Table of contents:
The original postscript version of the newsletter is available here.
Springfield encampment: MITSA will again be holding a soaring encampment in Springfield, Vermont, for the first few weeks in September. John Wren and Bruce Easom are looking into providing auto tows again this year. The Sterling airport will be closed for the Sterling Fair again over Labor Day, so plan to drive up to Springfield for a weekend of fun. Contact John Wren if you have any questions, and be certain to visit the encampment web site at
New pilots: Terry Wong and his wife Amy Sullivan had their first child in June. Terry wrote to the club that, "We're pleased to announce the arrival of the newest pilot, Devin Sullivan Wong, born Sunday, June 11, at 3:40am. Seven pounds and ten ounces and a full head of hair. Mom, Dad, and son are at home and settling in just fine." Now Terry can stop wearing that beeper at the field, right?
New solos: Al Gold pointed out an enthusiastic message in the rec.aviation.soaring newsgroup from former MITSA member Jim Abraham announcing his first solo: "Soloed today (Waaaaaahooo!). It was truly a wonderful experience. Many thanks to all the guys at Mile High Gliding in Boulder, Colorado, especially John Campbell."
MITSA sports wear: The MITSA Juniors are organizing the sale of shirts, hats, wind breakers, and coffee mugs with the MITSA logo. Contact Ray Tadry for more information at ray_tadry@ti.com.
Slow soaring season: Bill Brine wrote in early June, "My most memorable flight this year was just yesterday [in his Mooney]. I was climbing through three thousand feet in moderate rain showers just north of Mansfield when I noticed it was no longer raining. I glanced up from the gauges to find myself in the middle of a blizzard! Snow at 3,000 feet over Interstate 495 in June sums up our soaring season to date. Steve Sovis and I flew the Region Four North contest in Fairfield, Pennsylvania. Eleven at night on the practice day found Steve and me at Wal-Mart purchasing knee high rubber boots. Two days of rain followed by four days of poor soaring."
Trailer fees: Don't forget that the Sterling airport is now charging private owners $100 for a trailer and $140 for a tie-down for any fraction of the 2000 soaring season. Trailers are not to be parked north of the second to last telephone pole, and gliders should not be tied down north of the last telephone pole. Contact airport manager Sean Brodeur immediately if you have not made payment arrangements, and try to pay as soon as possible. You can contact Sean at sbrodeur@mindspring.com or (978) 422-8860.
Discussion board: John Wren has added a message board to the MITSA training center to give MITSA members a place to "talk shop" about MITSA and gliding in general. You can reach the training center by going to the MITSA web site (www.mitsa.org) and clicking on the link "MITSA training information." You can reach the message board from the training center by clicking on the message board icon. Take some time to look around the training center if you have never been there before.
Golf carts: Ian Clark has done a terrific job of maintaining the club's golf carts over the years, but he now has a much longer trip to the airport after work than he used to have (about 100 miles), so repairing them has become a chore. Please contact Ian (iclark@ctihelix.com) or the board of directors if you are willing to take over the job.
Jim Davitt: John Wren wrote to the club in early June to say, "I am sorry to report the passing of Jim Davitt. Jim goes back many years at Sterling and was airport manager when MITSA first arrived nearly a decade ago. After giving up the responsibility as airport manager he remained active at Sterling and could be seen instructing in nearly everything that flew with an engine. MITSA and the aviation community has lost a friend and he will be missed."
John's announcement was followed by public words of praise from club members ranging from "quite, thoughtful, and wise" to "a kind gentleman and a wise person." One member wrote that "Jim and I flew `IFR' in our Citabria as I prepared for my airplane rating. Jim's few simple words of instruction still ring in my ears today when I fly IFR. I will miss Jim."
Claire Usen: Ira Blieden wrote to inform the club that Dick Usen's wife Claire passed away on Saturday, May 21. Dick was awarded a honorary membership in the club for his years of service to the club through the end of the 1980s, and his barn has been the site of many glider construction and repair projects over the years.
Ernest Schweizer: Ernest Schweizer died on Sunday, June 11, in Elmira, New York, at the age of 88. Schweizer was co-founder of Schweizer Aircraft Corporation and designed sailplanes, agricultural aircraft, military aircraft, and light helicopters.
These minutes have been edited for publication in the newsletter. --Editor
June 1, 2000
Directors present: Bruce Easom, Phil Gaisford, Steve Glow, Walt Hollister, Carl Johnson, Joe Kwasnik, and Peter Vickery.
Finances: Steve Glow reported that the current financial outlook is much the same as last month. While there have been several good soaring days with reasonable income, this is traditionally the time of year when the income should be at its peak. There was more discussion of contingency plans should the situation not improve. It was again concluded that combining MITSA and GBSC into a single soaring operation is the best solution and would improve the financial picture for both organizations by increasing the efficiency of the operation. The board recognizes that it takes time to bring the two groups together but will continue to work in that direction. At this moment the focus is on completion of the agreement on a joint towing operation.
Membership: Joe Kwasnik reported that a MITSA ad had been placed in a Worcester newspaper two weeks ago. He will research the idea of inviting a local TV personality to take a glider demo ride in the anticipation of some additional publicity. He also earned a perk from his employer who has donated $500 to MITSA.
Springfield encampment: Bruce Easom reported that the Sterling Fair will again close down soaring operations at Sterling over Labor Day weekend this year. He proposed that we again go to Springfield, Vermont, as guests on the first two weekends in September including auto towing similar to last year's successful operation. The board voted unanimous approval.
Operations: There was a discussion of the trial launching procedure initiated by GBSC over the May 27-28 weekend. Phil Gaisford had collected an extensive list of positive and negative observations from MITSA members who had participated over the weekend. He determined that the disadvantages outweighed the advantages and the experiment is completed. The major safety motivation was to keep the traffic landing on the grass away from the gliders in the grid for takeoff. The displaced threshold on the grass has helped in that regard. The operations officer agreed to prepare some target markers to indicate a desired landing point further down the grass from the threshold. Hopefully this will encourage pilots to practice spot landings and keep them further from the threshold.
In response to another incident of a takeoff in an L-23 with the spoilers open, the chief flight instructor has implemented a new requirement that those hooking up the tow rope must call out to the pilot, "Brakes closed and locked!" before attaching the rope. Even after receiving a positive response they should visually check the wings to insure the brakes are closed. The rope should never be connected until the pilot has finished all preflight checks and is ready to attach the rope. It is the pilot's responsibility to be ready for launch and perform timely checks. The pilots of high performance ships who will be using spoilers during the takeoff roll should notify the wing runner and the tow pilot.
The LS-7 syndicate (Wong, Johnson, Glow, and Hollister) donated their handheld radio to be used by the duty officer for communications from MITSA base. Duty officers will be responsible for ensuring the battery is kept charged.
Web site: Carl Johnson reported that he has been updating the web site so that MITSA can have more direct control over its contents. People interested in contributing to the web site can contact Carl.
Membership resolution: The following motion was passed unanimously by email on June 2, 2000. "Be it resolved, in order to better provide for a safe and expeditious launch service during peak hours of operation, it is found desirable that all Sterling based soaring clubs should combine their launch operations during such periods. In support of this effort, we create a new membership category `Mutual Towing Member.' Eligible are all members in good standing of other soaring clubs based at Sterling. The sole privilege of such members is the right to be towed during such times as mutual towing arrangements are in effect. No annual dues or other fees are proposed for this membership category."
Doug wrote this article for Soaring magazine, and is giving us a early look at his story. --Editor
Rain. Pounding mist. Low-hanging scud. The grim days in the middle of the few meager days allotted for the 15 Meter Nationals in Mifflin, Pennsylvania, ground on with an increasingly hopeless outlook for the flying prospects. Karl and Iris Stiedieck did a masterful job of making rain days (and nights!) fun, and morale among the troops was unbelievably high, but none could deny the anxiety of a possible contest shutout.
Yet after six days of goo, the weather pattern slowly began to move. All six low pressure areas, which for so long had blanketed the northeastern United States and covered the Weather Channel maps with Kermit the Frog green, began to stir. A third contest day was bagged on day nine of the ten-day contest period with good flights by many. And finally, yes, a monster ridge mission on day ten which had us blasting through the long hoped for ridge lift at 130 knots, gliders shaking like palsy victims, miles and scenery screaming by effortlessly, pilots locked in adrenaline rush. We had four contest days in the can, a legal contest. And the weather remained on an improving trend.
Brilliant sunlight probed its way into the motel room on Friday morning. Winds from the west were promised again, perhaps with enough of a northerly component to enable the ridges to work. An idea began to percolate in my mind, a way to get a bit more soaring into a vacation that hadn't contained quite enough of it. I eyed my faithful and unsuspecting crew person Martha with a predatory gleam, and in my most lugubriously oily voice, laid out a proposal. Wouldn't it be fun, I said, just like the old days, to try a free distance? You know, where I get up in the wind and fly toward home in Rhode Island for as long as I can, while you, alone, stuck in Memorial Day traffic with the radio squelch off, pull the empty trailer with only a faint idea of how you'd find me should I land out? Doesn't that seem adventurous?
She bought it. More precisely, she grabbed the maps, compared aero with highway, and pronounced that I would, at all costs, end up on an airport somewhere along her driving route, or risk abandonment. I readily agreed, and we were off to assemble and water the glider.
As we rigged in the presence of several others intending to fly that day, the weather looked reliable enough to put her on the road early, given that I was likely to outrun her quickly in the 15-20 knot tail winds forecasted for the day. Off she thundered just after 10am, and with a handshake and good wishes from Karl and John Good, I followed at 11am with a tow to ridge height.
The great Appalachian ridge system is shaped like an overturned elbow, the southern portion more north-south, and the northern portion with an east-west component. The apex is just about at Mifflin. As a result, wind direction is critical. Ridges to the south work just fine with 270 degree winds, those to the north are too parallel to westerlies with any southern component. The forecast was for 300 degrees, a bit marginal for ridge along my route, but possible. As the Wurtsboro and Blairstown ridge-runners will tell you, there are great ridge routes to get them south, and my plan was to backtrack these routes to the northeast. In addition, all the ridge jumping would be downwind, considerably easier than the reverse.
However, the best laid plans never seem to actually occur. The wind direction was more like 270 degrees, okay for ridges in the local Mifflin area, but tending too far down the compass rose for those further on course. Thermals were a reasonably good two knots for so early a start, though without cu initially, and promised to improve. Wind strength was as predicted, and would add many easy miles to the flight even while circling. I also realized that the ridge route would have me low, increasing the land-out potential substantially, and lay considerably away from Martha's driving route, complicating communications. I decided to drift sheepishly along at cloud base.
The going was a bit tough at first. The weak morning lift was considerably disturbed by the wind flow, particularly as I flew out of the main Mifflin ridge system and into the river valley areas of Selinsgrove. Cu began to form more regularly with heights to 6,000 feet msl, but they were almost useless as markers below 4,000 feet msl because the lift was going up in short-lived bubbles. However, the combination of a tail wind and the threat of spousal abuse should I land out made the weak lift well worth clinging to, and I slowly caught up to Martha. At Hazelton, her route departed toward Scranton in the northeast, and I thought a straight on-course vector toward Port Jervis, midway between Wurtsboro and Blairstown, was the way to go. Mistake. The high broad plateau of the Pocanos is an awesome and forbidding sight from a glider. Dotted with lakes, spas, summer camps, and the like, it is heavily forested, farmed not at all, and offers only a single airport in a 50 mile stretch to accomplish a damage-free landing. Fortunately, the lift had improved to three or four knots by this time with downwind streets, and remaining close to that oh-so-comforting 6,000 foot cloud base while I gasped at the terrain below was easy.
The tension ebbed as I crossed southern New York state east of Wurtsboro. The lift was good, cloud base remained high, cu's were widespread without significant holes on course, and the living was easy. Martha was making good time just behind me, and as I crossed over the Hudson River at West Point and caught good lift on the other side, the last significant terrain barrier was in my rear view mirror. The route through lower Connecticut took me over the Nutmeg glider operation at Candlelight where one of the members was stationed to mark a great thermal for me, the only glider I say that day. Hartford passed below my left wingtip with ease, and as I made a last final-glide climb in eastern Connecticut and pointed the nose at North Central airport in Rhode Island, a great feeling of satisfaction came over me. Three hundred thirty miles in five and a half hours with a strong tail wind wasn't about to set any records, but is a flight I'll never forget because it came as such an unexpected gift.
My good friend Martha came along a couple hours later, policed me up, and we drove the remaining few miles home to reunion with Charlotte and Molly, our adventure complete. Life is sometimes very good.
The flight log can be viewed at
Over the past year, MITSA has experienced several launch incidents involving air brake deployment while on tow. In fact, in the one I observed, the air brakes where open as the "all out" signal was given. It has always been MITSA's policy that the wing runner must check that the canopy and air brakes are closed and tail dollies are off before starting any launch. This policy will remain, but we are instituting another check to head off any further incidents.
It will now be required that those hooking up the tow rope to the glider must call out to the pilot, "Brakes closed and locked!" before attaching the rope. Even after receiving a positive response, they should visually check the wings to ensure the brakes are closed. I would also like to remind everyone that the rope should never be connected until the pilot has finished all preflight checks and is ready to attach the rope. It is the pilot's responsibility to be ready for launch and perform timely checks.
Please go to the MITSA training web site for more information. This can be found on the MITSA web site by following the links "MITSA training" and "Launch signals," or by going directly to
John Wren, Aviation Safety Counselor
Phil Gaisford, MITSA Chief Instructor
Tom MacJarrett was an industrious and admired instructor with MITSA while he was stationed in Massachusetts in the early 1990s with his wife Tanya and son Connor. Tom flew with me one year in an L-23 in the MITSA Memorial Day contests that John Wren used to organize for the club. It was my first-ever cross country flight, and a flight that was good enough for us to win our category that day. It is a flight that I still remember quite vividly. Tom moved on to the Strategic Air Command base in Nebraska, my home state, and now appears to be living in New York. The following article was extracted from a press release by Sandy Hill. --Editor
The National Association of Flight Instructors (NAFI) has renewed Tom MacJarrett's designation as a Master Certificated Flight Instructor (CFI). Tom is a resident of Glens Falls, New York. He is a CFI-G and an active instructor with the Soaring Society of America, and he has worked with Civil Air Patrol cadets in the annual CAP-sponsored soaring academy. There are approximately 78,000 flight instructors in the United States, but fewer than two hundred of them have been named Master Instructor. The last five national Flight Instructors of the Year were Master Instructors, and Tom is one of only six instructors in New York to hold this prestigious title.
The Master Instructor designation is earned by a candidate through a rigorous process of continuing education and must be renewed biennially, just like a flight instructor's certificate. This process parallels the continuing education regimen used by other professionals to enhance their knowledge base while increasing their professionalism. Simply put, the Master Instructor designation is a means by which to identify those outstanding aviation educators, those "Teachers of Flight," who have demonstrated an ongoing commitment to excellence, professional growth, and service to the aviation community.
Through their dedication to excellence, Master Instructors have earned their "black belts" in aviation education. They truly represent the creme de la creme of our industry! To publicly recognize these individuals and their noteworthy accomplishments, NAFI will be hosting its "Meet the Masters" breakfast, to which Tom has been invited, during the Experimental Aircraft Association's (EAA) AirVenture 2000 this summer in Oshkosh. Any support that can be provided will be greatly appreciated.
NAFI was founded in 1967 and is dedicated to raising and maintaining the professional standing of flight instructors throughout the nation, as well as providing a safe and effective learning environment for student pilots. In addition, NAFI initiates education and support programs throughout the aviation industry. The Association affiliated with the EAA in May of 1995. Visit the NAFI web site at www.nafinet.org or contact NAFI at 719-589-9487 or 2Hills@amigo.net.
I was reading some old newsletter [May 1998] the other day and came across an excellent piece by Mike Baxa, focusing on emergency bail out procedures. This led me to think about the nature of stress-laden situations, such as parting company with a stricken aircraft, based on some basic psychology and the testimonies of pilot friends who have had to make that split-second decision. I was also prompted by rereading the accident report from England, regarding the Dunstable K21 that was struck by ball lightning, the pilots being saved by their parachutes.
Psychologically, emergency situations are often dealt with at an almost automatic level of cognition. We act before we even realize the need to do so. This is where training and mental preparation is important in dealing with a situation that is outside the realm of every day experience. However, as an engineer turned social psychologist, I am fully aware of the ability of my brain to convince itself that things are not as bad as they appear to be. We are all very adept at self-deception, which is why training is required to overcome instinct. Think about stall or spin recovery, with the nose or wing of the glider dropping earthward. The natural reaction to this may be to pull back on the stick, rather then easing it forward, and in a real spin situation, it is training that should prevent you from really hauling back on the stick and killing yourself.
However, stress does funny, unpredictable things to the human mind. We may rehearse in the comfort of a stress-free situation what we would do in a critical circumstance. However, the absence of brain-numbing fear is a real factor in gauging future behavior, our own and, from an instructional viewpoint, our students. I once had an instructor who used the line, "In the case of an emergency, I will tell you to abandon the glider. You'll probably hear this only once, as I'll be over the side as I repeat it for the second time."
Flight instructors are charged with gauging their student's behavior in stressful situations. Failing to do so accurately could result in the instructor following the student very closely into the accident they are both going to have. A famous tale of stress-related behavior comes from the long career of British instructor Derek Piggott. Faced with a disabled glider and forced to bail out, Piggott shouted to his student to abandon ship, only to watch, in horror, as the student slipped further and further down in his seat. Piggott threatened to leave the student if he did not jump immediately. In this way, suitably motivated, the student complied, followed by Piggott who, folklore tells us, was momentarily pinned to the wing of the spinning glider before freeing himself and activating his chute. When Piggott later asked the student what he was doing in the glider when instructed to bail, the student replied that he had dropped his new sunglasses and didn't want them destroyed in the ensuing wreck. Under extreme stress, his mind focused on the trivial matter of his sunglasses, jeopardizing not only his own survival but that of the instructor as well.
Flying at a large club such as Britain's Lasham exposes you to pilots who have had to make that split-second decision on staying or leaving a glider. I agree with Mike Baxa that it is probably safer to stick with the glider, if controllable, and with the added caveat of structural integrity. In the piece on mid-air collisions I wrote for last month's newsletter, you may recall the incident of the collision between a Grob and a K8. The impact ripped off the outer section of the K8's wing to within one inch of the aileron push rod, leaving the glider "controllable" but vulnerable to imminent structural failure. Both pilots successfully flew their respective ships back to the field, with the K8 pilot immediately finding himself on the receiving end of a fairly impassioned debriefing from the chief instructor focusing on his decision not to jump. (I wasn't there, as I was still flying, but legend has it that the chief's voice could be heard at the other end of the airfield, and it is a big field.) His point was that the wing could have folded up on a turn to final, leaving no room for escape, whereas parting company from his ship at 3,500 feet would have given the K8 pilot plenty of time to contemplate the imperfections of his thermaling technique during his gentle drift earthward.
I liked and agreed with Mike Baxa's list of action items to take in the case of a bail out being necessary. I'd add to it slightly, based on the testimony of pilots I know who have had to do the deed:
Step 1: Canopy released and away clear. Be prepared to force the canopy away from the fuselage. If the glider is in a nose-down attitude, past the vertical, then the airflow may actually force the canopy back in to place. One Lasham pilot found himself in this situation after being rammed from behind during a competition and losing his elevator control. He literally had to punch his way through the canopy.
Step 2: Seat belts released. This is a very important point. Performing step two before step one could result in the pilot being pinned to the inside of the canopy by high G forces that make it hard to reach or operate the release mechanism. Loosening the straps may make the actual release easier, but don't undo them. One other tip from those who have: if time, room, cockpit design, and presence of mind make it possible, try to extract your legs from under the instrument panel and bend your knees, as this body position may give you extra leverage to overcome G forces, or a stuck canopy.
Unlike Mike Baxa, I have never jumped from an airplane, either deliberately for practice or in a real emergency. The closest I came was on a flight test in England with an instructor friend of mine. I had inspected the K13 before our flight, and noticed a strange "clunk" every time I cycled the stick fore and aft. I pointed this out to my friend, who was not the least bit concerned, so who was I to argue with him? The error of this decision became apparent on tow almost immediately after take off. I found myself fighting with the pitch control and trim just in order to keep station behind the tug. Then the nose dropped dramatically and I had to haul like crazy to regain position. Then the opposite happened: the nose suddenly went up and I was fighting to push it back down again.
This started to become cyclic, much to the amusement of my friend, who assumed that it was sheer ineptitude on my part causing the wild gyrations. Passing through the 1,000 foot mark, I handed the glider over to Simon who became very silent, as he too experienced the roller coaster ride first hand. "You have control," he said, adding that I should do my best and get us to at least 2,000 feet before coming off tow. Then I heard the sound of Simon loosening his seat straps. "Oh God! He wants us to bail out," was the thought that raced through my mind. So, flying the bucking K13 with one hand, I too started to loosen my straps in readiness for what seemed to be the inevitable bail out, but at 1,500 feet, the oscillations were becoming too much for us and the tug pilot, so we pulled off. Things calmed down a bit at the lower speed off tow, and deeming the altitude too low for a successful parting company with the recalcitrant glider, the instructor flew a gentle, spiraling descent to the field and made a landing without entering the pattern, just round and down.
The cause of our wild ride was a loose mass-balance weight in the elevator. However, after reflection and discussion with Simon afterwards over several pints of beer (necessary to stop us both from shaking and prescribed in large quantities by my instructor friend, who happened to be a physician) it was clear that we had both mentally prepared ourselves for the bail out and were relatively calm about the whole thing while faced with the imminent emergency. It was afterwards that the shock set in, realizing how close we had come to actually having to bail out.
The reason I have not joined the ranks of the parachutist, like Mike, is simple. I subscribe to the Royal Air Force maxim of never leaving a perfectly serviceable aircraft to find an unserviceable parachute! That is my way of saying I am too much of a coward to try it unless I have to. However, I try to avoid going out on boats without a life jacket and tend to apply the same logic to gliders and parachutes. As a parting thought, most of the bail-out incidents that I know of occurred in the local area of the airfield.
Eric Frere joined the club on April 15. He writes, "I am the regional general manager of a systems integration company in Burlington, Massachusetts.
I received my (Canadian) soaring license in 1982 and did most of my flying with the Montreal Soaring Association. Unfortunately, career and father duties kept me on the ground until recently. After a 15-year hiatus, I have decided to brush off the cobwebs and take to the air.
I found MITSA through the Internet and came for a visit this spring. What attracted me to MITSA was the quality of the organization and its Junior Program. Now my wife (Mary Lou) and my 14-year-old son (Paul) have joined as family members. We are still waiting for an open spot in the Junior Program for my son but he will continue with his regular training and hopes to solo this summer. My 16-year-old daughter will join us for the summer and will also look forward to spending a lot of time in the air.
As for Mary Lou, Karl Krueger has taken her up for her first flight which she totally enjoyed. (Karl made her do a lot of the flying.) She is still unsure if she wants to go through the training but will be coming to the field to help out, work on her tan, and (hopefully) do some flying.
I have to mention that the members of MITSA, particularly Karl Krueger, Fred Looft, Joe Kwasnik, and Andrew Watson, have been extremely friendly and have made us feel at home."
Bart Stidham joined the club on April 31. He writes, "I live in Stow with my wife and three daughters. We moved here almost three years ago and we love it. Playing with the kids and outdoor activities are my primary escapes.
I'm chief technical officer of True North, one of the world's largest advertising companies. I work out of my home office when I'm not on the road. I'm on the road much of the time as we have operations in ninety-three countries worldwide.
I learned to fly at the Air Force Academy as a Cadet, before losing my PQ and leaving the Air Force. That was fifteen years ago. I was a hang gliding instructor for a year at Kitty Hawk Kites, but that was ten years ago. I'm trying to get current again in both hang gliders and sailplanes.
Just so you know, I do not fly "traditional" hang gliders as I consider them to be unsafe. My interest lies in foot-launched sailplanes now being reclassified by the FAI as ultralight sailplanes. These were invented in the United States but have grown quite popular in Europe. They can launched by almost any method, including aerotow, but they require slower tow aircraft such as Super Cubs and ultralights like the Dragon Fly (a beefy ultralight designed as a tow plane). You fly them wearing a helmet. They have a true steal and aluminum crash cage, and best of all they have a ballistic parachute that can be deployed in less than a second. They have the advantage of being easily transportable and they can be landed virtually anywhere in spaces as small as a baseball field. Their disadvantage is performance. They are slow and top out about where a 1-26 does.
I'd be happy to work on the web site or any other technology issues for the club."
| Date | D.O. | Instructor | AM Tow Pilot | PM Tow Pilot | AM Jnr | PM Jnr | AM Jnr | PM Jnr |
| 7/1 | Kwasnik* | Johnson | Gammon | Pugh | M.Tadry | L. Tadry | R. Cutler | C. Gagnon |
| 7/2 | Loraditch | Krueger | Easom | Hollister | M.Vickery | P.Frere | R.Marko | B.Cullen |
| 7/8 | Looft* | Watson* | Gammon | Hollister* | R.Cutler | C.Gagnon | M.Tadry | L.Tadry |
| 7/9 | Kaynor* | Rosenberg* | Pugh | Easom | R.Marko | B.Cullen | M.Vickery | P.Frere |
| 7/15 | Brine | Bourgeois | Gammon | Friedman | M.Tadry | L.Tadry | R.Cutler | C.Gagnon |
| 7/16 | Moysey | Gaisford | Easom | Hollister | M.Vickery | P.Frere | R.Marko | B.Cullen |
| 7/22 | Nordmann | Johnson | Hollister* | Pugh | R.Cutler | C.Gagnon | M.Tadry | L.Tadry |
| 7/23 | Rossoni* | Rosenberg* | Poduje* | Friedman | R.Marko | B.Cullen | M.Vickery | P.Frere |
| 7/29 | Timpson | Krueger | Easom | Pugh | M.Tadry | L.Tadry | R.Cutler | C.Gagnon |
| 7/30 | Tsillas | Bourgeois | Hollister* | Easom | M.Vickery | P.Frere | R.Marko | B.Cullen |
| 8/5 | Vickery | Gaisford | Clark* | Hollister | R.Cutler | C.Gagnon | M.Tadry | L.Tadry |
| 8/6 | Watekaitis | Johnson | Easom | Pugh | R.Marko | B.Cullen | M.Vickery | P.Frere |
| 8/12 | Wong | Krueger | Gammon | Clark | M.Tadry | L.Tadry | R.Cutler | C.Gagnon |
| 8/13 | Blieden* | Rosenberg* | Hollister* | Easom | M.Vickery | P.Frere | R.Marko | B.Cullen |
| 8/19 | Evans | Watson* | Gammon | Friedman | R.Cutler | C.Gagnon | M.Tadry | L.Tadry |
| 8/20 | Gold* | Baxa | Poduje* | Pugh | R.Marko | B.Cullen | M.Vickery | P.Frere |
| 8/26 | Kwasnik* | Bourgeois | Clark* | Pugh | M.Tadry | L.Tadry | R.Cutler | C.Gagnon |
| 8/27 | Kaynor* | Gaisford | Easom | Friedman | M.Vickery | P.Frere | R.Marko | B.Cullen |
| 9/2 | Looft* | Johnson | Gammon | Clark | R.Cutler | C.Gagnon | M.Tadry | L.Tadry |
| 9/3 | Loraditch | Rosenberg* | Fletcher | Easom | R.Marko | B.Cullen | M.Vickery | P.Frere |
| 9/9 | Nordmann | Krueger | Hollister* | Fletcher | M.Tadry | L.Tadry | R.Cutler | C.Gagnon |
| 9/10 | Moysey | Johnson | Poduje* | Friedman | M.Vickery | P.Frere | R.Marko | B.Cullen |
| 9/16 | MacMillan* | Bourgeois | Gammon | Pugh | R.Cutler | C.Gagnon | M.Tadry | L.Tadry |
| 9/17 | Rossoni* | Gaisford | Clark* | Hollister | R.Marko | B.Cullen | M.Vickery | P.Frere |
| 9/23 | Timpson | Johnson | Easom | Pugh | M.Tadry | L.Tadry | R.Cutler | C.Gagnon |
| 9/24 | Tsillas | Krueger | Fletcher | Clark | M.Vickery | P.Frere | R.Marko | B.Cullen |
| 9/30 | Vickery | Watson* | Gammon | Easom | R.Cutler | C.Gagnon | M.Tadry | L.Tadry |
| 10/1 | Watekaitis | Rosenberg* | Hollister* | Fletcher | R.Marko | B.Cullen | M.Vickery | P.Frere |
Club email address: mitsa@deas.harvard.edu
Club web page: http://www.mitsa.org
For more information about MITSA, you can contact the club by email, visit our web page, or contact Joe Kwasnik, our director of membership listed above.
The Leading Edge is the newsletter of the MIT Soaring Association, Inc. The newsletter is edited by Mark Tuttle, and published every other month (more frequently during the soaring season). The submission deadline is the first of each month. Please send any inquiries or material for publication to Mark Tuttle, 8 Melanie Lane, Arlington, MA 02474; tuttle@crl.dec.com.