Farewell Tony Benson

Oliver Anthony (Tony) Benson died May 3 after a series of complications related to surgery. The official notice is he

http://normandean.com/online-obituar...enson/10082116

The obit hardly does justice to describing one of the truly great characters in soaring from our area. Tony was funny, engaging, wickedly smart, a keen judge of human character, and tremendously giving to our club and commercial operations at Blairstown. He, along with several of the other Old Timers pioneered long ridge missions and badge attempts from our site. Despite his interest in cross country soaring, he frequently missed out on big days, offering up his time giving rides and instruction to literally hundreds of pilots. He was generous with his aircraft as well, handing over the keys to his beloved ASW-20 and his restored K6 to give others a chance experience these classic machines.

Tony campaigned on the racing circuit for many years in his K6 and later his ASW-20 under the competition number P4. Tony's approach to soaring competitions could only be described as refreshing. In his view, the perfect competition featured at least a few days of rain - allowing more time for beer drinking and hangar flying. He was often seen flying his RC gliders or calibrating his potato cannon on these non-flying days. His knowledge of the rules was charitably described as "vague" by Charlie Spratt back in the day. It didn't matter to Tony - it was all about the camaraderie and time with "the lads."

I'm working up a compendium of some of his most outstanding writings from our club email group. Be forewarned - they will be R-Rated at minimum. If anyone has any stories or anecdotes that need to be included, please write me directly.

Erik Mann (P3)
SSA State Governor for NJ

On Sunday, May 4, 2014 3:36:30 PM UTC-4, Papa3 wrote:
Oliver Anthony (Tony) Benson died May 3 after a series of complications related to surgery. The official notice is he



http://normandean.com/online-obituar...enson/10082116



The obit hardly does justice to describing one of the truly great characters in soaring from our area. Tony was funny, engaging, wickedly smart, a keen judge of human character, and tremendously giving to our club and commercial operations at Blairstown. He, along with several of the other Old Timers pioneered long ridge missions and badge attempts from our site. Despite his interest in cross country soaring, he frequently missed out on big days, offering up his time giving rides and instruction to literally hundreds of pilots. He was generous with his aircraft as well, handing over the keys to his beloved ASW-20 and his restored K6 to give others a chance experience these classic machines.



Tony campaigned on the racing circuit for many years in his K6 and later his ASW-20 under the competition number P4. Tony's approach to soaring competitions could only be described as refreshing. In his view, the perfect competition featured at least a few days of rain - allowing more time for beer drinking and hangar flying. He was often seen flying his RC gliders or calibrating his potato cannon on these non-flying days. His knowledge of the rules was charitably described as "vague" by Charlie Spratt back in the day. It didn't matter to Tony - it was all about the camaraderie and time with "the lads."



I'm working up a compendium of some of his most outstanding writings from our club email group. Be forewarned - they will be R-Rated at minimum. If anyone has any stories or anecdotes that need to be included, please write me directly.



Erik Mann (P3)

SSA State Governor for NJ

A good guy ... XC pilot ... and a born comical satirist .. when Benson was around - all kings (and woman) were naked. Godspeed P4. KK.

On Sunday, May 4, 2014 3:36:30 PM UTC-4, Papa3 wrote:
Oliver Anthony (Tony) Benson died May 3 after a series of complications related to surgery. The official notice is he



http://normandean.com/online-obituar...enson/10082116



The obit hardly does justice to describing one of the truly great characters in soaring from our area. Tony was funny, engaging, wickedly smart, a keen judge of human character, and tremendously giving to our club and commercial operations at Blairstown. He, along with several of the other Old Timers pioneered long ridge missions and badge attempts from our site. Despite his interest in cross country soaring, he frequently missed out on big days, offering up his time giving rides and instruction to literally hundreds of pilots. He was generous with his aircraft as well, handing over the keys to his beloved ASW-20 and his restored K6 to give others a chance experience these classic machines.



Tony campaigned on the racing circuit for many years in his K6 and later his ASW-20 under the competition number P4. Tony's approach to soaring competitions could only be described as refreshing. In his view, the perfect competition featured at least a few days of rain - allowing more time for beer drinking and hangar flying. He was often seen flying his RC gliders or calibrating his potato cannon on these non-flying days. His knowledge of the rules was charitably described as "vague" by Charlie Spratt back in the day. It didn't matter to Tony - it was all about the camaraderie and time with "the lads."



I'm working up a compendium of some of his most outstanding writings from our club email group. Be forewarned - they will be R-Rated at minimum. If anyone has any stories or anecdotes that need to be included, please write me directly.



Erik Mann (P3)

SSA State Governor for NJ

Tony was one of a kind. They didn't break the mold after he was made because no mold was used.
Tony could see humor in almost anything and helped us to see a "better" view of stuff.
I'll never forget his landing at an active "nuke" base and describing how he was surrounded by "children with guns". He did have the presence of mind to hide his turn point cameras.
We've lost a classic.
Godspeed P4.
UH

I'd posted this a couple of years back as an "anonymous pilot", but of course it was Tony. I've got dozens more like this:

















On Monday, May 5, 2014 4:46:45 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Sunday, May 4, 2014 3:36:30 PM UTC-4, Papa3 wrote:

Oliver Anthony (Tony) Benson died May 3 after a series of complications related to surgery. The official notice is he







http://normandean.com/online-obituar...enson/10082116







The obit hardly does justice to describing one of the truly great characters in soaring from our area. Tony was funny, engaging, wickedly smart, a keen judge of human character, and tremendously giving to our club and commercial operations at Blairstown. He, along with several of the other Old Timers pioneered long ridge missions and badge attempts from our site. Despite his interest in cross country soaring, he frequently missed out on big days, offering up his time giving rides and instruction to literally hundreds of pilots. He was generous with his aircraft as well, handing over the keys to his beloved ASW-20 and his restored K6 to give others a chance experience these classic machines.







Tony campaigned on the racing circuit for many years in his K6 and later his ASW-20 under the competition number P4. Tony's approach to soaring competitions could only be described as refreshing. In his view, the perfect competition featured at least a few days of rain - allowing more time for beer drinking and hangar flying. He was often seen flying his RC gliders or calibrating his potato cannon on these non-flying days. His knowledge of the rules was charitably described as "vague" by Charlie Spratt back in the day. It didn't matter to Tony - it was all about the camaraderie and time with "the lads."







I'm working up a compendium of some of his most outstanding writings from our club email group. Be forewarned - they will be R-Rated at minimum. If anyone has any stories or anecdotes that need to be included, please write me directly.







Erik Mann (P3)



SSA State Governor for NJ



Tony was one of a kind. They didn't break the mold after he was made because no mold was used.

Tony could see humor in almost anything and helped us to see a "better" view of stuff.

I'll never forget his landing at an active "nuke" base and describing how he was surrounded by "children with guns". He did have the presence of mind to hide his turn point cameras.

We've lost a classic.

Godspeed P4.

UH

On Monday, May 5, 2014 6:12:07 PM UTC-4, Papa3 wrote:
I'd posted this a couple of years back as an "anonymous pilot", but of course it was Tony. I've got dozens more like this. Note: I'm only reporting - if you have issues with tone, political, racial, gender, intelligence, or any other inflammatory language (real or perceived), feel free to take it up with Benson directly:


Yo: 1987 Sports Class Nationals at Elmira, typical Elmira weather, HHH. The nice folks in Elmira feel soaring is a family affair and hold their contests when the little *******s are out of school, July-August. The contest was all but washed out, they were sending us up in barely VFR conditions. I forget what the task was but I found myself never over 2,000 agl as I went from field to field, over Watkins-Glen, up the east side of Seneca Lake the whole time at pattern altitude. One of the turnpoints was Seneca Depot; I later found out it was the largest A-bomb storage facility in the country. I would have thought such a place would be in Utah or Nevada. The sectional showed a long runway and a unicom frequency, nothing special, not a restricted area or anything like that. What really made my mind up was the unicom, surely a secret place wouldn't have a unicom frequency. I arrived over the place at 1,000 and looked it over. It had a vast street pattern and looked like any town USA; only at the head of each driveway, where one would expect to see a house and garage, was a mound of dirt. Lots and lots of mounds of dirt.

I called them on unicom and said I was landing. They said: "you can't land here." I thought: screw them, I'm I glider and we'll talk about it on the ground. The two E-7s were really nice guys and asked how I came to land there. I told them I was a Polish U-2 pilot and wanted political asylum. They said that although they thought that was funny, they had to push the alarm button and a bunch of kids with guns were coming and it would not be in my best interest to say anything like that to them. The kids showed up in a truck, they had lots of guns including a heavy barrel .50 cal. on a ring mount and operated by a kid who was mostly pimples.

Seneca New York was the birthplace of the women's lib movement -the sufferage movement started there. Seneca Depot was plagued by the Mothers for Peace and the kids with guns thought I was affiliated with the "mothers." The dears had bought a farm across from the main gate and would protest the A-bombs on a regular basis. When not protesting they would burn their bras, write poetry, grow organic food and generally do the **** liberated ladies delight in doing. I had pretty much convinced the kids with guns that I wasn't, in any way, associated with the Mothers when the two state cops showed up.. The cops announced that I was their perpetrator and they would take me into custody. The sergeant in charge of the kids with guns said I was his perpetrator and they couldn't have me. An argument ensued. The argument was stopped by the sound of the rollers on the ring mount .50. It had been pointed at me and looked like the mouth of a railroad tunnel, it now pointed at the cops. The cops quickly left.

Madeline had recruited [two SSA members] to help with the retrieve. [Member 1] was head of the Langley Research facility and his G rating outranked the Colonel that commanded the depot and thank Christ for that or we'd be there yet. My retrieve crew had been told that there was going to be a "mission" on in an hour and if we weren't out of there by then we'd be put in a windowless room until the mission was over. Madeline told me to sit in the car and keep my f***ing mouth shut (and yeah, she was gonna be a nun). You would pay cash money to see three Germans take a German glider apart - took something like ten minutes.
P4

On Sunday, May 4, 2014 3:36:30 PM UTC-4, Papa3 wrote:
Oliver Anthony (Tony) Benson died May 3 after a series of complications related to surgery. The official notice is he



http://normandean.com/online-obituar...enson/10082116



The obit hardly does justice to describing one of the truly great characters in soaring from our area. Tony was funny, engaging, wickedly smart, a keen judge of human character, and tremendously giving to our club and commercial operations at Blairstown. He, along with several of the other Old Timers pioneered long ridge missions and badge attempts from our site. Despite his interest in cross country soaring, he frequently missed out on big days, offering up his time giving rides and instruction to literally hundreds of pilots. He was generous with his aircraft as well, handing over the keys to his beloved ASW-20 and his restored K6 to give others a chance experience these classic machines.



Tony campaigned on the racing circuit for many years in his K6 and later his ASW-20 under the competition number P4. Tony's approach to soaring competitions could only be described as refreshing. In his view, the perfect competition featured at least a few days of rain - allowing more time for beer drinking and hangar flying. He was often seen flying his RC gliders or calibrating his potato cannon on these non-flying days. His knowledge of the rules was charitably described as "vague" by Charlie Spratt back in the day. It didn't matter to Tony - it was all about the camaraderie and time with "the lads."



I'm working up a compendium of some of his most outstanding writings from our club email group. Be forewarned - they will be R-Rated at minimum. If anyone has any stories or anecdotes that need to be included, please write me directly.



Erik Mann (P3)

SSA State Governor for NJ

I was sad to hear this news

I only met Benson once last year when we went down to pick up his 20 that we bought. In the hour or so that we spent there, he lived up to everyone's warnings, and made me laugh out loud at least a dozen times.

over the course of this past winter we did a full refurbish on the glider, and i was really happy to share pictures of the project with gregg leslie, who showed them to benson at the hospital.

it will be an honor to fly his old 20, and I was glad to have gotten the opportunity to meet him. I won't soon forget him.