Simple Saturday Flying:

Saturday started out early with Burnzie and Jon Stieben doing some dual trike instruction. Jon set up his newly purchased Sabre trike and wing the evening before so that Burnzie could test fly it later Saturday morning. Kent Robinson, Fermin (Kent's semi-adopted Venezuelan son), Tre Groeschel, and Duane McCune drove down together from Dallas and Martin Mitter and Kelly Russell (more Dallas pilots) arrived as well. Kenneth Cobb, from Plantersville, and Mick Peters, from Austin, also joined the fray. Kent and Fermin pulled out RR's winch system and got it going while Gaye got the Chevy truck warmed up and windshields cleaned off (she is such a hard worker). Kent and Tre winch towed Fermin on his Dream. He enjoyed 5 tows total throughout the day, which the 3rd produced a very nice soaring flight of about 20 minutes. Burnzie was still preparing to test fly the Sabre so Kent had Fermin winch tow him up and he released at 1000' and worked 4-5 thermals all around town (fairgrounds, train yard, tank farm)...flew for 30-45 minutes but never got above 3,000 feet. Mick Peters sent in the following: I arrived at Hearne a little late on Saturday, around 2pm, just in time to see Mr. Kent Robinson launch on a platform tow. "Oh no, not HIM again" I thought. "He'll be asking questions about my underwear again". But he was already safely in the air (phew!). Anyway, despite my late arrival I managed to be first in line when Burnzie fired up the Dfly. Steve released me obligingly into a thermal around 2000'. Lift was light but quite plentiful, and drift was minimal. Frolicked for about 45 mins around the south end of the field, including a low save from 450' back to 2000' from right over the middle of the feild. Max alt was only about 2500'. Took another tow right after landing and frolicked at the north end this time. Shared some light thermals with Martin Mitter and Kelly Russell up to about 2600'. About 30 mins flight. The highest anyone got was about 2700', but there were some pleasant flights in fairly smooth air. Martin got the longest...maybe an hour and a half or so. A bunch of happy smiling faces. Gaye was particularly enchanting all day, and was wearing the very latest Parisien jean and T shirt fashions. I fondly recall our intimate chat about how it didn't matter if she was "sweaty and stinky", cause everyone else out there was too. (Thanks Mick....I did ask for any praising comments about myself that anyone might want to include in their write-up). The rest of the gang all had similar flights and as Mick pointed out (among other things) there were lots of smiling faces. Martin Mitter flew for about an hour topping out at 3000'. Kelly Russell, who hadn't towed in awhile, pulled off a smooth launch and solid tow all the way up to 3000', east of the airport. Even though it was a smooth tow it didn't help much as far as finding lift. However she did find some right over the airport where she frolicked with Martin and Mick in a few thermals and flew around for about a 1/2 hour. Duane and Tre had nice flights and Tre wrote the following: Lauched around 3:30, got dropped off in a bit of lift at the south end of the airport. I didn't have to worry about getting in trouble by flying back to the airport! I gained 500' in about 10 minutes, but lost it and ended up on the ground after a pleasant 20 minute flight. I had the excitement of getting my flight suit caught in my zipper, and was only able to get one leg out of the harness, so I put it down on wheels. Kenneth Cobb pinned off at 1800' and flew for an hour reaching 3000'. Burnzie squeezed in another test flight on Jon's Sabre and it looks like Jon will be enjoying many hours to come on his trike! Kent did a couple of tandem flights with Fermin to introduce him to the world of aero towing. Fermin likes truck towing better since it's what he knows best, but he is looking forward to expanding his flying palette (which Kent has done a fine job of providing for Fermin). April (the animal trainer from Quest) came out later in the day for some early evening tows. She hadn't flown in awhile and wanted to check out her recently tuned harness and glider. It definitely still needed more tuning, so Kent, Tre, Kenneth and Duane all pitched in to help straighten things out and Kent test flew the Target afterwards (purple and pink are good colors on Kent). She wrapped up her day with a sunset flight which was a little more enjoyable than the first.

Gregg Ludwig Provides Tandem Flights and Training

Gregg Ludwig is a tandem instructor and lives in Houston. He is also a pilot for Continental and hang glides at both Wallaby and Quest quite a bit. Gregg came out to help with some tandem training. He started out Saturday afternoon with a discovery flight for Joshua Marks from Huntsville. Joshua loved it so much he is ready to schedule some time to begin training! Gregg then worked with Jack Yount from Houston for his AT sign-off. Jack soloed the Falcon 225 after several tandems and is very excited about beginning to log some airtime here in Hearne. Gregg did a great job. It was a fun day with lots of smiles!