We have a new 1-26 pilot! After successfully completing the 1-26 pre-solo written and a ground briefing/cockpit briefing, Colby made his first two 1-26 flights today. Looked rock solid on take-off and two nice spot-landings. Congrats Colby!

This just in from Bill Batesole…

Sunday 10/3 -The VSF weather stayed mostly dry with a high ceiling. Ben flew two flights in the 1-34. No problems. He did a great job in the glider.

Two nice flying days this weekend. Sat was a perfect calm training day but with some lift around. Sunday much breezier with a mix of thermal and wave soaring. Lots of activity in addition to the training flights with YZ, i1, 5E, B9, Q2, FE all having some good long flights. CAP orientation flights both days also.

Next weekend is October already, so time to come out and enjoy some good fall soaring.

The latest SMS Bulletin has been published summarizing safety lessons and reminders from recent events and submissions. Please take a read!

The SMS Bulletin library is located available here: SMS Bulletins

Well, it’s all over. Thanks to the many NESA, PMSC, GBSC, CAP and other volunteers who helped us pull of a sucessful week of fying and seminars. Hope everyone got lots of Wings credits!

Lot’s of great presenters and seminar topics – including Club Safety Culture, Mountain Wave Flying, Advanced X-C tecnique, EPIC flight stories, techniques for blue days to name a few. Presentations are available here.

A great team of instructors from NESA and GBSC and stellar XC mentors including Karl Striedieck, Roy Bourgeois, Rick Roelke and Kempton Izuno.

With the help of both the NESA and PMSC tugs we had 137 launches for the week (109 WSPA + 28 NESA) or 548 aircraft movements! Zero incidents and lots lots of folks getting to fly sailplane types new to them. We operated seven two seaters (2 x Duo Discus, 1 x Blanik L-23, 1 x K-21, 2 x SGS 2-33A and a PW-6U) plus many club and private single seaters. Bill even checked out several participants who got to fly in “003”, his 1-26 serial #3 which was assembled specially for the event.

The week finished out Friday night with a catered banquet held in one of the hangars.

Back to regular club flying next weekend – Sign up now!

As of Wednesday evening 80 flights had been made. Thursday looks to be a rain day with some prospect for soaring Friday.

A few pictures from the week so far:

While the official start to the WSPA seminar week is Monday morning, many event participants began arriving as early as Friday. Saturday weather had been forecast to be pretty darn good, and by noon, one of the gliders had been assembled and i1 was hooked up to the golf cart, when a line of storms heading towards the airport showed up on radar. It turned out that the front that was forecast to move through Friday night had slowed and was about to move through.

It was a good two and a half hours before the rain stopped and the skies began to clear, so Saturday was a washout.

Today made up for it. At 0900 skies were clear and it was warming towards the mid 70’s from an overnight low of 50F.

Bill and Alasdair’s hangars were already open, four tents and two RV campers had arrived overnight, along with more gliders in trailers. Civil Air Patrol was starting operations with two tow planes, three gliders and a dozen cadets for the first day of Glider Academy.

Before any NESA gliders launched, Loretta, Leslie, Philip and Felicity Sparks bicycled by the hangar and stopped to visit. The Sparks are previous NESA members, Philip and Felicity both soloing under Bill B’s tutelage. Felicity continues in her military career, first as an Army helicopter pilot, now flying A-10 Warthogs, and is based in Michigan…so many aviation stars in NESA history.

The first NESA launch was for Bill B to test fly the newly refurbished 2-33, N2041T. Bill has done his usual amazing restoration. It made several flights over the course of the day, and it seems the unanimous agreement is “It’s sooo quiet!” … and 20# lighter than N2042S !

The “nut behind the stick” (by his own admission) towing today was Bob I, CFI-G’s today were Bill B and Jerry, who flew with both club members and WSPA attendees wanting both orientation flights of the area and checkout flights to fly the NESA 1-26 or 1-34.

For most of the day, between CAP, NESA and WSPA attendees, it seemed a glider was launched about every ten minutes. I remember the airport busier only during the aerobatic contests. The weather couldn’t have been better and the winds were light except for an a half hour or so when a few gusts came up.

Ben Berg sent this PIREP:

“The NESA crew was all hands on deck today getting WSPA check flights done and continually launching gliders while merging with CAP traffic. And as a bonus, a lot of us got to fly! From above, in the club’s trusty 1-26, it brought a smile to my face looking down on both NESA 2-33’s and seeing them flying. Not the most booming soaring day, but many of us had hour+ flights, surely one to remember.”

All in all, a glorious day to spend with the community of soaring pilots. NESA is the host club for the WSPA event this week, so please volunteer if you’re able to lend a hand.

Still a newbie at this, I looked at the weather and thought to myself, “It’s gonna be a really nice day, but there’s hardly any wind forecast and the cloud bases are expected to be 4500′-5000′ ” OK, but not a “great” soaring day. Was I ever wrong…

Clear skies at 7 am with zero wind, arrived at the airport at 9:40 and met junior member Calvin. Alasdair (tow pilot) and Bill (instructor pilot) had already arrived, so flying got off to an early start. Calvin’s first few flights were expected to be a tow to pattern altitude for a quick release and landing…not much thermal activity expected that early in the morning. Surprisingly, they stayed aloft for nearly a half hour the first two flights, and an hour or more on their third.

By then, four club members had arrived and were in various stages of preflight prep, Andy was taking the club 1-34 off its tiedown, and Brian, Greg and Erik were pulling their gliders out of their trailers. Bill and Jerry were pulling i1 out of the hangar.

In all, there were twelve launches. Erik was aloft more than five hours, Greg and Brian a close 2nd and 3rd. Andy was 4th only because he had a delayed start. Bill reported climbing to 6900′ and Eric to 7,900′

Lots happening at the airport in the next several weeks…beginning next Saturday and for the following week, Civil Air Patrol is conducting a Glider Flight Academy. Prior Academies have drawn kids from across the US to fly at Springfield. This is a link to an excellent video from the Glider Academy a few years ago.

There’s a second CAP Glider Academy at Springfield the 16th to 20th of August that corresponds to NESA’s hosting the Women Pilot’s Soaring Association at Springfield on the same dates. It ought to be a busy week.

https://womensoaring.org/home/women-soaring-pilots-association-seminar-2021/

NESA will be operating normally throughout all the activities, and we’re looking for volunteers to help out the week of the WSPA seminar.

Bill, Ben and Alasdair all made a trip to Harris Hill for this years International Vintage Sailplane meet. Bill was in fact the organizer of this years event.

Here are a few of the sailplanes that were flying:

Bill flew his 1-26 “003”, Alasdair flew “002” (owned by Hank Nixon), Ben flew the K-13. A good time was had by all.

Q2, 5E, YZ, B9 rigging for some Father’s Day fun. All looking forward to a great day. One with no intention of landing back home.

A special fathers day for Greg Hunter. The plan – fly from VSF to Eagles nest where his daughter would meet him with his trailer for ground retrieve. All went to plan and a great little father/daughter adventure. Nice.