Skyline Soaring Club marked its 31st anniversary on December 17, 2022, with a black-tie gala at Heritage Hills Country Club that drew 56 members and guests, complete with military dress uniforms, an open bar, and a surprise keynote from Dave Weaver, a former Skyline member and decades-long pilot of the U-2 high-altitude aircraft (which he insisted was a 'reconnaissance' plane, not a 'spyplane'). President Stephanie Zilhora was honored with the club's most prestigious Bela Gogos Award in a surprise presentation by her fellow directors, and founding member Shane Neitzey entertained the crowd with a rendition of 'Hallelujah.' The issue also carries the full December 2022 Board of Directors report, covering the club's solid $75,000 bank balance, the approved $14,172 insurance claim for the Discus canopy repair (with the glider headed to Gehrilein Products in Pennsylvania for work), a 102-member roster with 24 active students, ongoing negotiations over the hangar lease as Warren County assumes control of the Front Royal airport, and the Board's unanimous support for a new 'maneuvering area' waiver with the Washington FSDO. Looking ahead, the club rallied behind a February 18 youth-aviation speaking engagement at the College Park Aviation Museum and set a combined Annual and Safety meeting for March 4, 2023.
The February 2023 issue of Skylines announces a quiet financial milestone: the club has paid off its final glider loan, leaving every aircraft in the hangar free and clear except N341KS, which Fred Winter graciously leases to the club. Despite a $4,300 annual loss driven largely by that early payoff, Treasurer Ralph Vawter confirmed the club's stable footing, and the Board voted unanimously to hold dues at the 2022 level. Carlos Troncoso was unanimously approved as the new Chief Duty Officer, stepping in for Chris Carswell after several years of distinguished service. With 36 students on the wait list and roughly half of all club flights being training sorties, the club is clearly in a growth phase, and Membership Officer Tim Moran is onboarding ten new students ahead of the March meetings. The issue also details the mandatory safety meeting and annual membership gathering set for March 4 at the community center across the road from the airport, where two open Board seats (Perlmutter and Kellett) will be filled in an online election running February 24 through March 2. A lengthy discussion of passenger liability waivers for non-member guest flights, a consultation with Costello Insurance Associates, and a friendly offer of custom bumper stickers from club signmaker Shane Neitzey round out a newsletter that, as editor Jim Kellett apologizes, arrived late and a bit short after his desktop computer met an untimely end in the shop.
The March 2023 issue pairs a practical book review of Dennis Pagen's updated *Understanding the Sky* with a detailed February 16 Board Meeting summary covering a healthy $111,400 bank balance, a record-breaking January for student flights, ongoing maintenance on the Husky, Pawnee, and Discus, the adoption of a new weather-cancellation policy for duty crews, and four candidates vying for two open Board seats. But the real highlight is a breathless first-person account of the 2023 Soaring Society of America Convention, where Skyliners caught up with Bob Wander, Burt Compton, Ken Sorenson, Pat Costello, and Rich Carlson, marveled at a presentation on a helicopter designed to fly on Mars, and gawked at the Nixus—a 93-foot, 67:1 glider boasting six independently computer-controlled flap panels on each wing. “Can't wait until the next convention in 2025,” the author concludes.
April's issue of the Skyliner leads with the success of a KCGS speaking engagement at the College Park Airport Museum on February 18, where Caleb Smith and fellow Skyline members addressed a large, captive audience on soaring, mentoring, and the club's educational programs, capped by an outdoor display and briefing of the Sparrow Hawk-R glider. The issue also features a new-pilot interview with Lydia Olsen, who recounts her practical test with examiner Piet and her 11-year procrastination on the knowledge exam; a colorful profile of new Board of Directors member Carlos Troncoso, son of an Argentine naval admiral and aeronautical engineer, who first caught the soaring bug on a Super Blanik in Córdoba and has been a Skyline member since 2010; and treasurer Ralph Vawter's notes on the SSA dues increase, Rob Jacobsen's C and Bronze Badge achievements, and Dave Collier's tire-alignment fix on the club's gator.
Anand Mohan's long-awaited ground-launch endorsement at Eastern Soaring Center anchors this issue, tracing his gliding journey from a wooden Slingsby T.21b launched by a drum winch at Safdarjung Airport in 1991 to a full solo winch campaign in an ASK-13 at Grant County Airport in April 2023. The newsletter also announces the May 13 Family Day Fly-In at Burner Field near Woodstock, hosted by Bill and Sharon Burner, and features Cliff Robertson's elegiac poem "Where Have All the Old Planes Gone?" read in memory of 1980 World Aerobatic Champion Leo Loudenslager. Board notes reveal a club in solid financial health ($84,000 in the bank), a 30-student roster with 28 more on the wait list, the installation of an ADS-B transponder in the PW-5, a vote to join Friends of KFRR on new hangar leases with Warren County, and a unanimous by-law amendment permitting electronic board elections.
Skyline's June issue is a feast for the practically minded and the competitively driven alike. Anand Mohan delivers Part II of his winch-launch series, tracing the history of ground-launching in the United States, comparing the economics of winch versus aero-tow, and compiling a remarkably thorough directory of every active winch operation, training provider, and CAP unit in the country — from a homebuilt winch in Livingston, Montana, to the Utah Soaring Association's portable rig that can launch from a 9,900-foot dry lake bed. On the competition front, Piet Barber files a vivid day-by-day account of his run in the 20-meter multi-seat national at Mifflin County, Pennsylvania, where he logged roughly 35 hours and 2,700 kilometers over ten days, made an off-field landing in a cornfield near State College, and finished 11th of 15 in a field that included Karl Striedieck and Sarah Arnold. Rounding out the issue, SSC member Ron Wagner announces his new role as AOPA Airport Support Network representative for Front Royal, and the club celebrates a hard-won June 27 soaring day at a hard-to-find grass strip near Woodstock, Virginia, where K-21s and a PW-5 climbed past 6,000 feet.
Andrew Neilson's long-anticipated first cross-country flight beyond the glide range of Front Royal Airport anchors this issue, as he details his carefully planned 41-mile task to Laird's Knob, the blue thermals over Woodstock that nearly forced a landout, and the relief of hearing the Oudie confirm task completion at a 23 mph average. The flight earned him SSA Silver Badge #7403. Also featured: a candid "Coffee with a New Pilot" interview with Mark Moran, who recounts his practical test day, a last-minute cancellation of a simulated rope break, and his advice for student pilots; Tim Bookwalter's entertaining account of three club gliders sharing a thermal and the careful coordination required to land them all safely; and a Kudos section celebrating Andy McGowan's first solo, Emma Tetley's third soaring scholarship (the SSA Costello), and a batch of new SSA soaring badges awarded by instructors Chris Norris and Ron Wagner.
August's issue celebrates two fresh milestones: Uwe Jettmar's SSA Bronze Badge, earned under instructor Chris Norris on July 9, and the practical-test triumph of new pilot Chris Jones, who passed his checkride on July 4 with Designated Pilot Examiner Piet Barber. In a wide-ranging 'Coffee with a New Pilot' interview, Jones recounts a Piper Cub's runway incursion during his landing, a 30-minute lift-geeking session with Piet, and a two-hour-plus thermal ride in the PW-5 that he calls his most memorable flight since earning his wings. He praises the club's welcoming instructor community—singling out Allison Diaz for her patience with Skew-T diagrams—and offers a candid suggestion for high-intensity training days, while noting the practical challenge of walking gliders back from midfield at KFRR. Jones also reveals that his family's upcoming move to Uganda has him eyeing a Condor setup to keep his skills sharp. Rounding out the issue, veteran member Jim Kellett delivers a pointed 'Curmudgeon's Editorial' urging all 103 active members to familiarize themselves with the club's Emergency Response Plan, arguing that with roughly 15% annual membership turnover, too many pilots may be rusty on what to do when a glider lands off-airfield and a news crew shows up.
Scott Bradley, a power pilot who earned his glider add-on rating in early August under examiner Piet Barber, recounts a cross-country flight over the Strasburg, Virginia area where a routine land-out discussion became a real decision under pressure—only to be saved by a thermal over a white-roofed warehouse that carried the pair back to Front Royal after another three hours of soaring. The issue also features Chief Flight Instructor John Noss's pointed safety bulletin cataloguing a string of near-misses and procedural lapses at the field, Keith Hilton's account of accepting Emeritus member Fred Winter's generous donation of a pristine Discus CS (picked up from Mifflin County Airport in Reedsville, PA, for a symbolic one-dollar bill), congratulations to Anand Mohan on his SSA 'C' badge, and the debut of new $5 Skyline Soaring Club patches available at KFRR.
Piet Barber and Nelson Brandt launched from Front Royal, Virginia, on a forecast-perfect Saturday with an ambitious 560-kilometer out-and-return task along the Massanutten and Tuscarora ridges into central Pennsylvania. What followed was a six-hour, 48-minute odyssey of ridge soaring, marginal thermals in smoggy haze, a tense decision to abandon the planned turnpoint at Shade Mountain, and a dramatic thermal escape from Dickey's Mountain that left them 55 miles from home with fading light. They threaded Hagerstown Class D airspace, dumped water ballast at the worst possible moment (which immediately improved their thermals), and landed safely to claim the highest OLC score east of the Mississippi River for the day. Rounding out the issue, Ralph Vawter issues a passionate call to action for Skyline members to embrace the SSA Badge Program, proposing a dedicated "Badge Meister" to track and celebrate members' achievements from first solo through Gold Badge and beyond.
Alex Zobell's 300-kilometer cross-country flight along the Shenandoah and Blue Ridge ridgelines in his 51-year-old ASW-15b anchors this issue, earning him the SSA Gold badge after a six-year wait to align the distance task with his 2017 altitude flight. The report reads like a pilot's real-time struggle with ridge transitions, altitude management, and a loose Nano 3 recorder sliding across the panel. Elsewhere, Marcelo Morichi offers a vivid, multi-voiced dispatch from a wind-shifted ADO shift on Runway 10, collecting candid opinions from Christopher Carswell, Carlos Troncoso, Scott Bradley, Hugh McElrath, Keith Hilton, and George Hazelrigg on why the shorter runway is either a backcountry-camping adventure or a no-bathroom ordeal. The club also thanks Bill and Sharon Burner for hosting a family soaring outing at their Woodstock airport, and Andrew Neilson kicks off a new monthly 'Things I Learned Today' column with a hard-won lesson about tailwinds fifty feet off the ground during a Husky tow off Runway 28.
December's issue of the Skyline Soaring Club newsletter delivers two hard-won lessons in aviation safety. Chris "Filter" Baughman recounts a 2021 hypoxia event at 17,000 feet in a DA42 where a shifted oxygen bottle kinked his supply line, then walks readers through his progression from a 2004 altitude-chamber session at Laughlin AFB to a recent FAA Portable Reduced Oxygen Training Enclosure (PROTE) session at Manassas, where his O2 saturation plummeted into the 60s and his once-simple maze solution looked, in his words, "drawn by a three-year-old." Meanwhile, Jeff Windam shares a humbling tale of flying a 452-kilometer, five-hour ridge task that should have earned him a Gold Distance badge—only to have it denied because he skipped the electronic task declaration required by the Sporting Code. He did walk away with a Silver Duration badge and a cautionary tale for anyone tempted to trust a FAQ over the full regulations. The issue also notes that club member Piet Barber made the centerfold of SOARING magazine.