For Maule Driver

Bill,

Would you contact me at vison at intrex dot net? I
want to find out about your North Carolina State Records.

Thanks,

Ray Lovinggood
Carrboro, North Carolina, USA

Ray,

Maybe you can convince 4I to get back in a sailplane again ... he 'was'
a reasonable XC pilot when he was active up here in NJ. :-)

KK

KK,

I would love for 41 to get back into the sport, but
only if he would get into it with our club :-)

We need (I need) pilots of his calibre to push us and
nag us and harrass us into going farther and faster.
Right now, our only guru is Papa One and he is great.
But he can't be at the field every Saturday and Sunday.
If we had 41, maybe we could have all good weekend
soaring days covered. We also had Juliet Seven, but
he decided thermals looked better in the Chicago area
and moved up there to the frozen midwest where he chases
BB around.

Ray Lovinggood
Carrboro, North Carolina, USA
LS1-d, 'W8'




At 12:42 01 December 2005, Ken Kochanski Kk wrote:
Ray,

Maybe you can convince 4I to get back in a sailplane
again ... he 'was'
a reasonable XC pilot when he was active up here in
NJ. :-)

KK

Ken Kochanski (KK) wrote:
Ray,

Maybe you can convince 4I to get back in a sailplane again ... he 'was'
a reasonable XC pilot when he was active up here in NJ. :-)

KK

Yep, usually reasonable to get back home so I could go back out and pick
you out of some tree.... hee hee.

Foureyes

Darn it, Bill ... there you go, givin Ray and everyone else the wrong
impression ...

I have included a link to a view of Frackville just to refresh 'your'
memory ...

http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaver...wns/frckvl.htm

Happy Holidays

Ken Kochanski (KK) wrote:
Darn it, Bill ... there you go, givin Ray and everyone else the wrong
impression ...

I have included a link to a view of Frackville just to refresh 'your'
memory ...

http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaver...wns/frckvl.htm

Happy Holidays

Wrong impression! SOB! This is what's it's like flying in New Jersey!!
No one gets a break.

Well, thanks for the memories old buddy. For anyone else's
entertainment, I'll share the story lest we be accused of just wasting
bandwidth on non-soaring crap.

Yes, I crashed my PIK near Frackville PA. Frackville used to be a strip
mining town (is there anything worse than having been a mining town?).
It's pretty much in the middle of nowhere but is surrounded by some of
the sweetest ridge flying around (remember the glorious Mahantango(sic).

Trying a 300k O&R one fine weekday, I got low and setup an approach for
Frackville's Schuylkill Mall parking lot, the only landable spot within
reach. There was plenty of room, I setup a full approach, but frankly
just botched it in the face of the 20knot breeze blowing at the time. I
landed well short of the lot in a forest of stunted trees.

Glider totaled (both wings, tail, canopy, etc) but this pilot was fine.
Sitting in the wreck, I keyed the mike and told my friends that
Foureyes was OK. This was going to be an all day retrieve - and not a
happy one.

Anyway, I walked up to the nearby mall, emerged from the forest and
walked across the lot. Even though I was still in a bit of shock it was
clear to me that no one saw the wreck. But people were staring at me,
intensely! It was if blood was trailing down my head, or I was missing
a limb. I checked. No, I seemed to be all there.

Since this was in the pre-cellphone era, I walked in the mall to make
the calls. At least 4 hours, probably 6 before I was getting out.
Nothing to do but walk around, drink coffee and reflect on the errors of
my ways. But every time I walked outside on this blustery post-frontal
ridge day, people would stare, really intensely. Guys were leaning out
their car windows and looking me dead in the eyes. Very strange.

At this point, I should mention that I am a black person. Brown really.
I didn't look like anyone else in Frackville that day. But that's
normal on any outlanding, especially on the expeditions required to find
KK's carcass on a typical day. So I wasn't surprised at being noticed
or even getting a second glance, but the stares were *intense*.

As you can imagine after a crash, I spent some time at the edge of the
parking lot looking out over the ridges reflecting on the flight, the
approach and the crash. People almost wrecked their cars slowing down
for a look at me. Sometimes 2 or 3 at a time. I tried to talk to some
of them but while the guys would look me right in the eyes, no one would
say a word or stop their car completely What the hell was going on?

Turns out there is perhaps a lower rung for a washed out strip mining
town - that giant prison! I saw it on my way in - the only other
sizeable open spot near this forlorn ridge town. Frackville was
apparently now a prison town. I can only assume that many people worked
there or knew people who did. And the only people that looked like me
were perhaps inside the walls... or escaping.

I retired to the coffee shop and waited for the fiberglass coffin.

Thanks KK.

Thanks Bill, I was hoping you would share the details.

The Blairstown crowd and the upwind jump from Hawk Mt. were often tough
.... actually, they both still are.

KK

Good story Maule Driver, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Let me tell you
another story, just so you can appreciate that your experience could
have been worse.

I fly a 1-26 out of Van Sant (9N1 in Eastern PA), painted to look like
a Japanese Zero (the big red meatballs are the major clue). I was told
that some years ago Ron Sutton (sp?) was flying this particular 1-26 in
a contest, and had to land out. Apparently the best place available was
a large field, in which some people were standing around. The landing
was uneventful, but when Ron climbed out of the cockpit he saw that
most of the people were dressed in orange jumpsuits. He also couldn't
help but notice a few other people there, who were aiming leveled
shotguns at him. The folks with the guns were suspicious of him, his
airplane, his paint job, and his parachute; and reportedly had definite
"attitudes". Ron had not only landed in a town with a prison, he had
actually landed inside the prison!

I'm told it all worked out well, after some discussions with the
warden. Ron was even given a "get out of jail free" card as a souvenir.

-John

That's pretty good! Definitely a 1-26 thing - I haven't seen a prison
yard yet large enough and more importantly, clear of obstructions enough
to take most glass ships. That's probably a good thing.

jcarlyle wrote:
Good story Maule Driver, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Let me tell you
another story, just so you can appreciate that your experience could
have been worse.

I fly a 1-26 out of Van Sant (9N1 in Eastern PA), painted to look like
a Japanese Zero (the big red meatballs are the major clue). I was told
that some years ago Ron Sutton (sp?) was flying this particular 1-26 in
a contest, and had to land out. Apparently the best place available was
a large field, in which some people were standing around. The landing
was uneventful, but when Ron climbed out of the cockpit he saw that
most of the people were dressed in orange jumpsuits. He also couldn't
help but notice a few other people there, who were aiming leveled
shotguns at him. The folks with the guns were suspicious of him, his
airplane, his paint job, and his parachute; and reportedly had definite
"attitudes". Ron had not only landed in a town with a prison, he had
actually landed inside the prison!

I'm told it all worked out well, after some discussions with the
warden. Ron was even given a "get out of jail free" card as a souvenir.

-John

I agree with you, Maule Driver, prison yards being obstructed and too
small for most aircraft is a good thing.

But don't be too sure that Ron's feat was definitely only for 1-26's.
The way the story was told to me, I got the impression that Ron had no
idea what he was getting into until he saw the guns. Had the field been
surrounded with a wall or barbed wire, he probably would have cottoned
on before he landed there. I suspect it was a prison farm, and we could
all get sucked into that if our luck went wrong.

Anyway, I wish you nothing but non-exciting landings!

-John