At 22:20 25 March 2011, kirk.stant wrote:

I suggest you inform yourself about the USAFA glider program.

You might be surprised.

Well, I've been there, talked to them, and competed against them. They
were extremely impressive young folks, and fairly good competitive pilots
(I got a mild kick out of finishing ahead of one of their officers one of
the days I was flying - part of a team).

What particularly sticks in my mind, though, is one day after
the flying (or maybe we weren't flying because of the wind)
when some of the cadets got Vern Hutchinson talking about
his experiences as a submariner in WWII. Vern did some
amazing things, including infiltrating into Tokyo harbor to
see what was going on (he was just crew, not captain or
anything like that). Those cadets were hanging on his every
word. It was something just to watch it.

My club in NJ produced a young kid glider pilot (his father was
a doctor, but didn't support Bob's gliding desires - when he
was younger, Bob bicycled quite a few miles to the glider
field, and the club sort of adopted him. He ended up at
the Academy, instructing in gliders, and was flying F-16s
over Iraq in the First Bush War.

At the time I was there, the cadets were flying a flock of 2-33s,
1-26s for competition, and some big white glass two-seater
that they trailered around. One thing you have to say for
the Schweizers, I never heard about the AFA having any trouble
with them.

Jim Beckman