GPS groundspeed of 107 knots before a cross-country leg home over the Blue Ridge. The issue also carries Tony Bigbee's tense towline-release story and cornfield landing, a gripping "From the Back Seat" column recounting two preflight discoveries that could have been fatal (a 3.75-pound bucking bar lodged 18.5 feet into a glider wing, and a nearly severed elevator cable found by feel), and soaring news of James M. Payne's 100-km speed triangle at 135 mph over the Sierra Nevada. Club business includes new Pawnee preflight and lubrication procedures, badge awards for Piet Barber, Richard Freytag, and new member Fred Mueller, and a warm welcome to Mueller, an American Airlines jet pilot re-entering the soaring world after a five-year hiatus.
The June 1997 issue announces the debut of the club's first structured Cross Country course, led by Jim Garrison with Saturday-morning classroom sessions at New Market Airport beginning June 7, covering weather, navigation, landing-out skills, and soaring physiology, and culminating in a supervised 30-to-50-mile flight in the ASK-21. The issue also celebrates Jim Kellett's approved Diamond Goal flight and Joe Parrish's Silver Badge, and features a vivid first-person account of wave flying alongside a four-mile-long rotor cloud. Perhaps most memorably, the club has begun a 'Soaring Turf Art' project on the runway—dubbed an 'Organic Mona Lisa' by the editor—laid out with fertilizer by Kevin Fleet, Bob Collier, and Jim Kellett, with a call for member contributions to keep the giant grass painting visible into 1998. Other items include the announcement of the 1997 DuPont Regatta (September 19–21), a new Member Milestones bulletin board in the hangar, operational notes on the ASK battery charging procedure, roster updates for Thursday operations, and condolences for Joe Rees.
July 1997 brings a newsletter brimming with both external recognition and hard-won field wisdom. President Piet Barber rallies members around two pivotal events: a two-day strategic planning session in August and the second annual Vintage Sailplane DuPont Regatta in September, commemorating Richard C. DuPont's 1933 cross-country flight. The issue's centerpiece is Joe Parrish's candid, margin-note-style guide for cross-country neophytes, covering everything from Massanutten Ridge turnpoint selection to the invisible horror of cattle wire on a first outlanding. Club member Linn Buell is featured in the Smithsonian's 'Women and Flight' exhibit, and the editor announces a 20-stamp 'Classic American Aircraft' set for the U.S. Postal Service. Bill Vickland recounts his humbling 180-mile attempt in a 1-26 that ended well short of York, Pennsylvania, while Tim James passes his checkride and the club welcomes a new 1-26E named Andiamo. Bill Wark earns his SSA A, B, and C badges, and the editor closes with a wry note from a threatened possum at Mason Neck National Wildlife Refuge.
Skyline Soaring Club members flocked to the Dayton Air Show in July, only to watch a B-2 stealth bomber upstage the unveiling of a new U.S. postage stamp honoring the Waco CG-4A glider. The issue digs deep into the CG-4A's overlooked WWII legacy, recounting how glider mechanics and pilots trained at Sheppard Field, Texas, went on to fly in D-Day, Sicily, Burma, and Holland, with a pointed editor's footnote recalling the 60-plus glider sorties that kept the 101st Airborne supplied at Bastogne. Back at the field, Kevin Fleet logged a 56-mile cross-country flight that put his new XC class to work and, three weeks later, earned his Private Glider rating after three years of trying. The club also hosted a video party screening the 1995 World Championship film 'Champions of the Wave' and the 1968 Marfa classic 'The Sunship Game,' while longtime member Bill Jones promoted his aviation adventure novel 'Silent Rescue,' which wove in real Warrenton Soaring Center history. The issue closes with a collection of classic Air Force maintenance squawks that should make every pilot wince and laugh.
The September 1997 issue of Skylines is anchored by a vivid, first-person account of the 1-26 World Championships at Midlothian, Texas, where 27 pilots flew 90-to-140-mile tasks in 96-degree heat. The narrative's centerpiece is a storm-battered contest day on which nearly the entire fleet landed out; one pilot, trapped in a sunlit band beneath a wall of rain cells, found himself at 1,000 feet in a cattle pasture beside an empty brick house, unable to reach a phone, and ultimately rescued by a convoy of trailered 1-26s who helped disassemble the glider and lift it over a locked fence. The issue also carries the invitation to the Richard C. duPont Commemorative Flight Regatta (September 19–21), a three-day celebration of duPont's record-setting 1933 flight in the Shenandoah Valley, hosted jointly with the Vintage Soaring Association and the Mid-Atlantic Soaring Association. Additional material includes a hard-won safety lesson about an unlocked spoiler that opened mid-tow at 300 feet, a cross-country perspective piece built around Jim Hard's 225-mile, 3,300-foot-AGL 1-26 goal attempt, a detailed new-member recruitment playbook from Joe Parrish, a ground-school announcement from AV-ED Flight School in Falls Church, and a welcome to newly regular member Linn Buell.
October 1997's Skylines leads with the upcoming October 14 PBS Frontline broadcast of *The Lost American*, a film tracing the extraordinary life of Fred Cuny, the glider pilot and disaster-relief engineer whose Intertect team kept Sarajevo's water and gas flowing through the Bosnian siege before he disappeared in Chechnya in 1995. The 1-26 Association has renamed its Annual Championship Team Trophy the McNiel/Cuny Trophy in his honor. The issue also reports on the Richard C. duPont Regatta (September 19–21), where a smaller-than-usual field of vintage and modern sailplanes—including a Slingsby T-31b, a Ka-6, a Cirrus, and an ASW-19—managed sixty launches over three days, highlighted by Jim Kellett's unexpected wave flight to 14,800 feet in the Cirrus and a Saturday-night Timberville barbecue. Club news includes Lisa Sergent's successful Private Pilot–Glider checkride (with a DFE who, after the second flight, announced he was "not gonna fly with you anymore"), a vividly told cautionary tale about bird nests in 1-26 wings that once prompted an Arlington police officer to investigate a reported "airplane accident," a firm reminder of the $20 temporary-membership policy, and a safety note drawn from an NTSB report of a dehydrated pilot's hard landing in a Slingsby T65A at Bethel, Pennsylvania.
The November 1997 issue of Skylines captures a club at a crossroads. President Joe Rees reports that a retired member's casual suggestion to fly on a Thursday has snowballed into a program that has increased the club's flying days by fifty percent and boosted revenue, while the board simultaneously confronts the unsettling news that New Market Airport (8W2) has been offered for sale, prompting a committee to research strategic options for the club's long-term home. The issue is enlivened by Rich Gillock's impassioned five-rule manifesto defending the Diamond 1-26 against a frustrated Canadian pilot, complete with his 350-kilometer Dust Devil Dash victory and a parting shot at glass-bird snobs. Bill Jones writes from Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, where he serves as assistant chief flight instructor at the University of Illinois, to announce that his son Matthew has become the youngest captain in the entire airline industry after starting as a lineboy at Warrenton Soaring Center. Tim James and Lisa Sergent announce their January move to Memphis, taking their glider Andiamo to the Memphis Soaring Club, and the editor Phil closes with a fond recollection of his first flight in a belching DC-3 from Tulsa to Memphis, inviting members to share their own first-flight stories.
President Joe Rees calls members to the annual meeting on January 31 at Shane's Signs in Manassas, Virginia, to chart the club's direction for a season that promises an expanded wave camp, cross-country training, and the third hosting of the duPont Vintage Sailplane Regatta, all with a stable membership of about forty. A thought-provoking safety essay by William H. Snow, pulled from the rec.aviation.soaring newsgroup, argues that a pilot's greatest danger is not freak weather or metal fatigue but personal judgment, fatigue, and rule-breaking. The issue's most surprising find is a Discovery Channel segment revealing that Dame Barbara Cartland, the 95-year-old romance novelist, co-pioneered long-distance aerotowing in 1931 with Edward Mole, completing a 200-mile tow in a Tiger Moth that helped prove the practicality of aerotowed troop gliders in combat. Jim Kellett contributes a fond memory of a barnstormer ride at Spartanburg Municipal Airport in the spring of 1940 or 1941, and the Log This section announces Shane Neitzey's new FAA Designated Pilot Examiner certification, a member syndicate proposal to purchase an EDS oxygen system for altitude badge flights, Spencer Annear's retirement and interest in acquiring a Citabria for club tow backup, and the release of Doris Grove's new 105-page book, Federal Aviation Regulations for Sailplane Pilots.
The February 1998 issue of Skylines is dominated by a potentially club-altering development: the impending sale of New Market Airport, which the membership voted to meet head-on by forming a special committee to explore ownership or investment in the field. President Joe Rees named Spencer Annear, Jim Kellett, and John Ayers to lead the effort, while Linda Raney issued an urgent call for every member to lobby Virginia Aviation Board member Kenneth T. Carlson before a February 25 hearing on funding to replace the airport's leaking underground fuel tanks. The newsletter also celebrates a record-breaking 1997, with membership hitting an all-time high of 50 and revenues at a peak that allowed the club to pay off four charter members. Other highlights include plans for the 1998 Wave Camp at Petersburg, West Virginia; a satisfying account of a six-member painting party that transformed the Pawnee's metal skin in a single rainy Saturday; a safety column urging pilots to watch for visitors wandering the field; and a lighthearted case for Kevlar cockpit seats, illustrated by tales of BB guns, rifle fire, and one tow pilot who answered a ground plinker with his own .45.
The March 1998 issue of Skylines opens with Linda Raney's urgent report from a Virginia Department of Aviation Board meeting, where the club's funding request for fuel-tank replacement received unprecedented member support but now hinges on whether the IRS will sign off on a Deed of Trust protecting the airport's 20-year aviation use. The newsletter is packed with momentum: Jim Kellett announces a new Thursday-and-Friday weekday instruction program (with one student already logging 14 flights in a single session), Richard Freytag and Fred Mueller close the deal on a brand-new LS-3A glider for New Market, and retired USAF General Dick Ault steps in as an honorary member to provide weekend towing. Robert L. Michael, a former Navy aviator and Montana flight instructor, shares his long road to finally becoming a glider student, while G. Norman Crump recounts a hair-raising 1951 C-46 near-crash over the Mississippi River in which a condemned WWII transport lost an engine and the crew was ordered to jump over the water. Spencer Annear organizes a March wave camp at Petersburg and solicits volunteers for the Plymouth, the DuPont Regatta, and the airport committee, and Phil Jordan's editorial urges members to pitch in with stories and expertise before the monthly deadline.
The April 1998 issue opens with a vivid wrap-up of Wave Camp at Petersburg, West Virginia, where Spencer Annear ferried the club's ASK glider to the field and pilots from Skyline, the Cumberland Soaring Club, and MASA rode an El Niño-fueled wave that produced 10,000-foot altitude gains—one day capped by a 14,000-foot break-off for lack of oxygen, the next by dawn wave and snow on the plateau. Jim Kellett reports back from the 14th Soaring Society of America convention in Portland, Oregon, where he sat in a restored WWII Waco CG-4a troop glider, attended a CFI revalidation clinic, and shared a meal with Paul Macready and other soaring legends. The issue also announces that Shane Neitzey has cleared the path to become the club's first Designated Pilot Examiner, halving rating-exam fees for members; details the Skyline board's support for the 1998 DuPont Regatta in the Shenandoah Valley; urges members to schedule biennial flight reviews before the spring flying season; welcomes new member Mike Cordova, a USAirways 737 first officer trading his jet for a glider; and closes with a pointed warning from Richard Freytag about the El Niño-driven tick season and the very real threat of Lyme disease for anyone laying down in the grass to hook up a glider.
The May 1998 issue of Skylines opens with a lighthearted FAA chicken-launcher anecdote before landing on a genuinely alarming note: the club's ASK glider canopy has developed converging cracks that, if left unchecked, will require a full replacement estimated at $6,730 for glass, labor, and shipping. Editor Kevin Fleet urges members to handle the aircraft with new reverence. Elsewhere, Bob Collier recounts a scaffold fall during a hangar bird-poop-tarp job (no serious injuries, but a vivid lesson in Murphy's Law), and Jim Kellett rallies volunteers for a May 2 hangar-ceiling work party. The issue also introduces new member Norm Crump, a retired Westinghouse engineer whose patents include the variable-polarity plasma arc welding process used to salvage the Space Shuttle program and tooling for the first titanium heart pacemaker case, a man who finally got to fly gliders only after retirement. In a charming display of what Kellett calls 'Kellett's Law,' a spontaneous flying day materialized when the sun broke through the rain: Fred Daams drove up from Staunton to give tows, and Fred Mueller took his nephew for a first ride before logging his own first flights in a brand-new LS-3a. The newsletter closes with maintenance schedules for the 2-33 and Sprite, a roster call for the summer, and a small stock of official Skyline T-shirts timed for Mother's Day.
The June 1998 issue of Skylines opens with a stirring call to action as Bill Vickland announces his summer inactivity and urges members to step up for fleet maintenance, while the club navigates a July tow-pilot shortage that leaves an entire weekend without a launch. Jim Kellett sounds an urgent safety alarm, citing a Let L-23 terrain collision at New Castle, Virginia, and the fatal off-airport landing of an ASW-19 pilot during the Nutmeg Soaring Club's Waynesboro odyssey. On the organizational front, Skyline celebrates the signing of its first Affiliated Club Agreement with Atlantic Soaring, opening the field to three new pilot members and setting a precedent for regional cooperation. The issue also carries the 1998 Blanik Fun Fly Meet announcement for New Castle, the launch of a regular Saturday cookout tradition spearheaded by Richard Freytag, the welcome of new member Greg Stanfield (PIK-20), and congratulations to Bob Michael on earning his commercial glider rating. Anchoring the issue is R. Spencer Annear's gripping short story "The Hole," in which a pilot named Lew attempts a 500-kilometer cross-country task along the ridges of Waverly and Battle Mountains, only to be ambushed by an unforecast band of snow-laden clouds and forced into a heart-stopping, near-vertical descent through a narrow gap in the overcast to reach the field.
The June 1998 issue of Skylines marks a milestone for the club with the signing of its first Affiliated Club Agreement with Atlantic Soaring, a step that broadens the club's reach and resources. The issue also covers the lively Blanik Fun Fly Meet, a gathering of pilots flying the popular Czech-designed glider, alongside a feature pairing two aircraft or pilots under the playful title 'The Pawnee and The Lady.' Regular columns round out the newsletter, including a Safety Corner, a two-part 'Mmmm, Mmmm, Good' feature, roster updates, flight-logging notes, and the club's signature 'The Hole' section, giving members a full snapshot of club life and soaring activity in the spring of 1998.
The July 1998 issue of Skylines opens with Board minutes revealing that New Market Airport is actively being shopped to prospective buyers, with the unresolved state funding for fuel-tank replacement cited as a major obstacle and a potential turf-runway approval problem hanging over the club's head. Against that backdrop of uncertainty, the newsletter brims with the kind of hands-on, slightly exasperated community spirit that keeps a small soaring club alive: a detailed work-party report on sanding, patching, and painting the Pawnee towplane; Kevin Fleet contorted under the panel of the 2-33 installing a compass, radio, and rudder pedals by himself; and Shane Neitzey lending scaffolds and a compressor so volunteers could hang plastic sheeting over the hangar ceilings to keep pigeon guano off the gliders. Secretary Jim Kellett delivers a pointed, good-humored open letter—titled after the dead website they'lltakecareofit.com—urging members to latch their hangar doors, haul out the garbage, report discrepancies to the Maintenance Officer, and, above all, fix the problem themselves rather than just mentioning it. A lighter entry from Jim Garrison chronicles a blue-sky, no-lift day at Eagles Nest that, in his words, provided
This August 1998 issue of Skylines carries two weighty memorials alongside a landmark announcement for the sport's future. Lorne Welch, the Colditz glider-escape hero whose story inspired the 1963 film The Great Escape and who co-authored the definitive Complete Soaring Pilot's Handbook with his wife Ann, died in May at 81; Carl Rohmann, a WWII Navy pilot and five-decade soaring instructor who helped build the Shenandoah Valley soaring community, passed in July at 84. Against that backdrop of loss, the Collegiate Soaring Association announced the Gogos Scholars program, a three-year grant initiative funded by retired Hungarian Air Force Colonel Bela Gogos—himself a WWII pilot who endured ten years of Soviet imprisonment before returning to soaring in the United States. Administered through Soar Minden in Nevada, the program will award seven $2,000 grants annually from 1999 to 2001, covering the full range of sailplane training from first flight to advanced FAI badges. The issue also details plans for the duPont Vintage Regatta at Eagles Nest Airport in Waynesboro (September 18–20), a safety essay on pilot judgement by Jim Kellett, a report on a DG-800B crash in Nevada, badge achievements by Kevin Fleet and Bob Michael, and a vivid first-flight account from new member Dave Brunner, a British technologist who found Skyline Soaring through an AltaVista search.
In a vivid first-person account, new member David Brunner recounts his 46-minute solo flight in the club's ASK on August 13, from the sweat on his hands at 3,000 feet to the triumphant roll-out on the strip at New Market. The issue also announces the Richard C. duPont Regatta (September 18–20) at Eagle's Nest Airport in Waynesboro, Virginia, where Skyline members will base the Pawnee, Miss Daisy, and ASK for a weekend of cross-country contests, a spot-landing competition, a lap race, and a recreation of duPont's historic 1930s flight to Frederick, Maryland. The board reports that the price of the New Market airport has dropped and that the club is exploring creative financing or a partnership to become a participant in any change of ownership. Two new members—Greg Ellis, a State Department veteran returning to soaring after a 20-year hiatus, and Brunner himself, a British-born mathematics lecturer now at James Madison University—share their backstories. Maintenance Officer Bill Vickland issues new policy after a Pawnee brake was damaged by the wrong hydraulic fluid and a wheel bolt was over-torqued, and reminds tow pilots to wipe the new prop daily. The editor closes with a lighthearted 'Chicken Little Syndrome' column featuring a near-collision with a grasshopper at 4,000 feet and a Red-tailed hawk's F-14-style roll-away.
The October 1998 issue of Skylines opens with urgent news from Washington: the Senate rejected Senator Inhofe's 'Hoover Bill' 46-51, preserving the FAA's broad certificate-revocation powers. Club member and longtime pilot Jim Kellett responds with a fiery open letter to the Soaring Society of America, arguing that the federal aviation bureaucracy is on a steady path toward eliminating general aviation and urging a 'forceful and vigorous campaign' with a public component to keep soaring viable. On the field, the 29th Annual Richard DuPont Memorial Regatta wraps up with 48 tows over two flying days, a square dance for 65-plus attendees, and a full slate of awards—Lou McDonald takes both Endurance (3:18 hrs) and O&R miles, Jim Kellett claims Altitude at 5,800 ft, and Len Dolhert earns the Big Trophy for a near-miss cross-country to Frederick. The club also reports growth to 52 members, launches a three-phase tow-rope safety upgrade, and plans a major repaint of the club's 2-33 'Miss Daisy' in December. In lighter fare, British expat Gary Shepherd recounts his childhood in the Air Training Corps and his rediscovery of soaring after a PBS documentary; Linn Buell reports flying a repainted 1-26 at the Luigi Teichfuss Vintage Glider Rally in the Italian Appennines; and a steady stream of migrating monarch butterflies and raptors provides free lift (and free entertainment) at the field on a hazy October afternoon.
This November 1998 issue of Skylines captures a milestone year for the Skyline Soaring Club, which celebrates its seventh anniversary and announces a relocation from New Market to Front Royal Airport ahead of the new year. The issue's most colorful dispatch recounts how member Tom Brice aerotowed his bride Linda in the club's ASK-21 from New Market to the Sky Bryce airport, executing a pattern and rolling right up to the reception tent on their September 12 wedding day. Other highlights include the tragic death of aerodynamicist and 1-26 champion Oran Nicks in a PW-5 accident in Texas, 15-year-old Erin Haske earning solo status on her self-declared path to becoming an astronaut, novice pilot John Lewis's hard-won lessons from a ground-looping landout into a cow pasture, Bill Malick's first flight after 32 years of longing, and a five-member syndicate's purchase of a vintage 1-26c. The issue also notes visits from Mach 2 pioneer Scott Crossfield and 77-year-old WWII cargo glider pilot Frederick Williams, the death of soaring author Gren Seibels, and a flurry of badge achievements and new-member welcomes.
The Skyline Soaring Club is pulling up stakes after a long and successful run at New Market (8W2), with the move to Front Royal Airport (FRR) set for the December 12–13 weekend. President Joe Rees details the logistics—ASK-21 boxed for a trip to Pennsylvania, the Pawnee headed to North Carolina for a new engine, the Sprite and Pawnee flown into brand-new T-hangars with paved floors and electric doors—and credits Spencer Annear, Jim Kellett, and Kevin Fleet for the lease negotiations, with Dave Brunner (Class of 1998) coordinating the physical move. The issue also carries a deeply moving first-person essay by John D. Lewis, who recounts how his grandfather's World War I stories of flying Caproni bombers with LaGuardia's squadron over the Italian front, and a harrowing first crossing of the Alps in a powered aircraft, planted the seed that led Lewis to the cockpit decades later. Bill Vickland begins a two-part chronicle of his 1986 Diamond Distance flight—317 miles in eight hours in a Schweizer 1-26 along the Massanutten and Blue Ridge ridgelines—narrating near-misses at Mt. Jackson, a 70-knot ridge-top race, and a tense turn-point photo at the Fort Ritchie microwave tower. The newsletter also reports the passing of soaring pioneer Peter Riedel at age 93, announces a new no-cost family membership policy, and invites members to the annual Christmas potluck at the Buells' home in Herndon on December 12.
The January 1999 issue of Skylines captures Skyline Soaring Club in full transition to its new home at Front Royal (FRR), with a flurry of practical activity to get the season started. Club president Joe Rees designates Kevin Fleet as the single point of contact for all hangar and FBO matters, while Bob Michael lays out a preliminary operations plan built around right-hand patterns on Runway 27 and a pond to the northwest as a downwind entry point. The urgent work of making the fleet airworthy dominates the issue: the Pawnee towplane is in Burlington for engine work, a cracked exhaust manifold, a mandatory spinner, and a mysterious six-to-eight-foot rip in the fuselage fabric, while Bill Vickland leads a multi-day volunteer effort to strip, re-cover, and repaint the 22-year-old Miss Daisy glider from the ground up. Dave Brunner earns a well-deserved 'Rookie of the Year' nod for going from first flight in July to a private pilot license by December 6, all while organizing a member syndicate to acquire a 1-26. Jim Kellett issues an enthusiastic call for members to attend the February SSA Convention in Knoxville, complete with hotel recommendations and a running list of personalities to seek out on the exposition floor. The issue also carries the annual membership meeting notice for January 30, a practical battery-care guide from Brunner, and a small but delightful note that member Linn Buell has become an internationally published author with a pen-and-ink illustration of the club's 1-26 in the Italian gliding magazine Vola a Vela.
The February 1999 issue of Skylines documents the club's 1999 Annual Membership Meeting (held January 30 at Warren County/Front Royal Airport) and captures a pivotal moment in the club's history. President Joe Rees reports an outstanding 1998 season: the club successfully relocated from 8W2 to FRR, overhauled its towplane for over $22,000, approved a new Tost tow rope reel for improved safety, and holds roughly $28,000 in liquid assets. Active membership hit an all-time high of 57. The emotional centerpiece is Linda Hiller's moving first-person account of her 17-year-old son Blake, a Gogos Scholar, who soloed in just 24 flights at Carson Valley, Nevada, and circled the family's house in a motorless sailplane. Bela Gogos, a Hungarian immigrant, had endowed a $50,000 scholarship program for young aspiring glider pilots that year. The issue also covers new three-year board terms with a six-year service limit, the charter-member loan payback plan, revised Duty Officer procedures for the busier FRR field, the restoration of the club's 2-33 sailplane, Gary Shepherd's vivid report of ridge flying and aerobatic Fox flights at the London Gliding Club in Dunstable, England, and enthusiastic planning for the club's group trip to the 1999 Soaring Society convention in Knoxville, Tennessee.
The March 1999 issue of Skylines captures the Skyline Soaring Club at a pivotal crossroads. Editor Phil Jordan opens with a wry lament over a bone-chilling February before pivoting to the real story: the club is launching a new season at Front Royal Airport with a dramatically upgraded fleet, including an extensively overhauled 2-33, a renovated K-21, a Pawnee with a new engine, a brand-new LS-4, and a group-purchased 1-26. A full slate of new operating procedures is being hammered out by a team of dedicated members, and an Open House on April 3 (rain date April 10) invites neighboring pilots at Front Royal for a 15-minute glider ride at the price of a tow. The issue also carries a vivid, multi-page dispatch from Dave Brunner's first SSA Convention, where he marveled at an 88-foot ASW 22, watched a Ventus pilot slice off a wing and plow through a fence into a parked Mercedes, and debated whether 32-bit processors should be telling pilots how to center a thermal. Rounding out the issue: a detailed four-session Cross Country Training course with Jim Garrison, a welcome to new member and retired airline captain William H. Bentley, a call for duty preferences, a wave camp update, and a delightfully absurd anecdote about a pilot who walked a blind passenger's Seeing Eye dog off the plane in Sacramento while the man stayed seated.
Skyline Soaring Club's April 1999 issue marks the club's first spring at its new Front Royal (FRR) field, with an Open House, a mandatory safety meeting, and the launch of an 18-pilot Cross Country Course all scheduled for early April. The centerpiece is Dave Brunner's gripping first-person account of his maiden solo wave flight at Petersburg, West Virginia, where he spent seven and a half hours in a 1-26 sailplane, battling a violent tow, a dislodged oxygen mask, a frozen water bottle, and a cockpit at minus 10 degrees to claw his way to 19,000 feet and earn a Diamond altitude badge. The Wave Camp at Grant County Airport produced five Diamond and Gold altitude flights in 1-26s, with Ron Schwarz and Bob Templin becoming the fourth and fifth pilots east of the Mississippi to collect all three Diamonds in the type. Other highlights include a safety advisory on sharing the Massanutten Ridge with hang glider pilots, a detailed crosswind takeoff-and-landing guide for the new paved runway, Bela's remarkable recovery from carotid-artery surgery and a new pacemaker-defibrillator, the Board's plans for a club hangar and a cooperative arrangement with the Virginia Civil Air Patrol, and Malcolm Gardner and Ed Lehr's decision to partner on a Russian AC-4 sailplane.
The May 1999 issue of Skylines is a busy one for the Skyline Soaring Club at its new Front Royal, Virginia home. The standout story is the Vice President's Earth Day visit to Dickey Ridge, which brought dozens of vans, Secret Service agents, and three helicopters to the small field — and left a Sprint technician installing the club's new phone line swarmed and turned away by federal agents. The club also announces a new $100 Ridge Race challenge, sponsored by the Massanutten Silver Mining Company, awarding the first pilot to complete a documented ridge flight between Signal Knob and the Ski Area within CH96-handicapped time limits. Maintenance Officer Bill Vickland gives notice of his departure for Albania, California, and the 1-26 Championships, leaving detailed instructions for Pawnee oil-analysis procedures and tire rotation. Malcolm Gardner lays out the club's reasoned decision to purchase a new Russian AC-4c sailplane with retractable gear and a ballistic recovery system, expected to arrive by summer. Other highlights include the club's first Open House at FRR (featuring a crosswind landing that put an indelible grin on a New Jersey visitor's face), the completion of Miss Daisy's full restoration, a thought-provoking essay on what makes a good soaring pilot, safety reminders about proper scanning (the dreaded "Salmon Slip"), and the Vintage Sailplane Association's Eastern Regatta over Memorial Day weekend.
The June 1999 issue of Skylines opens with a sobering report of a fatal mid-air collision at Philadelphia Glider Council on May 1, in which a Cessna L-19 tow plane and a Grob 103 glider collided at roughly 1,500 feet, killing the tow pilot and both glider occupants. The report, issued by PGC's Bob Lacovara, asks the community to avoid speculation while the NTSB investigates. In the lead editorial, Chief Flight Instructor Jim Kellett draws a pointed parallel between auto-safety reform and soaring safety, arguing that pilots at every level need what he calls 'practice in disaster'—deliberate, controlled exposure to dangerous situations so they can recognize and recover from them. The issue also features vivid member profiles of Dick Otis, a former Navy P-3 Orion pilot whose first Cessna was destroyed in a Virginia tornado, and Bill Bentley, a Pan Am and Delta veteran who spent two years designing ordnance at China Lake before turning to soaring instruction. Dave Brunner recounts his 101st flight, a Silver Distance cross-country along the Virginia ridge that ended in a first-ever landout in a freshly tilled cornfield, complete with a helpful farmer's mother offering to help push the glider down the track. Operational news includes a reduction of scheduled weekday flying to Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday for much of the season due to a persistent tow-pilot shortage, and a strongly worded parking reminder from Kellett. The issue closes with congratulations to Gary Shepherd and Mike Cordova on their badge and Silver/Gold flights, and a proposal to acquire a L-23 Super Blanik for the club fleet.
This July 1999 issue of Skylines captures a club in full stride at its new Front Royal home, packed with stories that range from the sublime to the harrowing. Chief Flight Instructor Jim Kellett issues a pointed safety warning after a USAir jet passed within a mile of his nose, using the near-miss to hammer home the case for constant scanning and attitude flying. The club's first joint Skyline/CAP flying event saw seven cadets—five of them first-time glider pilots—reach 2,000 feet in ASK and 2-33 sailplanes. In the 'Gogos Scholar' letter, Dillon Krapes recounts a transformative two weeks in Minden, Nevada, including a 300-kilometer cross-country and three days of wave soaring that carried him to nearly 30,000 feet. Bob Collier's 'Saturday Morning Fever' chronicles a cross-country that turned into a dramatic near-crash recovery when a violent thermal hit him at 1,300 feet, jolting the wings and forcing a scramble back to 6,000 feet before a safe landing. Richard Freytag's 'Molasses Prices Go Up!' tells of a silver-distance attempt that ended in a landout in a three-inch sorghum field near Boyce, Virginia, followed by an evening of door-knocking, a conversation with a dressage trainer's grandmother, and a trailer-shoehorning operation in soft dirt. The issue also records Dave Brunner's Silver Badge (a 5-hour, 2-minute flight), Serge Kohudic's confirmed Silver leg, the club's first-year reflections, the tragic death of 1997 U.S. glider champion Clem Bowman in a crash near Minden-Tahoe, and a steady stream of new members, graduations, and community notes that underscore a club growing rapidly around its new canyon-site home.
The August 1999 issue of Skylines opens with the devastating news of the July 13 deaths of former FAA Administrator and Smithsonian Air & Space Museum director Donald D. Engen and soaring pioneer William S. Ivans, killed when their Nimbus-4DM motorglider crashed in the Nevada desert near Minden. The club convened a Safety Committee to investigate, while member Greg Ellis penned a reflective piece on the risks and rewards of soaring in the wake of the tragedy. The issue also carries extensive Board Meeting minutes covering a new membership-management system, a proposed rotating "Dial-A-Plane" hangar, the election of Gary Shepherd as Treasurer, and publicity efforts timed to the release of the film *The Thomas Crown Affair*. Other highlights include Greg Ellis's thrilling five-hour Silver duration flight over the Shenandoah Valley, a safety bulletin on the Pilot-in-Command's sole responsibility for a safe landing, a special Friday fly-in for Joe Parrish's University of Maryland project team, and a roundup of the club's growing media presence in the Washington Post, local papers, and a PBS *Life of Birds* segment filmed in a Schweizer 2-32.
A dramatic ridge-riding account takes center stage as a pilot, running the Shenandoah ridge on a hot, humid August day, watches the lift die and his altitude bleed to 2,200 feet with the field hopelessly out of reach—only to find salvation in a single thermal off a sunlit rock face, climbing to 5,300 feet just as the sky closes in behind him. The issue also carries a vivid report from the 1999 1-26 Championship at Hobbs, New Mexico, where first-timer Jayne Reed of Bermuda High Soaring finished seventh overall and the aging 1-26 fleet proved its enduring value for cross-country training. Club members debate the implications of soaring's sudden surge in national publicity—National Geographic Traveler and USA Today among the recent visitors—against a backdrop of rapid membership growth and a growing shortage of tow pilots and club equipment. Rounding out the issue: Ed Lehr's entertaining checkride narrative at Bermuda High, a humorous Keystone-Kops retrieval story, lighthearted tales of cows and doped fabric, the full agenda for the Richard duPont Memorial Soaring Meet at Eagle's Nest in mid-September, and a note that the August issue of Soaring magazine features nine Skyline Soaring Club accomplishments, including new Silver Badges for Bob Michael and Dave Brunner.
Skyline Soaring's October 1999 issue celebrates a rapid expansion of the member-owned fleet to fifteen gliders, including a one-of-a-kind Schreder RHJ-7, a fourth 1-26, and an HP-18 en route from California. The issue features a vivid account of a homemade electromagnetic coil—built from a WW2-era transformer and two thousand feet of wire—successfully de-gaussing the stubborn compass on the club's 081 glider, which had been pointing exclusively east for months. In the 'Above and Beyond' column, Jim Kellett and Kevin Fleet describe the near-impossible feat of rolling a fully assembled glider into the hangar during the driving rain of Floyd, with centimeters to spare. Board minutes detail a favorable response from the Front Royal Airport Commission to the club's hangar-expansion request, a decision to outsource towplane maintenance to Muia Aviation, and safety recommendations following a July 17 towplane incident. The issue also profiles member Serge Kohudic, a retired USAir captain with 28 years of airline service, and welcomes new members Tim Lewis, Scott Stevens, and David Dawood, who soloed in a glider on September 24. A free Chuck Yeager lecture at the National Air and Space Museum on October 14 rounds out the issue.
Bill Vickland, serving as a USAID/OFDA Shelter Specialist, files a vivid first-person account of post-war Kosovo, describing the devastation of 77,000 damaged homes, the resilience of a largely secular Albanian population, and the surreal sight of a motorized hang glider launching off the end of Prishtina's runway. Back at home, the Massanutten Ridge delivered a spectacular season: Dave Brunner logged a wave flight to 7,800 feet complete with in-flight snowfall, icing, and violent turbulence; Bill Bentley sketched his first ridge run in an SGS 1-26 and landed out two miles short of the field; and Serg Kohudic's ridge attempt ended in a farm field surrounded by grazing cattle. A sobering safety article urges all pilots to perform daily preflight positive control checks in the wake of a fatal assembly-related accident at the 15M Nationals. The issue also carries congratulations for several new solo pilots, an announcement of a half-ownership sale of the club's Sprite, and a call for members to attend the 27th Annual Ralph Stanton Barnaby Lecture featuring Paul Schweizer and a private tour of the Smithsonian's Garber Facility.
The December 1999 issue of Skylines is dominated by a pair of extraordinary ridge flights on consecutive days in early November. Kevin Fleet's 5-hour-42-minute sortie on November 7—Silver Distance, Silver Altitude, Gold Altitude, and Duration in a single flight—unfolds in vivid first-person detail: a 300-foot dive to notch the baro, a 14,000-foot ceiling, progressive wingovers to shed cold, a mid-flight hypoxia quiz delivered over the radio by crewman Bob Michael, and a 40-minute spoiler descent that still felt too fast. Kolie Lombard's Silver Distance flight the day before sparks a spirited club debate over a new travelling trophy, the proposed 'Signal Knob Massanutten Trophy,' complete with a heated (and editor-annotated) argument about handicapping glass ships. Greg Ellis contributes a white-knuckle account of a 20-to-30-mph headwind landing in which the windsocks pointed in opposite directions and the glider touched down opposite the taxiway. The issue also covers the club's marathon six-hour board meeting (new Chief Towpilot Bill Bentley, hangar negotiations, the January 29 annual meeting), a two-part wave and meteorology seminar at CassAviation, first solos for Bob Downin and 14-year-old Erich Carter, the arrival of a new Russia AC-4, a Smithsonian Paul Garber Facility tour following the Ralph Stanton Barnaby Lecture, and the welcome of returning pilot Judah Milgram, a CFI-G with 400-plus glider hours.
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| Newsletter Archive 1999 | 0 |
(1 week, 5 days ago) |
Public |