Hi Herbert - It's been a long time buddy. I hear you've been moving it
around the course very nicely these days even though you've moved over
to the cold side. Bet you miss NC now!

It was tough walking away from soaring - all the great friends, all the
places, all the beautiful skies. It was especially tough walking away
from those gorgeous soaring ships and driving around in this vibrating
collection of ill fitted tubing, aluminum sheet, fabric and glass.

I'll always consider myself a glider guy but I don't know if my lovely
crew will ever agree to return even though she has kept her Sailplane
Crew Union Member (SCUM) card in her wallet. She loves to travel by
Maule and how can I argue with that?

Bill 'the dark side' Watson :-)

1MoClimb wrote:
Ray and Bill,
This was before Ray's time but Bill was a member of the NC Soaring
Assoc. for some years in the early 90's and I enjoyed flying up to Ball
with him a couple of times chasing the LS6. In fact, being an early
implementer of GPS I used my early Garmin and the Cambridge M1 to set
up my first long 40 mi final glide from Franklin Co. beating him home.
People called it cheating then.
When Bill announced the purchase of that darned Maule I remember
thinking 'Oh no, this ain't good'. Shortly after that he stayed away
citing the necessary tail wheel training on the stupid Maule which he
flew into Harnett ever so often. We flew one more time together a
contest at Uvalde and then he was gone.

Bill, come back from the Dark Side! There's more to flying than boring
holes in the sky or "driving" a Maule as you correctly describe it.
The club in Harnett is still going strong and has all kinds of good
gliders to use until you get back into your own. Hope to see you soon
at a contest showing you haven't forgotten to race!

Herbert, J7

Ray Lovinggood wrote:

KK,

I would love for 41 to get back into the sport, but
only if he would get into it with our club :-)

We need (I need) pilots of his calibre to push us and
nag us and harrass us into going farther and faster.
Right now, our only guru is Papa One and he is great.
But he can't be at the field every Saturday and Sunday.
If we had 41, maybe we could have all good weekend
soaring days covered. We also had Juliet Seven, but
he decided thermals looked better in the Chicago area
and moved up there to the frozen midwest where he chases
BB around.

Ray Lovinggood
Carrboro, North Carolina, USA
LS1-d, 'W8'