Wait, that didn't come out exactly right. Stick with me for a minute.

The careful and methodical way in which Dave Dawood and Jim McCulley evaluated and ultimately diagnosed the fuel mixture problem with the Pawnee was a testament to the experience and commitment of our members. Although it meant an end to our revenue to the weekend, the decision to ground the ship was the right one. It is representative of the culture of safety that we cherish. After this, Dave and Jim spent the rest of the day arranging for the repair to the problem, and the fix should be in place later this week.

Earlier this week, Bob Collier and Bill Vickland spent an entire day trying to complete the task of balancing our books. This is an ongoing task, and these guys have been chipping away at it for several months.

Did I mention that Bill Bentley and Glenn Baumgartner were out working on the Pawnee antenna for several hours a few weeks before? They did this to improve communication between the tow plane and the towed glider. Another vexing problem that has required multiple passes and many hours.

None of us is paid in any currency other than good karma, and I am grateful that these members are so committed to our club.

Having said that-and knowing that there remain an infinite number of similar stories of heralded and unheralded good deeds on the part of our members-I'd like to ask each of you to think about their own personal commitment to the club. Does it match the return that you are receiving in tows, rental aircraft availability, free instruction, etc.? If so, great. The club is working for you and you are working for the club. If not, perhaps there is something that you can do to increase your contribution.

Only a few of our positions require flying experience, so even the newest student member is capable of contributing. I'm sure that any of our officers (AKA "weenies") would appreciate an offer of assistance, which may evolve into an apprenticeship toward taking over the position when the current officer is ready to retire. I don't think that any of our officers is jealously guarding their position, so the offer of assistance should be warmly accepted. We have more officers than the Pentagon-battery, tow car maintenance, social, aircraft maintenance, treasurer, membership, etc., etc., etc. There really is something for everyone.

We've been very fortunate to have dedicated and capable members handling these important positions. We have a tradition of providing services with internal resources. Let's keep the tradition alive and growing.

See you at the field.
-- Joe Parrish

Your intrepid scribbler was very pleased to find that its actually closer to M-ASA, Fairfield than FRR from his home. That has made it a cinch to join Fred Mueller, Dave Weaver, and Fred Winter as a part of the SSC contingent at the Region 4 North, 15M, Standard, and Sports class contest. If you are even remotely interested in learning more about what it means to leave the home field behind I strongly recommend a long retrieve with a pilot that has flown a tough day. But more on that in a moment.

Fred Mueller has been flying his first contest in "RM", an LS-3a, while Dave Weaver is returning to contest flying in "1FW", an LS-4. Both are flying Sports class. At the time of this writing only two scheduled days have passed, with the first being drizzled out. Today, Memorial Day, was a contest day and looked pretty good at times. However, the best pilots found it very challenging. The other pilots landed out. Out of the field of 40 ships, there were at least 8 re-launches (some came back for a second and one a third re-launch). Only about 14 ships made it around the course and finished. I'm glad to tell you that both Fred M. & Dave W. left the home field behind. Sadly, they were in the majority, and landed out. All is well and they will both fly tomorrow.

The long retrieve was to pick up "UH", a ASW-27. Yeah, this was a tough day. This fellow, Charlie S., managed to get over 70 miles away and put two upwind ridges between himself and M-ASA before running for home. He landed 50 miles out in 2.5' of clover. Not good. It looked like his ship was sitting in a wet sponge. You could see the half-circle his wing tip cut in the vegetation as he ground-looped. No damage but for some very impressive grass stains on the outside wing.

As for the conversation, it was worth the 3 hour retrieve to hear a comparative description of every ground-loop an experienced pilot has had. You don't have to fly to learn at a contest.
-- Richard Freytag

Richard called tonight (Tuesday) and reported that Dave Weaver finished 3rd yesterday and is in 2nd today. Fred Mueller also finished the 114 mile task today on a very scratchy day. Complete report to come.

PT3 Revisited. When a drill is not a drill.
My first off-field landing.

Had an interesting learning experience at the glider field recently. First flight with a new, to me, instructor. (By the way, I had not flown in almost two months, my longest flightless period to date). Made a nice take-off in with little or no wind in smooth early morning air. Made the appropriate callouts, "straight ahead", and had just called "over the fence to the right". Looking for the next callout at 200... when at about 150 feet we get the wing rock from the towplane. "He's rocking us off!" I say. The voice in back says "He sure is", "you know what that means".

"I'm getting off!" I pull the release. As we're gliding toward the pasture, the voice says "watch for the bushes at the end", so I dump in more spoilers to steepen our approach and complete my first off-field landing with a bit of a bump and plenty of room to spare.

Of course the whole thing took less time than it takes to read this.

My comment upon stopping and getting out was to note that I didn't know that pre-Private Pilot Checkout students got this realistic treatment whereupon the instructor informed me this was not a planned PT3. The tow plane flew off and around as usual.

Whatever we interpreted as a wing rocking was not. The air was pretty smooth, but if the towplane hit a low level thermal we sure didn't feel it. And it sure looked like the real deal to both of us in the glider. Better safe than sorry.

Who's to know how crisp the wing rocking is going to be if the tow pilot has a real emergency? Will you notice the ailerons moving? Will he cut you loose? None of us want emergencies but I hope all my emergencies turn out like this.

Another towplane launched the glider back over the fence while I watched. Our next flight was uneventful.

Lessons Learned.
-- Byron Lowry

John Roake of the IGC writes in the current "Gliding and Motorgliding International" that there are 5660 gliders and motorgliders registered in the United States. This works out at one sailplane for every 2.37 club members. In New Zealand the ratio is one sailplane for every 2.63 members. In Australia the ratio is 2.76.

In the Skyline Soaring Club, there are 24 gliders for 63 members, or one for every 2.63 members; one each ASK-21, Ka-7, SGS 2-33, SGS 1-36, ASW-20, ASW-19, PW-5, LS-4, LS-3, LS-1, LAK-12, Russia AC-4, Blanik L-33, HP-11, HP-18, RS-15, Cirrus, Libelle, and SIX 1-26s. There are also five airplanes owned by the Club and/or its members.
-- Jim Kellett

Sometimes the best detective stories have an innocent enough beginning, and this one began with a tow-pilot (who shall remain nameless) pulling the mic plug out of the radio by the wires... the wires came out, the plug didn't, nice one Judah.. oops, sorry about that, just kinda slipped out (as the actress said to the Bishop).

Now this was interesting... when I came to remove the plastic cover from the mic plug, I couldn't, which is unusual-they normally come right apart. Closer inspection of the plastic revealed two small 'blisters' or bumps about 3mm across and.5mm* tall at the base of the plug, odd. Well, with nothing to loose I took a pipe wrench to hold the brass stem (which had been bent and was fractured anyway) and with all my might (see what working out will do) and a nasty crunching, sound the cover released and the mystery unravelled a little more.

One of the two wire retaining screws had worked loose and had fallen to the bottom of the inside of the plug. There, somehow, the screw had found enough voltage to draw enough current to get hot enough to embed itself in the plastic cover and "locking" the body to the plastic! Ah-ha! A Eureka moment, could this be the reason the radio sounded so crappy... possibly. I took the whole impedance matching unit out of the Pawnee and took the plug off of a spare (working) mic that I had and re-did the connector, not as nicely as I wanted, but functional, replaced said unit in Pawnee with new cable ties etc and we had a working mic.

All for the want of a screw... what bothers me is where did it find enough current to get hot enough to melt some extremely hard plastic? As for Judah, well I guess we should thank him for yanking the wires out... hmmm. Oops, didn't I say I wasn't going to mention who the towpilot was?

Anyways, it should work until we have another loose screw. (Screw Loose?) Judah has a spare mic plug to replace the one I used, and hey "It's an ill wind indeed that blows nobody any good"

(*For the metric challenged (esp NASA) amongst you, that's 1/12" x 2/10" or about the size of an average zit (euk)...)
-- Dave Brunner

Landing out is fun and exhilarating. Fred Winter and I started the day (Thursday, 5/24) with an attempt to Team-Fly to New Castle. As it turned out, the weather to the S.W. was becoming marginal including a headwind. The thermals were tight and erratic. After a couple hours of touring, Fred reported good lift over the truck scales on US 81 about 10 miles downwind of the airport. The winds were S.S.E. at 15. So off I go to find some of that lift. By the time I arrived, high cirrus moved in to block the Sun. You can see where that got me. Many thanks to The Crew; Stan "The Crew Chief" Pawlowski, Fred Winter and Richard Freytag. The photo is looking S.E towards Signal Knob. The hay was 20" to 28" tall, which made for a soft landing. By the way, the farm manager was great and the cows were friendly.
-- Shane Neitzey

Please, please, please. When putting the 2-33 away, lift the tail in close to the fuselage and walk the tail into the hangar. All that rubber on the floor is where the tailwheel went, and the forces being applied to move it around may have contributed to the the failure of the bracket.

Not as serious, the skid is going to wear out on the asphalt, but we can slow the deterioration by braking and holding the nose off the ground. That of course wears out the brake. Or we can taxi onto the grass before dropping the nose (experienced pilots only). What the hell. Take your choice. Skid plates are cheaper.
-- Bill Vickland

Recently I observed a student flying the Sprite making a long sweeping turn from Base to Final. When I commented about this, one of my fellow vultures stated that "as long as they keep their airspeed up, it's OK."

It is too easy to let the airspeed get low on these shallow banked, long duration turns, while concentrating on the landing point. It is tempting to help line up with the runway by pushing just a little inside rudder with that slow rate of turn.

It would be nice to send students up with an instructor and have them experience feeling the controls while they fly a shallow banked, too slow airspeed turn and pushing inside rudder as the inside wing falls without any warning and they start spiraling down.

We will loose more than our safety record if we ever have to say of a former student that they only spent a small fraction of their total flight time in that final spin.
-- Bill Bentley

Anyone should be cautious buying a used aircraft. Lie ns, AD's, damage history, NDH "no damage history". I like NDH, that means there may have been damage but no paperwork to prove it. Many people feel they are competent enough to decide what is safe to alter or repair on an aircraft without the proper maintenance procedures. Who are they? What did they do? Answer; Try to find out. Maintenance/alteration issues can be a problem with any used aircraft. However, the older the craft, the more likely something has been changed and is no longer standard. Do a title search, have a licensed mechanic check the craft and logbooks, do a new weight and balance, assemble/disassemble and test fly it. The glider should behave normally through all airspeeds up to and including redline. Is it over gross? Aft CG beyond limits? Some pilots add lead to the tail to increase performance. Do you have to hold full left aileron to maintain wings level at redline?

There are many well maintained ships for sale, and a few not so well. Do your homework. Be an educated consumer. Schweizer gliders are world renowned for their rugged safety history. 2-33's and 1-26's are at the top of that list. Very few gliders can be landed as accurately and stop in so short a distance as these.

I end in saying, "I am willing to fly the oldest Schweizer aircraft if I have confidence in its maintenance history." As a CFI, I strongly recommend a 1-26 as a first glider. It is absolutely the best cross county trainer available. And a hell of a lot of fun too. P.S. 50/1 drivers have there own challenges.
-- Shane Neitzey

For weeks on end we couldn't buy a drop of rain. We referred to our yard as "Sadam's Little Acre". During this period I am visited by The Mother of all Bronchial Infections. It lasted longer than Desert Storm. On 5/12 I finally get a checkride. Both my partners generously donate their days to me to restore skills long dormant.

Lamentations 5/19: In the hangar, Dave Weaver and his son are waxing the LS. Kit and Marty have left for the Mushroom Festival. (A testimonial to the entertainment level achievable in Mineral, I suppose.)

I sit on the porch of FRR and watch the clouds descend down the ridge until they obscure the Massanutten completely. Low scud passes through along with a pair of Mallards, all at the same altitude. A Killdeer is nesting just beyond 081 and a lone, wet Starling perches on the F-86 fin. Everything is quiet. Distant sounds of the FBO mowing grass on 09 drift past.

I open my lunch and worry something has happened to the dog as he doesn't appear out of the drippy ether to mooch left-overs. The top of the ridge appears and before one positive thought can surface, it disappears in cloud. It gets a bit brighter here and there only to gray again in a heartbeat.

I eat my lunch and count my blessings, high on the list is I can use all ten toes.

I give it up. Oh, well, "...a day at the airport..."

Lamentations 5/20: There's more company today along with the opportunity to learn and share. John Lewis and I lunch together on the porch of the office while Dave Weaver instructs a group inside. The weather?-worse than the day before-sort of an Englishman's idea of a drizzly, wet, rotten, IFR-scud-plagued-moss culture day. There's probably a Mushroom Festival going on under Tweety Bird's wings. I read where the Royal Marines are training at A.P. Hill. They should feel right at home.

One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. I give it up with far less reluctance than the day before.

Lamentations 5/26: Outside it is raining barrels on Sadam's Acre. What at first appears to be flowers on closer examination are plants waving little white flags. The weather report for Front Royal offers only the same possibilities it offered last Saturday. I am gripped with indecision and de ja vous. The committee in my head starts a debate. With a tempo reminiscent of a second glider debate, I judge the consensus to be: " stay at home and work on the newsletter".

I am not comfortable with the decision but, hey, it was a majority vote. That night Joe Parrish writes in part: "Did I mention that the weather was much, much better in the Valley than in the DC metro area? We were able to tow to 3000 AGL and the winds were benign. Pawnee issues aside, it would have been a great instructional day. There's a lesson there somewhere, summed up in Kellett's Law that the weather is always better at the gliderport."

He's right, there is a lesson there-somewhere!
-- Phil Jordan

• Temporarily Inactive- I will be leaving for the 1-26 meet in about two weeks and will return about June 30. I will be in town for only a few days before leaving for an unplanned and undetermined stay in California. A club member needs to step forward to pick up the Duties of the Maintenance Officer, probably through August, but possibly longer.
  -- Bill Vickland

• SPORT PILOT PROPOSAL MOVES ONE MORE SMALL STEP FORWARD- It's been a long and agonizing process, but the FAA's Sport Pilot proposal has passed one more milestone: "It's been signed by the Administrator," project manager Sue Gardner told the EAA on Tuesday. Blessed with Jane Garvey's John Hancock, the proposal moves on to the Department of Transportation, where it will be picked apart for 60 days before moving on to the federal budget office. The proposal would create new categories for airmen and aircraft, aimed at making it easier to learn to fly for fun.
  -- AVFlash

• Martin Simons' new book SAILPLANES, 1920-1945, has finally arrived. It is available from Raul Blacksten- raulb@earthlink.net

• On May 3rd, Geoff Hazelrigg finished his "C" badge. Congratulations, Geoff!

• The 2001 Region 12 Championships are going to be held in Tonopah, Nevada and the 2002 15 Meter Nationals will be held there as well. Tonopah is pretty much in the middle of NOWHERE, but the soaring is excellent. Naturally, there is a website. Part of the website is serious and part is pretty funny....

• For the serious stuff- http://www.imdata.com/ and click on the buttons that say Izuno1, Izuno2 and Izuno3.

  For the funny stuff- click on the button that says PEZ or go there straight away- http://www.imdata.com/pezpage.html See if you recognize some common sailplane pilot traits...
  -- Jim Garrison

• MONKEY BUSINESS NOT TOO PROFITABLE FOR SMUGGLER- Apparently baby monkeys are not too fond of being drugged, stuffed into a bag and forced to fly commercially-but, then, who is? An irate monkey escaped from a would-be smuggler's carry-on luggage during a Yemeni Airlines flight from San'a to Damascus, Syria, and fled into the cabin. Presumably-agile crew members were able to capture the monkey, but only after it had spread a small dose of hysteria among some pax. The flight then returned to San'a where the smuggler was arrested on charges of- well, smuggling-and endangering the safety of airline passengers.
  -- AvFlash

• RM collects metal- Congratulations to Fred Mueller for receiving his Gold Badge and to Richard Freytag on completing requirements for his Silver Badge. Richard flew his silver distance (and more, FRR to Eagles Nest, about a 100k) on May 6th, under overcast skies. He never got over 4500msl-a pretty impressive piece of X-country!

• Piet Barber is moving. (again) He writes:

  "I will be leaving my cramped apartment to live in my spacious, overpriced mansion that I absolutely can not afford, but the mortgage guy says I can (and I think he is lying).

  "(It's not really a mansion, but anything bigger than this apartment feels like one of those castles I visited in Europe)

  "My new address is: omitted

  "My phone and email remain the same."

  Piet also writes: "[I] Got LASIK surgery because I didn't want to buy another pair of glasses, after my daughter broke my indestructible FLEXON brand-name $400 glasses.

  "Results are pretty good. For a mere $1800 to repair both eyes, I'm a good 20/15 in both. It's nice to be able to read the license plates on the cars across the highway."

  (Not to mention spotting all those little things that look like hysterical ants scurrying all over the runway when you're on base. New house, new eyes-what's next Piet?)

  
  -- Piet Barber

• ASF RELEASES NEW COLLISION AVOIDANCE BOOKLET- The AOPA Air Safety Foundation has released a new Safety Advisor to supplement its acclaimed collision avoidance seminar. The booklet can also serve as a self-study course. The new 16-page publication, "Collision Avoidance: Strategies and Tactics," is illustrated with dramatic photographs and graphics. It includes concise information on the physiology of vision, points out when and where most midair collisions occur, and suggests techniques and resources for avoiding such accidents. To download it from AOPA Online, see ( http://www.aopa.org/asf/publications/sa15.pdf ).

• Chutes- So far, we have not had the funds available to purchase and maintain parachutes for all of the club aircraft. (It would be approx. $5-7K to outfit the five club ship seats, plus approx. $750 per year for repacks.)

  We are continually reassessing our available funds, and when the funds are available I expect we'll have a lively discussion on the best application of those funds-perhaps to other types of safety equipment such as transponders, etc. There are good arguments and lots of anecdotal evidence to support any position.

  There are some other issues, such as providing instruction on parachute use to persons who will wear them-including demo flights, guest rides, etc.

  None of these issues are insurmountable if we decide that we really want to do this.

  I guess my point is that we have not set a policy that says "no club parachutes". We just haven't had the funds to justify their purchase over several other high-priority items. (Towplane maintenance, glider refinish, etc.) I suspect this is the case in many other club and commercial operations in the US, where parachute use is not made mandatory by regulation.
  -- Joe Parrish

• Frankly, I still think Club dollars would be better spend on transponders than parachutes, given the airspace in which we operate... but I'm not going to get into that debate again until a reasonably priced unit becomes available
  -- Jim Kellett

• Fred Winter has uploaded bunches of images of the Region IV contest onto the website and I put a link to his pictures right on the opening front page.
  -- Piet Barber