My best of 2016

So many great memories of hanging out and flying with many of you,
at Winter Haven, Seminole, Bermuda High, Nephi, Ionia, Uvalde, and
of course the Fitchburg Gliding Club. Special memories:

At Bermuda High in South Carolina:
Flying an entire task in wave, watching all the tiny gliders way
down there and laughing so hard I had trouble flying:
http://www.ssa.org/Contests?show=blog&id=4169
Skirting a T-storm to squeak home:
http://www.ssa.org/PhotoGallery.asp?...est&id=2311#31

Flying my new ArcusM around a Nephi task at 103.97mph and just
beating Uys Jonker. Used 3 thunderstorms plus a convergence line!

Introducing a few folks to high-performance soaring in the ArcusM,
at Fitchburg and during contests at Nephi, Ionia, and Uvalde.
Eyes as big as dinner plates from the intro during the above
flight at Nephi!

Happy New Years all,
Best Regards, Dave "YO"

Great memories of flying Nephi Nats standing in first place on Day 4 in my D2A. On the next day I forecasted the most AWESOME conditions of the contest, June 27th... where I then managed to land out at the base of Fool Peak, an alfalfa farm just east of Delta, UT!

On the Tehachapi Dust Devil Dash day, Sep 10th, Jim Staniforth (JS) and I made a delightful X-Country from Inyokern to Minden... spent the night... flying back the next day around thunderstorms. Had a wonderful reunion with the Minden community including dinner with Tom Stowers.

Overnight X-country O&R team fling to a neighboring soaring center is a great way to have fun!

Best New Years to all...

Walt Rogers "WX"

Driving across the country for 3 days to the Nephi nationals with my brother, Mark, retracing and sharing our path 35 years earlier to the Minden 15M nats in 1981, the year after our father crashed. Like Minden, Nephi was both exhilarating and discouraging but the road trip and experiences were priceless.

Chip Bearden

Well... This is easy: my license! :-)

--
Jacopo

Anybody else have a great 2016 memory?
UH

For me one highlight was getting the weather and timing to line up for a nice ridge flight with the trees at peak fall colors, getting to fly with my friend Dieter's maiden flight in his new glider, seeing 2 bald eagles and capturing a good amount of it on video. I had made the camera mount a while ago, so it was rewarding to have it work.

Chilhowee Ridge Soaring over the Autumn Colors
https://youtu.be/A2zcEt7OMts

Chris

I flew a sailplane that I designed and helped build, and it was about the sweetest flying glider I've flown.

The best part of 2016 was the part after I completed refinishing my ASW-19. It turned out great, but I sure enjoy flying it more than I enjoyed sanding and painting it!

Anybody else have a great 2016 memory?
Happy New Year to all my soaring friends
UH

My week out at Moriarty for the OLC camp was pretty damn sweet, in spite of, or maybe because of, the persistent cells.

Flying 100 miles under solid overcast at Perry was pretty cool, too.

Tim
1FL

Flying a double crossing of the North Cascades in Washington State in the latter part of August in my trusty old LS3.

Ron