Congratulations to Steve Hurd for successfully completing his private glider check-ride at Estrella Sailport in AZ on December 9th. A well-earned achievement and a great way to round out the season somewhere warmer!

Nice job Steve.

Alasdair & Colby attended the annual Thanksgiving weekend “Snowbird” spot landing contest at Harris Hill this year. Needed another body or two to enter a NESA team so we flew for valley Soaring Club.

Friday was too windy to safely have a spot landing contest with winds ~18G27, however it was a spectacular ridge day. Colby got his first real ridge flying experience with Hank Nixon (UH) as his instructor in the back seat.

Saturday was spectacular with 78 flights flown! The club trophy went to Valley Soaring. Colby and Alasdair placed 2nd in the Junior/Senior team category and Colby placed 3rd in the Junior category.

The event wrapped up with a nice Banquet and awards ceremony in the National Soaring Museum.

Maybe next year we can field a couple more participants and enter a NESA team.

Thanks to the efforts of NESA stalwarts Bill B, Jerry S, Greg H, Steve H, Jim M, Ben B, Brian X, Cameron C, Paul H, Larry P and A&P/IA Andy Gelston, the club’s yellow 2-33 and 1-26 received their annual inspections Friday and all five club aircraft were secure in club member’s hangars at the end of the day Saturday. All are ready for flight at the first sign of spring. Thanks, Bill, for the delicious potato leek soup both days!

Club members achieved several milestones this season. NESA welcomed eight new members in 2022. Jim Malecha, former chief tow pilot for the Memphis Soaring Society, relocated to the New London area a few years ago and joined in January, piloted the Callair for 147 tows throughout the season, and attained the CFI-G rating in October. Steve Hurd soloed.

On the junior front, Ben Berg attained his Private Pilot-Glider certificate in June and soloed in Bill’s Cub in September. Colby passed his written and Sebastian made his first solo!

356 tows in 2021, 441 this year, an increase of 24%, still a bit low but directionally indicating a return to more “normal” times.

Watch for updates concerning the club Annual Meeting in January.

Saturday, November 5th was the First Annual NESA Aircraft Wash and Precision Landing Contest. 

We had a good turn out on this 75 degree November day with Jim M, Steve H, Ben B, Colby vK, Gerry S, Paul H and Bill B. The yellow 2-33, 1-26, 1-34 and the Callair all got washed and they gleamed in the sunshine. 

Then we brought the yellow 2-33 and 1-26 to the flightline for some precision flying. The rules are simple; a touchdown line on the grass Rwy 29 was established with two orange buckets and if the pilot touchs down before the line it is a DQ (disqualification). Measured was the touchdown after the line. A vertical pool noodle was erected as the rollout stopping point and closest to the noodle was measured. Each pilot took a 1000’ tow. 

Results:
Both CFIGs Bill B and Gerry S were DQ for an early touchdown
Steve H landed long, way long
Colby vK had the cross-wind get super strong during his flight and he elected to land into the wind on Rwy 23. He gets the good judgement award. 
Paul H came in second with 13 paces beyond the touchdown line and 113” from the noodle for a strong second place. 
Ben B in the trusty 1-26 landed 10 paces beyond the line and! 3/4 of an inch from the noodle to win the Contest. Congratulations Ben

Fun was had by all. If you are now addicted to sailplane landing competition, talk to Alasdair about the “Snowbird Contest” at the Harris Hill Gliderport,  Thanksgiving weekend. A very fun event. 

The annual Snowbird spot-landing contest will take place at Harris Hill in Elmira, NY the Friday and Saturday of the Thanksgiving weekend. For those that haven’t been it’s a fun chance to fly somewhere different and meet folks from other clubs.

There are Junior, Senior and Junior/Senior team categories. Anyone can participate including non-solo students (you will fly a 2-33 with a safety pilot).

The event finishes with a dinner in the National Soaring museum on the Saturday night. If you haven’t been to the National Soaring Museum you ought to go!

Here’s a video from 2020 (due to the pandemic that year was pretty much just HHSC members).

Talk to Alasdair (me) if you are interested in participating or want to know more. It would be great to be able to field a NESA team. I won’t admit how long I’ve been attending the Snowbird – so please do not read this old article: http://valleysoaring.org/snowarticle/

Several members made the trip up to Gorham over the 9 days of Wave Camp.

Tows were provided by the PMSC bird-dog (Jerry checked out in it and did some of the towing) and by Aerophoto with Walter bringing his Pawnee up from PA.

Larry took the PW-6 up and several flights were made in it – some wave and some Mt. Washington summit ridge soaring. Both Jerry and Walter had some great PW flights this year.

Andy Kozak took his new ASW-27 up for a couple of days mid-week and had some nice flights.

No record altitudes this year and some mixed weather, but a fun time was had.

P.S. Now that i1 is back at Springfield, Larry could use some help to get it re-assembled. Any volunteers for this coming weekend? If you can help out please reach out to Larry. Thanks!

Congrats to Jim Malecha on adding his CFIG yesterday (Sat 10/15/22) by completing a successful check-ride with DPE Daryl Smith.

The air was smooth today and not really soarable – a perfect day instead for Ben’s first power solo in the J3.

Ben soloed in gliders in September 2020 at age 14. Two years later in September 2022 he has now followed up with his Single Engine solo at age 16. Three perfect patterns and landings!

Thanks to Bill for J3 instruction.

Congratulations (again) Ben!!

On a perfect late summer day, junior member Sebastian Lorenz made his first solo flight today in N2041T. Way to go, Sebastian! Not much thermal activity today, but Sebastian was able to gain about a thousand feet after release before entering the pattern and landing.

Well, the weather caught up with us and today was a washout, but we had three nice days of flying Friday to Sunday. Somewhat poor turn-out for a holiday weekend but still plenty of training, several folks camping and cooking out. Overall a very nice long-weekend.