Weekend report May 24 - 26

Our long weekend started off rather slowly with a cool, cloudy Saturday. Paul and Sonny showed up to work on their gliders, and Evan made the long drive to Post Mills to tow. In the end, there was no flying. Dan and Greg made a fuel run, and Dennis spent the day getting more familiar with his glider and trailer. At the end of the day (just before we got the Ventus back into the trailer) we were soaked by a passing storm.

Sunday was a different story altogether. The day showed every indication of overdeveloping, with low fat cumulus clouds in all directions at ten o'clock in the morning. For reasons we don't understand, the air dried out, the clouds rose, and we got an outstanding soaring day with very little wind. The four horsemen (EA, JD, 2W, S1) galloped off together on a 260 km triangle with turnpoints at Lake Willoughby and Mount Washington. They flew the whole course as a team and arrived back home together at the end of the day. Moshe (RU) and Skip (JS) went their separate ways.

Back home, Sam accomplished his field checkout and then flew the 2-33 for an hour, reaching 8300 feet in the process. Henry took the 1-23 for a short flight and vowed to fix the variometer. Yay for that!

Moshe took this picture of the scene at the end of the day:

The only glider missing in this picture (besides the photographer's) is the Blanik. Dennis had a nice 2.5 hour flight, making a perfect landing at 6:15, thereby missing his chance to volunteer to help de-rig the other gliders.  Clever guy.

Evan, who had volunteered the night before to tow again, brought his glider just in case he wasn't needed. That didn't work out for him at all. He spent the whole day in the L-19 and didn't complain once. I like this club.

At one point during the day we met one of our neighbors. This guy came out of the woods by the creek, marched diagonally across the runway, and accosted Dennis. The neighbor, whose name is Andy, was not happy. Apparently he has been listening to airplane noise for 15 years and has decided he's had enough. He chose this weekend to tell us about it. Dennis has a lot of experience with public relations. He listened to Andy's complaint and politely asked him where his house was. Andy's reply was classic: "Ask your towpilot. He knows exactly where it is!" And stomped off.

Andy, if you're reading this, please get back in touch and tell us who you are and where you live. We promise to try to work out a solution with you.  We're sorry that nobody told you there was an airport here 15 years ago.

Once again, the weather changed dramatically overnight. Monday's leaden sky did not inspire any optimism. Nevertheless, Skip (JS) and Tim (PM) took off, struggled, and managed to connect with the elusive Post Mills Wave.  They made it to a respectable height (around 6000 feet) right over the field. It was fun to watch them flying together, standing still.

Henry and Andy Lawrence combined to fly the 1-23 four times, and they are now both volunteering to improve the instruments in that glider. Yay, again!

Our towpilot on Monday was Doug, who, like Evan, drives a long way to enable the rest of us to fly. Doug wants to get back into the 304. Let's help him do that.

Altogether, a good weekend with good weather, good flying, good stories, and good volunteerism.  The only thing NESA did better this weekend was dining. We'll do better in that category next weekend, I'm sure.