Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Weekend report June 21 - 22

Another terrific weekend for the club!

We expanded our operational footprint to three airports in two states, accomplished some good flight instruction, welcomed back an old member, and racked up over 3000 OLC kilometers.

Saturday started out with a quick trip in the Cub to Springfield by Kevin and Rick to help Dennis assemble his glider. When we left him, he was still looking for a towpilot. Fortunately, he found one later in the day and had a short practice flight. Afterwards, he was able to hangar the glider in preparation for further flying on Sunday.

Back at Post Mills, the conditions were good enough to get up and get away for one long (T8) and several medium sized (ZP, BA, EA, JS, S1, RU, PM) cross-country flights.

Two of those flights did not quite make it back to Post Mills. Greg and his guest Mike flogged the Blanik up to Franconia and landed at Dean on the way home. Andy Lawrence must have decided they needed company, and he landed there, too. In an uncharacteristic display of efficiency, the club leapt into action and executed two simultaneous retrieves, getting everyone home in time for the cookout (it didn't hurt that this was the longest day of the year).

The cookout was well attended:
Andy, Andy, Bill, Dan, Ella, Evan, Karl, Keith, Greg, Mary, Mike, Mike, Moshe, Paul, Peter, Petey, Rich, Rick, Sue, Sue, and Sue
and the only complaint was that we ran out of food again. Perhaps we should be better organized, who knows?

The flying on Sunday was even better. Iron Man (T8) was the first to take off, and the last to land. In seven and a half hours, Evan flew 600 kilometers, which is an all-time distance record for flights out of our humble airfield. Congratulations, Evan!

A 600 kilometer bow tie
Moshe (RU) took a 300 km trip that included the far side of the Green Mountains, an area gliders don't normally visit. Thomas (ZP), Greg (JD) and Dan (EA) chased each other around a quadrilateral with vertices at Mount Hunger, Burke Mountain, Mount Washington, and Post Mills.

Sonny (LT) flew our stock 100 km FAI Triangle (Post Mills, Harvey's Lake, Dean) and was happy to get home after a low save over Mallory Farm, a place with which he is familiar.

Skip (JS), who took off exactly 3 hours after Evan, flew a somewhat smaller bow tie course which included a low save at Dean. Andy (PM), and Doug (PM) combined to put another 200 km on the 304's odometer.

The local guys had a good time too. Henry explored the area in 3J for 2 hours. Dakai made his first flight as sole manipulator of the controls and kept the 2-33 in the air for an hour. Karl flew the Blanik three times, including an introductory ride for Matt Hausler, and an end-of-day flight with Lane that went to 7300 feet. Tim and Christina went for a short flight and took that great picture of Lake Morey and the river.

We were very happy to see Carl Hausler on the field again after a long absence. Although he didn't actually get in the air this weekend, he has told us that he wants to become active again. Welcome back, Carl!

The weekend ended the way it began, with a trip to Springfield (this time in the Champ) to see Dennis (DC), who had another nice flight in the Ventus.

That's it.  A very successful weekend with lots of happy pilots. Thanks to Doug and Andy for towing, and to Bill for instructing both days.


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