HIGHLIGHTS:
 

1. Cliff Stone, one of our power instructors who meet on Friday mornings, came out to Avenal for the second time and was greeted by an old friend he had flown with out of San Francisco, Karl Kunz. Both of them are Captains for United Air Lines, based at SFO. Karl flies the Boeing 777 and Cliff flies the Airbus A320. Turns out that Karl is an experienced glider pilot as is Cliff and meeting one another at Avenal was quite a coincidence. We're happy they did and hope that meeting will cement Karl's intentions to join our club and start showing us less-experienced guys how it's done. Welcome you two !!! CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR NEWEST CLUB MEMBER, CLIFF STONE!!

2. Karl and friend, John Craver, flew to Avenal in John's beautiful, shiny Cessna 170. But that won't be for long since John has already committed to selling the Cessna. Seems Karl also flies his own 170 and perhaps that will bring them both back to Avenal for fun and soaring.

3. Frank Owen brought two friends with him, Chuck Jennings and David Shelton. They went flying with Frank a bit and later on Chuck flew with me as his first official flight instruction. I hope he continues towards his rating since he did well on our flight. We were up quite a long time and he got all the thermalling he wanted.

4. Jack Wiegand and Hanna Marlette flew out in the Cherokee 140 with me and they each took turns flying different segments. At Avenal both flew but Jack did more flying, thermalling in 10 knot lift up above 7000. Hanna flew with me but this time in the back seat and did the photography while I flew from the front, an unusual position for me.

5. Cliff Stone and I flew in the Orange Crush, and while I sat in the back and did nothing, Cliff thermalled us up just beyond 6600 msl. A very nice flight and demonstration of how little skill Cliff lost during the past 25 years since he flew gliders regularly. Nice flight, Cliff.

6. Karl Kunz and I also flew together. As with Cliff, I sat in the back and watched the show while Karl displayed his glider flying talents. He did so well that if he decides to join the club, he'll be on his own immediately.

7. John Craver and I flew a demo flight but didn't stay up very long. I just picked the wrong areas to look for lift and although we did do some thermalling, most of the flight was either zero or sink. I had hoped to get John back in the air for a longer flight but he and Karl had to get back to Monterey early. Perhaps another day and I'll get John aloft for more of a flight.

8. Alex Caldwell was flying the Boy Scouts all morning in the Blanik. He does this nice community service several times a year and I'm sure they all appreciate his contribution. And for us, it exposes more of our central valley residents to the fun at Avenal.

9.  More of our club members were out today. Richard Walker flew his Schweizer 1-35, Jerry Smeltzer flew the 1-26 (I think), Don Van Wyk feeling much better these days and coming out to Avenal more after his recovery. Paul Hanson flying his SZD-59. We appreciate all our members and hope to see many more of them as the weather warms up and the thermals get much higher.