Owl Canyon Sailplane Crash Today?

Sad to hear; our club just bought the 1-34 Over Easy that used to fly
there. First flights in the next couple of weeks.

At 17:22 21 March 2011, Tony wrote:
Awful news I met Fred ~5 years ago when he stopped through Ames,
IA for some reason. Really enjoyed talking to him and hearing some
great soaring stories.

Before there was an Owl Canyon Gliderport, Fred founded Waverly West
Soaring Ranch which was located a few miles west of the current Owl
Canyon. (It was at Owl Canyon where I climbed to 35,000ft for my dia.
Alt. from an 8700ft local tow on 5 Feb. 1972.)
Fred can be found on both the Military and the History channel as an
interviewee recounting his role with the Luftwaffe in WW II. I turns
out that Fred was a sixteen year old BF109 pilot toward the end of the
war.
A number of years ago I introduced him to a former P-47 pilot and it
turned out that both of them had flown from the same airport in France
within about a week of each other.
Both Fred and I flew a number of XC flights to the northeast as far as
Scotts Bluff NE where we used Springer Jones (UB) – who went West a
few years ago - ranch strip as a turn point.
Fred was instrumental in introducing a number of kids to soaring as
well as flying balloons and motor gliders.
Oscar Echo, or what was fondly known as “Over Easy” was at one time
owned by Jim Munn (also deceased.) If memory serves, Jim set some
Colo. Altitude records in OE.
Fred was ever the gentleman and a friend to anyone to met him.

Last spring while chatting with Fred, he mentioned that approximately 75% of
his 11,000 glider hours were instructional, and, that he had 860 "ticketed
glider pilots" to his instructional credits. I didn't think to ask him if he
knew the proportion of ab-initio to transition, because the 860 number left me
pretty much speechless.

Here's a link to his obituary:

http://www.coloradoan.com/apps/pbcs....=2011103240354

Regards,
Bob W.