 | November 27 Happy Thanksgiving from HGC, we are in Madison eatin' Turkey. |
| November 26 Its a beautiful day and Bill Finn came out, got towed to 2000' and
had a nice extended sled run. Arlen says come on out. |
| November 16 Arlen demoed a Discus 148' today. He got in about 2 hours and had a
high of about 4800'. He said he liked the Discus and found it very similar to the U2. He
thermaled with the topless gliders just fine but they had him by a little on glide. The
glider he flew didn't have the short breakdown option. What....are...you...talking..
about... Oh yeah, he's at Quest Air in Florida. He says it's 85 and Sunny and he only gets
to fly for fun when he's out of town. |
| November 2 Arlan is back and will be at Cushing for normal activities all day
Monday November 3. (flying when dry, etc..) |
| October 23 Tow operations at Hangglide Chicago Cushing are available while Arlan
is away! 10/25 - 11/2 Jason will be available to tow up HGers who couldn't get down to
Henson's. To make sure that you and Jason are there at the same time, check in on his cell
phone at 815-212-1457. |
| October 23 Congratulations to Edwardo on his solo this week. |
| October 22 Congratulations to Gary Solomon who soloed in a Kolb MkIII ultralight.
He said he just needed to know what the other end of the rope was like. |
| October 20 Congratulations to Dave Havranok, Don Lucas and Anca Niecu on their
recent solos over the last week. I am trying to finish up the training with several
other pilots as well before the weather turns too cold. |
| October 10 Congratulations to Greg Wilhelmi who soloed yesterday.
"The tandem glider is a pig." was his comment referring to the ease that the
Falcon flies as compared to the tandem glider. The conditions today are looking good for
another great day of flying with light winds out of the south. The weekend is also shaping
up with warm temperatures and light winds. |
| September 25 Arlan takes a group to Henson's Gap TN for some mountain flying!
This year they are going from Oct 25th - Nov 2, 2003.
Arlan will be taking a few training gliders, Falcons and Pulses, etc.
They stay at the Dunlap Inn which is approx $49 / night or $25 / night sharing a room
If you are interested in all or some part of the trip give Arlan a call. 815-325-1685 Directions and info on trip |
| September 13 Rain will keep us on the ground today. Sunday's
weather is looking better in the afternoon but showers will dampen our flying. |
| August 18 Congratulations to Lukasz Grzyb on his first solo
flight. Yes this is the son of Chris Grzyb who did not want to push Lukasz to become a
hang glider pilot. It will be only a matter of time before we see father and son fighting
it out for the longest flight. |
| July 31 Todd Anderson had an excellent first solo hang glider
flight and is looking forward to flying his recently purchase Wills Wing Sport. |
| July 29 Andy Furmanski soloed in our ultralight trainer to
start the morning and Mariusz Klusa soloed in the evening to end a great day. |
| July 26 Bar-B-Que tonight Winds are expected to make flying a
challenge but come join us for a Bar-B-Que tonight. |
| July 16 Congratulations to Jim Pirman on an excellent solo
flight. Jim will be out this weekend to improve his skills. |
| July 12 After an excellent day of flying with many pilots
getting their full of airtime Rick Henry took his first
solo. Rick did his training at Wallaby Ranch in Florida but conditions weren't right for a
solo flight. He decided to take advantage of the much better weather that we have in the
Mid-west to get his solo flight in. He will host the bar-b-que next weekend.
Congratulations Rick. |
| July 2 Another excellent day with much good flying. Mike
Vankuiken took his first solo flight today to top off an excellent day. Congratulations
Mike. |
| June 21 Congratulations to Allen Gibson on his first solo
aerotow. He plans on being back for many more. |
| June 18 A occasional T-storm may slow us down today but we are
going to get lots of training in-between showers. |
| June 17 Another great day which after Patrick, Wes and Mikee
had over hour flights Allen Gibson soloed. Conditions were perfect and he flew so smooth. |
| June 13 Mike Buechler soloed in the Kolb Mark III and had a
near perfect landing. He is hoping to become a tug pilot and build his hours until he can
afford to purchase a plane. |
| May 25 Krzysztof Grzyb allowed Larry Bunner have the sight
record for one day flying 185 miles and landing between Springfield and St Louis. John
Lacotta and Chris Delannoy spent the day trying to state below 4000 ft so they could stay
warm. Dave Williams and Shane Van Ettan made heavy use of our rental gliders exceeding
6000 ft. |
| May 24 Larry Bunner had another one of his epic flights flying
110 miles and spiralling to the ground from 7000 ft so his chase crew would not have a
longer retreive. Geri Banister flew for 12 miles then went on to chase Larry. Dan Dugan
and Krzysztof Grzyb flew from Whitewater in attempt to fly to Cushing. Dan came up short
at 80 miles. Krzysztof over flew Cushing and landed at Morris for 130 miles. |
| May 10 With some early morning training Ed Rafacz soloed this
morning and is looking forward to building enough current hours in the Kolb to become our
next tug pilot. He has considerable experience in general aviation. Weather unfortunately
moved in and shut down flying. The forecast for the rest of the day is for T-storms and
haze. Maybe Sunday will not be as windy as the forecast. Check out Ian Morris's web site
for some flying pictures.. http://www.morrisis.com/~ianm/HangGliding/20030426/ |
| May 3 Krzysztof Grzyb again holds the site record beating Ron
Stanleys flight of 43 miles with a 72 mile flight reaching a high of 4640 ft.
Congratulations to Jerry Banister on a flight of 25 miles. |
| April 27 An excellent day for flying. Congratulations to Ron
Stanley for flying to Dekalb for a 43 mile flight and collecting $50. Flight time was1 1/2
hours. We would like to thank Chris Delannoy, Guy Denny, Bogdan, Fast Jason, Andy Kinnie,
Dragan and Derak for helping out with the tandems. We completed 25 before we called it a
day. |
| April 13 Mad Mack became our first student to solo this year
this morning. "It was so easy" , was his first comment. The next tow was so
bumpy that we elected to discontinue training in the morning. Mad Mack handled it like a
pro. Ron Stanley made two attempts at the $50 prize for the first hang glider pilot to fly
20 miles out of Cushing. He had two 10 mile flights. I will continue to offer the prize
through next weekend. Maximun tow height is 3000 ft. |
| April 10 Arlan took a 40 minute flight on a Merlin. His high
was 3800 ft, best climb 500 ft plus. Congratulations to Marty Van Burren on soloing the
powered ultralight. His looking forward when he can become a tug pilot.
|
| March 30 We got some good flying in as Mack and Allen get
closer to soloing. Darek had the flight of the day getting to 4000 feet and having to
spiral down to get warm. He said cloud base was over 5000 ft. Tom Brooks took a late
flight to brush off the rust. |
| March 23(corrected) Chris Grzyb flew to
Leland and back to Cushing . Larry Bunner flew to Sheridan and almost made it back to
Cushing for 55 minute flight.The high for the day was 5500 ft and climb rate of 900 fpm by
Chris. Longest flight was also by Chris at just short of two hours. Dan Dugan also had a
nice flight just over an hour and a half. Thermals were abundant and the tow plane was
often times climbing in excess of 1000 fpm quickly getting the pilots to altitude in a
thermal. Wes Schield had an excellent flight. Wes than fell out of a tree retreiving a
kite and ended up with five stitiches in his lip. He promises to leave the tree climbing
to someone else next time. Many other memorable flights took place and we seem to be
blending in well with the other pilots at Cushing. |
| March 16 The morning started out with some foggy conditions
but things quickly
cleared up. Dan Dugan and Chris Grzyb found some thermals for some
extended flying. Wes Schield is liking his Predator more and more.
Darak brushed off the cobwebbs from his flying skills and had some
nice flights on the Falcon. We have started training and expect to
have a large number of pilots soloing in the weeks ahead. . |
| March 8, 9 Betty Pfeiffer did her usually brilllant job.
Anyone that has not attended one of her chute clinics should make a point next year. |
| Febuary 4, 2003 The semi thawing weather has turned the hangar
area into mud and ice. If you come for a visit we will be out doing maintenance on and off
but won't be flying until the runway and hangar area improve. Please do drive on the
grass(mud). |
| Febuary 2, 2003 The Reel Pilots Chute Clinic will be held from
12:00 AM to 6:00 PM at the Schuamburg Library. All are welcome and there will be no
charge. |
| Febuary 1, 2003 The flying in Florida started out unpromising
but after a few days the flying got better and better over the last two weeks of January.
Dan Dugan got back in flying shape to do a 16 mile cross-country upwind. Arlan topped out
at 5000 ft and fininished with a two hour flight capping two weeks of flying. Jim
Shadt came down for a few days and took a number of flights to keep his skills current.
Ian Morris, Draggan, Joe Yobbka and Keith Nelson all got some excellent flying in also.
The people at Quest all made us feel very welcome. Malcomb Jones of Wallaby Ranch invited
us to stay there for our next trip to Florida. We all agreed that we will do it again next
year hopefully with a bigger crowd. |
| January 5, 2003 Happy New Year everyone. Winter has
finally set in and we will be removing our engine from our main tow plane for some
maintenance. We expect to have it back ready for flight early February. |
| December 11, 2002 Wes and Draggan got some excellent
December flying in and were even able to tempt Arlan into taking a rare flight. No
sustainible lift but enough turbulence to make it interesting. This weekend is looking
good too.. |
| November 25- December 1 Tennessee Trip Ian Morris made the
most of conditions getting 9 flights off the mountain and over 5 hours total air time.
Jeremy learn that is not a good idea to do 360s until you are above the mountain after a
near miss of the trees.. Jeremy soared on his first flight off the mountain for over a
hour. Derrick got a hour and 45 minute flight once he got use to the idea of launching off
a mountain. Wes made the trip done to just get one go flight and it was worth every minute
of the 16 hours of driving to do it. |
| November 1, 2002 We are now at Cushing Field after a month of moving in. We
will be flying thru out the winter as Arlan and Jason have cold weather gear that they
want to test. |
| October 19, 2002 It was a breezy day but a 500 foot
altitude gain with the tandem glider convince several pilots that it would be worth
flying. Michael Smyk got a two hour flight and high 3200 feet in the Pulse. He flew 1 hour
with out dead batteries in his vario. Patrick Dow got to 3700 feet with a 45 minute
flight. |
| September 29, 2002 Congratulations to John Broich who
soloed in the Kolb Mark III. He using flying as his therapy for some rough times. We
couldn't think of better therapy. |
| September 25, 2002 Congratulations to Jacek on his most recent
solo in the Kolb Mark III. He will be training to tow the next couple of weeks. Another
BBQ this weekend. |
| September 17, 2002 Jacek took his third solo flight and had a 500 ft
altitude gain. He decided that he was in cloud suck and decided to dive out of it and
still had a 20 minute flight. |
| September 15, 2002 Congratulations to Jacek on an excellent solo flight.
He said " Perfect, I love it" He will be hosting the Bar-B-Que with Benji this
Saturday. |
| September 9, 2002 Congratulations to Robert Benyi(Benji) for his
solo flight. He showed a determination to fly that I only see in a few students. |
| September 6, 2002 Due numerous requests the date is change to
a friday Larry Bunner and Chris Gyrzb will host a intermediate and advanced pilot
seminar. We will be giving the intermediate and advance test at the seminar. Learn how the
pros go so far and stay in the air so long. We will start at 6:00 PM and end around 9:30.
The cost will be $30.00. We need a minumun of 6 pilots. Those that are interested please
sign up before September 3. |
| |
| July 1, 2002 In celebration of the Fourth of July we will be having
a BBQ, bonfire on Saturday July6, 2002. Given that many people have to work on
Friday following the actual Fourth we thought it would be nice to delay ours until
Saturday so that those who wish can fly, eat, play and then campout over night. Andy
Kinne, Joe Yobbka , Arlan and I will be providing the main BBQ entrees. For those
who wish a side dish would be wonderful and if possible an email letting us know a head
count. Ron Stanely's stilt championship will be put to the test by Dan and any
others who would like to take the title! Water balloons, squirt guns or other water
type games would be great so bring out any water games and or horseshoes etc. We
will be setting up a Volleyball/Crocket net so there will be plenty of fun to be had by
all. The BBQ will begin about dusk so that everyone can fly, wrap up and enjoy the
evening! We look forward to seeing everyone there! |
| June 30, 2002 The weekend provided us with a good opportunity to get some
video footage. Chris Grzyb had Joe Yobbka mounted a video camera on his wing before he did
some 6000 foot tows. He got some great footage flying around clouds and other gliders.
Polish TV is making Bogdan a movie star with a documentary on his travels and his flying.
They have kept cameras pointed at him for two weekends. We'll get info on when it airs and
post it. |
| June 23, 2002 Sunday was a remarkable day with many great
moments. Andy Kinne and Ken Valsek both soloed and had beautiful
sunset flights. Their aero tows up and their landings where fantastic.
Congratulations to you both! This is a HGC first...two solo's in one day. Draggan's
new policy that we have unanimously adopted is for the newly soloed pilots to host the
next BBQ. We are all looking forward to it Andy and Ken! Congratulations also
to Ron Stanley for his 71 mile flight to Wisconsin and his newly held HGC record for stilt
walking. He's a man of many talents! Greg Fisher had a wonderful day with a
four hour flight and a height of 7100 feet. Kevin Marshal flew his first
cross-country and landed near Kaneville for a 22 mile flight.. |
| June 22, 2002 Although the temperature was in the high 80's this didn't
seem to deter many pilots! Darek Kozuch had his first cross country flight of 27
miles. Congratulations ! Angelo Mantas went up for his first aero tow since
his shoulder injury and ended up going cross country for 22 miles. We are all
thrilled to see you up and flying again Angelo. Way to go! Chris Grzyb decided to
take it "easy" after his record flight and flew a 30 mile triangle for
hours. Warren Seipman had a great 3 hour plus flight. Congratulations to the
other pilots that had a beautiful day of flying. And a big thank you to Chris and
Darek for the fantastic BBQ they threw afterwards. Everyone who was able to stay had
a fantastic time! |
| June 18, 2002 Congratulations to Dave Brumbach who soloed and has become
the latest addition to the hang gliding community. His said the flight was excellent and
was very pleased with the instruction that made the flight such a great experience. |
| Record Day June 16, 2002 Conditions threatened to blow out early however
with the best soaring forecast that we have had this year Larry Bunner, Dan Dugan and
Chris Grzyb set up a little late at about 11:00 am. Cu's had been starting to form an hour
earlier. Dan Dugan did a personal best flight of 27 miles. Larry Bunner had a excellent
flight of 157 miles. Chris Grzyb was able to stay in the air until 7:40 PM for a new
flex wing east coast record of 216 miles. Congratulations Chris on a most excellent
flight!!! Chris Delannoy achieved a high of 8500 feet before getting nervous about cloud
suck and flying out of it. He said the thermal was a steady 900 fpm up. |
| June 15, 2002 Another big congratulations to Chris Grzyb on his flight to
Monticelo, Indiana of 125 miles. |
| June 9, 2002 A very big congratulations to Chris Grzyb!
Chris had his second longest flight...125 miles!! He flew over Whitewater at about
3:30 and ended up landing about 39 miles North. Way to go Chris! |
| June 8, 2002 Congratulations goes to Jim Lamb for his flight to Whitewater
from Leland. He is the only pilot to connect the flight parks and now he has done it both
ways. The flight is 90 miles. |
| May 26, 2002 -Jeff Obrein and Kris Grzyb both went about 40 miles in their
attempt to fly to Whitewater. Peter, Igor, Chris Delanoy and John Lacotta came out for
some excellent soaring flights. Top of the lift was 4100. Warren Seipman went up for two
hour soaring flights to help keep his reputation as the "Airswine". |
| May 21, 2002 Light winds made for slow going for cross-country flying. Dan
Dugan spent 2 hours and 40 minutes going 32 miles west. Jeff Obrien released in a thermal
at 1000 foot and climb at 900 fpm to 5200 ft then took his flight 27 miles to the north.
Jerry Banister flew for an hour before being overcome by airsickness. If he would of had
his new glider he would have went back up. Wes Schield saved himself for some flights on
his new Pulse 3. Todd and Jim took advantage of conditions for a couple of flights also.
Darek Kozuch took his Topless to 5000 ft to get more comfortable with it. |
| May 19, 2002 Larry Bunner had a nice 10 mile cross-country flight starting
his season off right at Leland. Wes, Jerry Banister and John Brennan all had
beautiful soaring flights before the rains moved in. Dan Dugan got about after the
rains moved back out. |
| May 18, 2002 Kris Grzyb did a 65 mile flight landing 10 miles south of
Cullom. Jeff Obrien did a cross country flight to extend his airtime. |
| May 14, 2002 Subsiding winds made for some good training flights and
we were able to get Tom Brooks ready for his first solo flight. Thom said that the Falcon
almost tows itself and he could still hear Arlan over his shoulder OK put the wing tip on
the horizon. Congratulations Thom for an excellent first solo flight. |
| May 4, 2002 Winds provided a good push for Kris Grzyb for a awesome 86
mile flight just short of Whitewater. Congratulations to our new cross-country record
holder for the year. Larry Bunner said he will be out next week to up the record again.
Dan Dugan and Ron Stanley also will be the chase after having good flights today. |
| May 3, 2002 Dan Dugan came out and debated whether to set up then
decided to fly only in a sweatshirt. He towed up to 1200 ft and released in a thermal that
took him to 5200 ft pulling out because it was too cold. He spent the rest of the flight
dodging thermals to stay low enough to get warm. After 1 hour and 45 minutes he was able
to get down cold and wishing he had put on a jacket and bar mitts. He has the longest
flight at our sight this year. Welcome back from Florida, Dan. |
| April 26, 2002 Pete Birney, Bill Finn and Jerry Banister took
advantage of good thermals to get 30 to 45 minutes of airtime. The high for the day was
3100 feet. |
| April 14, 2002 The winds where blowing 15 to 25 mph but in spite of
the conditions Ron Stanley set our new site record for 2002! He released at 1,200
feet and climbed out at 2,500 and proceeded down wind for 29.2 miles, landing just east of
Dekalb, 6 miles. He reached a high of 4000 feet towards the end of his flight.
He cut his flight short to avoid flying into the TCA of O'Hare. Congratulations Ron! |
| April 13, 2002 What a beautiful day! Conditions were great and
we had lots of pilots out enjoying the thermals and catching up with each other after a
very long winter. A special thanks to Draggan who hosted a BBQ to celebrate our one
year anniversary. All that were able to stay had a fantastic time sitting by the
fire, eating, talking and laughing. Also a special thanks to Jeff and Pam Nielsen
for coming out with Alex and their newest addition, beautiful Klyer! Jeff had a
wonderful flight of an hour, catching thermals and climbing to 3,200 feet. He
decided to cut his flight short to come down and patch things up with some new
friends. |
| April 6, 2002 Thermals were abundant and I was able to get to get a 2000
ft altitude gain to 4000 ft before pulling out of 500 fpm thermal with a tandem glider.
Ron Stanley, Jerry Banister and Raynor Gillette all took advantage of conditions to get 30
to 40 minute soaring flights. Chris Grzyb got the longest cross-country of the year at 1/2
mile testing out his equipment before heading for nationals. |
| HGC is ready to go for 2002! We are gearing up for an incredible season and are
looking forward to utilizing our additional tow plane and keeping our three very talented
new instructors busy. |
