John Fellenzer collected over a dozen new, unwrapped toys at the holiday dinner party for distribution by the U.S. Marines to children in the U.S. Go 52! Think of a dozen happy kids at Christmas. Now is that cool or what?
Mark Mattioli set-up a great off-season party. A good time was had by all. We wined and dined. We talked old times. We told stories and made some new ones. Several of us were kicked-out of the bar, some at closing time. Stephen gave a fun photo recap of the 2006 Kathy Jaffe Contest. Sags announced that Dr. Smoke will fly Oshkosh and Sun-n-fun this year. Ann flew up from Florida to rescue us from a threatened display of cross dressing. Marti joined us for dinner and the after dinner ceremonies. Sags and Spencer are back and boy have we been missing-out! You guys really make it fun. We have some new members who joined for the party; so, we're crossing our fingers they'll come back. Have you ever heard a bunch of people screaming at a spin video? Super fun. Pictures
Mark Mattioli gave a presentation about competition aerobatics to the North East Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) mini-convention in Cherry Hill, NJ on Saturday, November 11, 2006. He explained our sport and why we do what we do. They are kindred spirits who also have deep passions about what they do. Here is a link to the slides presented by Mark in Cherry Hill.
Just after Halloween, at the breaking of the dawn, intrepid cold weather aerobats flew from every quarter to haunt the Cold Spring airport. We had food, ribbons, Godzilla in David Clarkes, and great flying. New members and 52 veterans, friends new and old flew, drove, and hitched to the party. Read more
Our seminar at the Flying-W Airport on Saturday, October 7, organized by Mark Mattioli, was a great success. About fifteen pilots and a couple of flight instructors attended. All who wanted, about nine, have received free intro rides from Chris Getz, Ray Franke, Gus Fraser, Sergey Prolagayev, and Stephen Seidel.
We played Cari Chadwick's Kathy Jaffe Challenge video while everyone signed-in and found seats. Mark introduced the seminar and made everyone feel welcome. Doug Lovell gave a short presentation putting the safety aspect in perspective. Stephen Seidel made a short presentation about competition aerobatic flying.
We closed with Rob Marsicano's pilot's-eye-view of the Intermediate Known flown at the 2006 Kathy Jaffe Challenge. Even though we'd gone over an hour, everyone was keen to see it.
Participants got the message that aerobatics, like every other aspect of flying, is as safe as you make it; that it makes you a better pilot; and that it's a lot of fun. Stephen, Mark, and Chris took people over their planes and let them try the seats.
We're hoping that a number of participants will join us for our next season and beyond!
View the announcement or Download the flyer. View photos made by Chris Getz Participants get aerobatic rides at Hammonton.
There was lots of great food on the field. There was lots of friendly aerobatic fraternity. There were lots of friendly FAA inspectors from the Dulles FSDO. There was was not a lot of flying. Weather plagued the mid-atlantic. The nineteen pilots who made the contest got one flight each.
For Chapter 52, Greg Stringer was second of ten in Sportsman flying his beautiful Bücher Jungman. Doug Lovell drove to the contest and accepted Greg's generous offer to try the Bücher in Sportsman. He entertained everyone (except Greg) with his beautiful two fuselage-length torque-roll hammer-slide. Chris Getz and Jim Wells composed the intermediate category, flying in the larger breaks of the low cloud deck. Jim now has a record forty minute hold for a contest flight. Ray Franke was second to Bill Finigan in an Advanced field of three. Dennie Thompson was second of two pilots in Unlimited.
Chapter 52 cleaned-up at another contest August 25-27. Our numbers were reduced by a nasty occluded, warm, ugly rain-soaked low pressure trough hanging-out for the weekend over our region. Springfield, VT, just north, had contest flyable weather from 2pm Saturday until 11am on Sunday, with a break for that slacker of a sun that insists on keeping to schedule.
Dennis Thompson won over Hans Bok in Unlimited. Stephen Seidel and Ron Chadwick closely followed Bill Gordon in a field of seven Intermediate pilots. New member, Michael Zeltkevic beat five other Primary pilots to take first place in his Czech Zlin. Would you guess that Sergey won Advanced? You guessed right, out of four. Kendal, flying Chris Getz' Model 12, gave ground to David Watson and Andy Cooper to land the fourth place slot. David Klingebiel took third out of twelve Sportsman competitors flying his Cap 21. Miriam Levin and Doug Lovell provided tactical and field support.
Fifty-two strikes again!
Not a lot of people know it, but Chapter 52 has one of our own competing in the AWAC 2006 in Poland. "But we have no local members on the US team !" I hear you say. Correct we don't but we DO have the team captain for the Ukrainian team. Congratulations to Sergey Prolagayev, who took GOLD in the AWAC freestyle flight!
Read all about Chapter 52 fame at the AWAC
The 2006, 8th annual Kathy Jaffe Challenge on July 13-16 at the Flying-W came-off perfectly. The weather, the pilots, the volunteers, the location, everything aligned for a fantastic contest. All flew two flights and Intermediate was decided by a third.
Winners of the five categories, in order, are John Nafziger, Kirill Barsukov, Neville Hogan, Sergey Prolagayev, and Dennie Thompson. Best first time Sportsman went to Gus Fraser, who also took second.
Special thanks to Ron Chadwick, Greg Dungan, Ann Salcedo, Deanna Willson, and Matt Chapman.
Great competition and great parties. It was a splash. Kathy would have loved it.
Stephen has been running a flyover salute at the Randolph, NJ Freedom Day parade for several years. This year Doug and Rob stopped-in at Andover to participate. The date: July 1, 2006. The mission: be patriotic. Visit the 2006 Randolph Bombers
We had a fair turnout at the Maytown contest in spite of poor weather. Those who showed-up on Thursday had lots of time to bond while waiting for the rain to clear. The flying that did happen came-off in an oasis of clear on Saturday evening and early Sunday afternoon.
Our first time Sportsman competitor and new member, Mark Shaw found his way clear to the contest in time on Sunday to sweep the category. He flew his Extra 300 for 2096 out of 2660 points (79%). His closest competition came from Chapter 35's Byron Brumbaugh, who took 1978 points.
John Prince would have taken third place in Sportsman behind Adam Cope, an aerobatics instructor from Chapter 35. Mark's stellar showing pushed him down to fourth. Also flying with Chapter 52 in Sportsman were Alan Troutman and Kirill Barsukov. Kirill was in second place going into Sunday; but, had to scratch his second flight due to equipment difficulties. Nine pilots total flew Sportsman.
Ron Chadwick flew Intermediate in a field of only three pilots. Sergey Prolagayev, Kendal Simpson, and Ray Franke all flew Advanced, with Sergey and Kendal taking the top two out of four. Sergey's second place flight on the known got only 70% marks from the judges. Ray's first place flight took only 71%. Those Chapter 58 judges are a picky bunch.
It seems the only two pilots in the Northeast flying unlimited are Dennie Thompson and Steve Grohsmeyer. Steve took Dennie handily; but, the season is young.
We think it's awfully sweet of Chapter 58 to run a contest considering they didn't field any pilots. Out of the eighteen pilots who did fly, ten were from Chapter 52. Chapter 52 rocks!
The Flying-W came through again with great service. Mindy and her crew at flight op's did a lot of ground-work on the waiver, helped with rooms and setup, and provided donuts and bagels both mornings. Heather and her crew at the Avion Restaurant gave us great service both days for lunch and served fourteen of us for dinner on Saturday night. People love not having to deal with cars to get to a motel. The bar was popular as well.
Mark Mattioli, Miriam Levin, Kirill Barsukov, John Nafzinger, Dennie Thompson, Tom Parsons, and Stephen Seidel all donated time and resources to the school. Ron Chadwick took lots of pictures and recruited for the contest.
We had three members of Chapter 35 fly down with Bill Matukaitis. Three participated from Chapter 38. Ten of our own participated. Five people completely new to aerobatics attended. We hope to see them again. The breakdown by class was fourteen intro' students, six advanced students, and one 2nd day student.
Ray Rose and Greg Dungan did their usual thorough and entertaining job presenting the rule book material. Many students were paling at the quantity of information. Greg and Ray illustrate the content with lots of great stories, anecdotes, and general humor. It makes the pill easy to take.
Thanks to Dennie and Mindy we were able to open a box for aerobatics. Three pilots in two planes used the box on Sunday afternoon after class ended. Ray and Greg stayed with most of the intro' class to give them a taste of judging in the field.
Super 2006 Judges School!
Well, not really. With approval of the board, Tom Parsons has handed-over the mantle of President to Chris Getz. Tom served as President of our chapter for one year. He cheered all of us on at regional contests, chapter meetings, and chapter practice events for the whole year while his schedule prevented frequent flying. We wish you well and thank you, Tom; look forward to seeing you as a non-executive.
Please welcome Chris as our new interim President. Thank you Chris for taking-over the chief duties for us.