Yep, Karl probably would be having a quiet beer!:] --- On Thu, 15/10/09, Christopher Mc Donnell <[email protected]> wrote:
From: Christopher Mc Donnell <[email protected]> Subject: [Aus-soaring] Media reporting-groan! To: [email protected] Received: Thursday, 15 October, 2009, 9:00 AM This is a report of an event going on in the USA at present. Love the bit about "gliders without a motor". Several gliders make unplanned landings in Franklin County area By VICKY TAYLOR, KEITH PARADISE and ROB LUFF Staff writers Click photo to enlarge Unscheduled: The pilot of a glider was forced Tuesday to make a... (Public Opinion/Ryan Blackwell) « 1 » Thirteen non-motorized aircraft participating in a week-long glider competition sponsored by the Fairfield Glider Club set their flying machines down safely in several locations in the greater Franklin County area Tuesday afternoon after losing altitude. The gliders were part of a 37-glider contingent competing in the glider competition that began Sunday, according to Rick Fuller, club safety officer for the Mid-Atlantic Soaring Association. MASA is sponsoring the seven-day contest, which challenges "soarers" to fly their gliders, without a motor, from a private Fairfield air strip in as big a circuit as possible. They are dragged by a powered airplane until they lift off, then rely on natural air currents to pick up speed and fly as far as they can before heading back to their launch point. Fuller, of Fairfax, Va., was headed to McConnellsburg but didn't make it to the first Appalachian ridge, landing in a farm field in Peters Township. About a mile away, Karl Striedieck, a pilot from Julian, landed in another field at the intersection of Lemar and Warm Spring roads. Neither pilot was hurt. In fact, when Fuller arrived at Striedieck's landing site, he couldn't find him. The pilot had already made his way to a nearby home, where Fuller guessed he was probably having a beer. "This isn't routine, but it's fairly common," Fuller said. "It's a very safe sport." While many of the gliders were headed west across Franklin County, not all of the 13 Advertisement downed planes landed there. One put down in a field as far away as Westminster, Md. A third glider, flown by Mike Shakman of Chicago, put down in a farm field behind a Fort Loudon Main Street home. Golfers at the South Mountain Golf Club temporarily had an additional hazard when a fourth glider landed on the ninth fairway. Shakman's wife, Melissa, and a U.S. Naval Academy cadet and aspiring pilot drove from Fairfield to Fort Loudon to get her husband and retrieve his glider after he landed in the freshly plowed farm field shortly after mid-afternoon. The gliders have wing spans of about 40 feet. Shakman said he was having a "grand flight" when he suddenly lost altitude shortly after mid-afternoon and knew he wasn't going to make it over the ridge on the western side of Franklin County. "The weather was just not cooperating," Melissa Shakman said of her husband's flight. "But he had a lot of fun until the last few minutes of the flight." Jonathan Dixon, a third-year Naval Academy cadet, was at the Fairfield event as an observer and offered to accompany Melissa Shakman to Fort Loudon to pick up her husband and help load his glider onto a trailer designed specifically to haul gliders. At the landing site, Dixon and Shakman took the wings off the glider, stowed them on either side of the trailer and then loaded the glider body onto the trailer. It didn't take much longer to get the glider loaded onto the trailer and head back toward Adams County as it had taken Melissa Shakman and Dixon to drive from Fairfield to the landing site. The Shakmans said that if the weather cooperates, Mike Shakman will put his glider back up in the air for additional competition this week. At the South Mountain Golf Course clubhouse, attendant Russell Crouse said the glider that set down there landed on the course's 380-yard par 4 around 3:15 p.m. No one was playing the hole at the time of the landing and the operator of the glider was not injured. Crouse said the operator told people at the club that he had taken off from one of the nearby peaks and didn't have enough wind. "He said he didn't catch enough lift," he said. When the glider landed, employees towed the glider from the fairway using a golf cart. Crouse said the glider is not the largest vehicle to find its way onto the golf course. He said a single-engine plane once landed at the course a few years ago. So what would have been the ruling if you're on a golf course and your ball's run over by a glider? "I've had a few people ask me that today," Crouse said. "I don't know what it would be." ---------- Print Email Font ResizeReturn to Top POST YOUR COMMENTS: #yiv520901727 .topix_commentLink {font-weight:bold;margin:0px;} #yiv520901727 .topix_postform .fieldHeader {width:80px;text-align:right;font-weight:bold;vertical-align:top;padding:4px;}#yiv520901727 .topix_postform .fieldContent {padding:4px;}#yiv520901727 .topix_postform .inputTable {width:100%;}#yiv520901727 .topix_postform .headerText {text-align:left;padding:2px 8px;font-size:11px;font-weight:normal;text-align:center;}#yiv520901727 .topix_postform .disclaimerText {padding:10px 10px 0 10px;font-size:10px;font-style:italic;}#yiv520901727 .topix_postform .submitButton {font-size:14px;font-weight:bold;margin-top:4px;}#yiv520901727 .topix_postform .captcha {padding-left:10px;}#yiv520901727 .topix_postform .captchaImg {vertical-align:top;width:135;height:78;}#yiv520901727 .error {color:#c00;}#yiv520901727 .forumadmin {background-color:#FFF0F0;} Type in -----Inline Attachment Follows----- _______________________________________________ Aus-soaring mailing list [email protected] To check or change subscription details, visit: http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring
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