What great weather for our opening weekend! Thanks to everyone who came out. It was great to see everyone in the air having a good time. We're looking forward to a great flying season. Saturday was classic spring conditions for central Texas. Light lift, but consistent. The strong winds graciously took a break. Flying was easy. For most it was some of the first tows for the season, but everyone showed very good AT skills. Texas pilots continue to become better AT pilots. I think shoulder towing (V-bridle off the harness only) has greatly improved many pilots towing skills. It was a FUN day. Mike Degtoff, Chris Zimmerman and John Krueger decided to call a 50-mile triangle, Bremond-Franklin-Hearne, while Martin Mitter chose to try and go XC. John the Bomb and Martin were the first to land together near the power plant in Bremond. Degtoff made it past Franklin, about 10 miles from the airport and CZ made it back to the airport, coming in low and fast (gave a bit of a flashback from the Nationals!). Keith Brown towed up in his new Airborne Sting enjoying a few trips to cloudbase. He later attached his wing to his "Sky Cycle" light trike and enjoyed buzzing around the airport and shooting some nice landings for well over an hour. Richard Bodine took his first flight since last fall (finally fully recuperated from back surgery). His towing was solid, and he enjoyed a couple of flights getting back into the groove of things. Curtis Graczyk had a couple of nice flights. He did have one exciting tow when he and Burnzie flew through some interesting "swirls", causing things to get a little sideways. Curtis stayed solid and there weren't any problems. He just about had himself talked into camping for the night to enjoy a second day of flying, when he tweaked his knee on his final landing. Hope it's better by next weekend Curtis! Chico Palmer enjoyed a flight and RR Rodriguez flew his Sensor late in the day. Dan Bereczki and his wife Barbara showed up later in the day as well after attending a nephew's graduation ceremony in Waco. Dan set up his glider and took some early evening flights. John the Bomb talked him into towing from the shoulders, and he enjoyed the ease of it with his Laminar. Martin Mitter also went off the shoulders for the first time with his Litespeed and was amazed at the difference. Wendy Stratton, a new pilot from Houston came out and met some new flying buddies while she observed the flying activity. She's looking forward to finishing up her training and that first solo flight. Burnzie took Arlene Hoffman on a "birthday" discovery flight in the trike and she had so much fun it inspired her son-in-law to take a flight as well. Afterwards, Burnzie took Dan's wife Barbara Bereczki on a local flight as Dan was towing in his Laminar. After the flying was over everyone enjoyed a delicious cookout under the open hangers. The company was great and with temperatures in the 70's, the only thing uncomfortable were all the June bugs….which provided a good laugh every now and then when one would buzz up a pant leg or slam into the side of someone's head.

Sunday was a tougher day for flying. We started towing a 1 p.m. Conditions were light and very inconsistent. Winds were stronger and there was fairly strong drift at altitude. John had a good flight early. Mike D. was amazing to be able to stay up as long as he did, 4 hours! Even more amazing was his ability to stay at the airport in moderate drift. He managed to work his way 7 miles upwind of the airport. The afternoon was very inconsistent. Timing was everything. CZ towed up and joined Degtoff. While frolicking about they had nice surprise visit from Robin Hamilton (who was attempting an out-and-return from Hempstead). He landed in Hearne to say hi, re-launched and made it back as far as Navasota. Richard Bodine, Mick Peters, Dan Bereczki all towed up a couple of times, and Mick enjoyed a nice flight to cloud base. Dennis Dornfest came out later in the day and after his second tow at about 4 p.m., enjoyed 1 hour and 5 minutes of airtime! Burnzie did some more trike flying, providing a discovery flight with Henry Rhea from Austin (fixed-wing pilot wanting to transition over to weight-shift). He also flew with Barbara again and finished up with Dennis Dornfest (his first time in a trike…and he liked it!). Chico started out the morning with some dual time in the Dragonfly with John the Bomb and flew again with Burnzie on Monday morning. He's doing quite well with his training…the boy has potential! All in all it was a great start to our season. We plan to be in Hearne June 8-9 and possibly June 15-16 as well. After that we will be in Edinburg till the middle of July. We hope everyone gets a chance to visit us in South Texas (should be quite an adventure). If you can't make it south with us, plan to join us back in Hearne starting the first of August. We'll have all the tugs going, tandems, trike instruction, and a new swimming pool. Look forward to seeing EVERYONE.