Our own Terry Lisanski made the 14 hour car trip to lovely Monticello, IL. This picture is proof (thanks, RCGroups!):

From SKSS ESL TD June 2009

Looks like he had a great time! Now let’s repeat this at our field later this year.

A total of 33 pilots participated in this year’s event. Unlike in the previous year, the weather was nice, with temperatures in the 70s and 80s and the wind never really making it above 5mph. A great BBQ lunch was prepared on both days by several volunteers as well as delicious home-made tomato salad, potato salad, cookies and other goodies. We held our first man on man contest and had a great time - learned a lot, too! We could not have done this without the help of many club members and seasoned ESL pros. I am sure the following list is not complete: Bill Jordan, Bill B, Bill Groft, Charlie Reeve, Rick, Tony Nunez, Terry Lisanski, Newt, John Kirchstein, Steve Lucke, Luis Bustamente, Dave Beach, Tony Guide, Pete Schlitzkus, Frank Strommer, James Griffith, Dick Dupont, Bev Groft, Ellen Derrico, Eric Teder , Walt Leipold, Gene Gresham, Tom Laky. Thank you to all who helped out! On Saturday, we started out with a seven minute round followed by six more eight minute rounds. Randomization was done by means of a couple of decks of cards. While that promised to generate fun, it proved to be a challenge with such a large group. Hence, Sunday’s flight groups were ‘computer generated’. That made things a lot easier for all involved. We finished six rounds on Sunday before 3pm. Other than having had to fight some scoring gremlins (thanks to all for being patient and understanding while things got sorted), the man-on-man format was very well received and we look forward to a repeat next year. The final scores are on the ESL website. John Kirchstein and Robert McCoy contributed the pictures below. John has a great panorama of the field on his website.

We are going to hold our annual electric warbird meeting on June 27, 2009. Here are some pictures from last year’s event:

Come on over and join us!

We will again host the SKSS Thermal Duration contest as part of the ESL contest schedule. This is an AMA sanctioned event.
The contest tasks will be announced by the Contest Director (we will try Man on Man this year; landing task: tbd). We will likely fly seven rounds per day and no flight after 3pm on Sunday. Lunch will be provided (for a small nominal fee). Registration information can be found on the ESL website. Follow this link for directions. We will have a Novice class.

Today’s aerotow saw a maiden flight of Tony’s Ka 3. Unfortunately, it stalled and was damaged. Preflight pictures below. Frank Dubosq’s grandson, Casey Hall, had his solo flight. Congratulations! Taylor introduced his Huckepack. If you have to ask….

Due to weather, the club thermal duration contest was moved to May 24. We start at noon. This is your chance to practice in preparation of the ESL TD contest on the first weekend of June. We look for a great turnout, especially the RES guys. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that the weather holds up.

As in the past year, the event will be held on the third weekend in August (August 21-23, 2009). This follows up our hugely successful events in the last two years. We’ll have electric tugs that have demonstrated their ability to tow 15+lb sailplanes. If you don’t have a scale sailplane, bring any sailplane with a tow release. E-powered sailplanes will be allowed anytime all three days but must yield to towed and un-powered sailplanes. We have a large, mowed field, for gentle take-offs and landings.

Watch this space for details as they become available. In the meantime, RCGroups has a thread for your entertainment. Our friends at the ISSA helped with promoting the event by adding it to their calendar - thank you!

We recommend pre-registration by adding a comment to this message to avoid frequency conflicts and to track how many are attending.

Where: Newark, Delaware - SKSS Big Pond Field
When: August 21-23, 2009
Check-in: 9am
Landing fee: $20/day, $30 for three days

After you’ve registered, please send your tow fee to:

Robert McCoy
1103 Barley Mill Rd
Wilmington, DE 19807

Be sure to put “SKSS Aero Tow” on the check.

Directions can be found here.

Important note: To minimize spam, all comments are moderated. They will only show after the moderator has cleared them for publication. This may take a couple of days.

Please provide

Name
Day(s) attending
AMA#
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There are several hotels in the Newark area if you’re staying over the weekend. Hotel #1 is the closest to the field. All are within a few minutes drive.

If you want to bring the family, there are several local attractions:

What to do in Delaware
Longwood Gardens
Winterthur
Beaches
Tax Free Shopping

We fly within the State Park system so there is an entrance fee: $3/day for Delaware registered vehicles and $6/day for non-Delaware registered vehicles.

Some of the gliders expected to be in attendance:

An abridged version formatted for iPhone and Android devices is available here. For those of you pointing your computer browser at the site, don’t be too surprised by the all to familiar look. However, we hope that iPhone and Android users amongst you appreciate the device specific format. You should see something like this:

John Kirchstein outdid himself - again! Look at his ‘models’ Bill and Walt:

The Spring Fun Fly and Swap Meeting was a great success. John Kirchstein took some great pictures!