Newsletter Archive 1997

1997

January 1997

Five Years, 13,000 Flights, Zero Accidents: Skyline Soaring Club Marks a Milestone and Sets Sights on the Petersburg Wave

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.

March 1997

Above the Rotor: Wave Soaring Steals the Show as Pilots Pierce the Cloud Deck and a Clubmate Sails for Midway

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

April 1997

14,500 Feet, 107 Knots, and a Cornfield: Skyline Pilots Ride the Ridge and Test the Limits

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.

June 1997

Skyline Soaring Grows a Giant 'Organic Mona Lisa' on the Runway While Launching Its First Cross Country Course

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

Smithsonian Spotlight, a 20-Stamp Set, and 180 Miles of Hard-Learned Lessons: Skyline Members Make Their Mark Beyond the Field

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.

August 1997

B-2 Steals the Spotlight from a Waco Glider at Dayton, but the CG-4A's Secret War Story Still Soars

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.

September 1997

Cattle, Rain, and a Locked Gate: A 1-26 Pilot's Dramatic Texas Land-Out Steals the Show at World Championships

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

The Pilot Who Saved Sarajevo's Water and Vanished in Chechnya: Fred Cuny's Story Reaches PBS as Skyline Pilots Rally Around a Soaring Legend

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.

November 1997

Thursday Tows Double the Fun, 1-26 Pilots Preach the Gospel of the Small Bird, and the Hangar Itself May Be for Sale

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.