Snowbird Contest – Thanksgiving weekend

A reminder that the annual Snowbird spot-landing contest up at Harris Hill (Elmira, NY), takes place the Friday and Saturday of the Thanksgiving weekend (29th/30th). Event ends with a banquet at the National Soaring Museum on Saturday evening. Here is a taster.

Alasdair and Andrea will be headed up.

Snowbird has been held annually since 1939. We fly the typical 2-33 and 1-26’s. Would be nice to have some NESA representation. If interested, get out and practice your spot landings and ask Alasdair for more information. Student Pilots welcome.

It’s a fun (if cold) way to wrap up the soaring season.

Labor Day Weekend Wrap up

A holiday weekend that actually had three full days of flying.

Saturday started overcast but allowed for plenty of good student flights. After flying we had a good turnout for the Labor Day weekend picnic.

Sunday was a decent soaring day with a mix of flights. Brian Bradnt (power pilot transition) made his first glider solo’s on Sunday. Congratulations Brian!

Monday was a good soaring days with a mix of instructional and XC flights. Several glass ships flew including B9 (Bob Iuliano), IC (Alasdair), RB (Taylor from GBSC) and R2 (Andy Kozak). John Watkins flew the 1-34. Most of them even came home 🙂

Nice to get a full three flyable days on a holiday weekend. Fun.

Membership Meeting & ACE Set up this weekend

A couple of reminders for this weekend:

  • NESA Membership meeting is this Sat 7/27, 10am
  • There are some ACE Academy prep tasks that we could use help with this weekend such as terminal classroom set-up, hangar workshop area set-up, cutting and kitting wood for the wing-rib build, cleaning up a few additional wing-rib jigs etc. More info at the morning meeting but help appreciated.

Some Great OLC flights recently:

Erik (424k): OLC Flight information – Erik Nelson (US) – 22.05.2024 (onlinecontest.org)

Andy (477k): OLC Flight information – Andy Kozak (US) – 26.05.2024 (onlinecontest.org)

Lee (322k): OLC Flight information – Charles Lee Blair (US) – 03.06.2024 (onlinecontest.org)

Or all 2024 OLC flights logged for KVSF for 2024: Flightbook – Hartness State (Spri (US) -2024 (onlinecontest.org)

Region 1 Club Standings: Statistic: Club OLC 2024 – USA (onlinecontest.org)

2024 ACE Academy Dates Set

This years ACE Academy (camp) will take place the week of Monday July 29th through Friday August 2nd.

A few organizational details to firm, but we expect to open up the application process within the next two weeks (we are updating the online applications process now).

NESA volunteers – please mark your calendars. More to follow soon.

Junior Scholarship Applications for 2024

https://www.ssa.org/soaring-scholarships/
There are numerous SSA junior scholarships available for 2024 ranging from the Discover Soaring scholarship to pre-solo and post-solo scholarships. Now is the time to review and work on your applications – the deadlines for most are March 31st.
The WSPA also has several scholarship opportunities. Most of these have deadlines of March 15.

AOPA also has a number of scholarship opportunities.

https://www.aopa.org/training-and-safety/students/aopa-flight-training-scholarships

Several NESA juniors have received SSA scholarship awards. While there is no guarantee, you definitely won’t receive one if you don’t apply. So, use the winter to put together an application or two.