In addition to Saturday’s safety briefing, cleaning, and assembly, some members committed some soaring:

• Paul H. had a spring checkout with Jerry along with a nice thermal to 5,000′.
• Greg H. had his spring checkout with Charlie
• Jerry and Bob M. took a little cross country flight down towards Monadnock at 8,700′
• Walter took up a prospective member.

The season has officially started and spring conditions are good!

Good turn out for this mornings Spring Safety Seminar.  As requested here is a link to this years presentations : 2018 Safety Seminar Presentations

After lunch two work groups tackled (i) assembling and lubricating the 2-33.  Jerry Smith then did the test flight.  (ii) washing and waxing the 1-26 and delivering it to the maintenance shop for its annual inspection. Hopefully ready to go next weekend.

So the 2018 season is off and running and it’s time to schedule your Spring club check ride.  The instruction sign-up sheep can be found here.

See you at the airport!

Former NESA member, 2 Lt Katie Brechbuhl, soloed her first high performance USAF turbo prop T-6 at Columbus AFB, MS. Congrats, Katie!

Saturday 4/21/2018 @ 10am, FBO Building

Agenda so far is as follows:

• Spring , Currency & Proficiency (Bill)
• Airport & Ground Operations (Colin)
• Operational Changes for 2018 (Jerry)
• Towing Procedures & Signals (Walter)
• Professionalism and Safety 14CFR 91.103 (Jerry)
• Scheduling of Student pre-season reviews;
• Open Forum;

The 2-33 fuselage and wings went to the Skunkworks early December and were back at Springfield before the end of the year.  Thanks to the CAP for loaning us their trailer for to make this happen.

The fuselage looks good and has been primed ready for the second half of the project – recovering!.  All covering materials have been purchased.  Bill has already constructed a  fuselage ‘rotisserie’ and begun inspecting the wheel, cables etc. to determine what if anything we should replace prior to recover.

We will be reaching out for volunteers as needed to assist with the recovering etc. which will be a good winter club project and a great chance to help out the club and to  learn about fabric work etc.  Thanks in advance to all involved.

Alasdair

On Wednesday, Larry, Alasdair and Walter displayed a glider on the green at Woodstock during the weekly farmers market.  Several flyers were handed to interested market goers who will with any luck tell their friends too.  Hopefully we will see a few rides or even pick up a new member.

P.S. Walter is trying to organize another round next Wednesday and is looking for a volunteer to display their glider.  If you can help out please let Walter know.

NESA will be displaying a glider at the Woodstock farmers market on the green in Woodstock Wednesday afternoon (2pm – 6pm).  Stop by and say hello and help us do a little recruiting.

Not the greatest weather weekend, but despite that we had some activity and on Sunday we also put the 1-34 together after its annual inspection.  All controls are nicely lubricated and moving freely.  So, all club ships are on-line and ready to fly.  Come out and fly them.

Regrettably we have to postpone the picnic previously scheduled for Saturday 5/27, as our picnic staff will be unavailable. The grill will be available for use, but we won’t be able to host anything formal. Look for updates to follow shortly with revised date in June.

A great start to the club season today following yesterdays Spring Safety Seminar and Assembly Day..

• Several Spring Check-rides completed, including Paul Happ, Greg Hunter and Mackenzie Campbell;
• Soaring conditions were good but blue and several glass-ships flew good long flights including IC, B9, VOL and i1;
• The new (to us) blue 2-33 was test flown by Jerry and Walter and flew nicely so both trainers are now on-line for the season;

The forecast is good for tomorrow (Monday) and a few folks plan to take advantage of that and fly.  No spring check rides tomorrow though.

Hope to see more of you at the airport soon.  It’s time to get flying.