November 30, 2004 Arlan will be in Costa Rica and can be reach at 011-506-353-5514 or 011-506-370-3084. If you don't want the expense of an international leave a message at 815-325-1685 which I will be checking regularly. Arlan plans on returning in late Febuary for a week to get ready for the next season. Arlan will return to Costa Rica until April 1.

June 1, 2005 Congrats to Mike Van Kuiken on getting his tandem rating.

May 31, 2005 Jeff Leensvaart was the first solo of 2005 at HGC. Congratulations Jeff for a flawless flight and doing his first cross-country. He landed in the field next to the runway in the dark.

May 30, 2005 Epic day with many new cross-country pilots. Mike Van Kuiken (6 miles), Wes Schields (7 miles), Kevin Sheridan (23 miles), Eric Rys (27 miles), John Lacotta (32 miles), Kris Grzyb (151 miles and 9000 ft) Shane Vanettan made one of the lowest saves off of aerotow that I have seen lately. releasing at 420 ft and climbing too 3800 ft. Draggan got his usually 5000ft and about an hour flight.

May 28, 2005 Congratulations to Gary Soloman for his 10 mile cross-country flight on a very challenging day.

May 25, 2005 Arlan did his first cross-country in a number of years getting to 5000 ft and flying 43 miles in 3 hrs. Ron Stanley got to over 4600 ft and flew for 23 miles. Angelo Mantas got to over 4000 ft and ended up with 1 1/2 hours.

May 21, 2005 Chris Grzyb again had the flight of the day flying to his home 32 miles away in 3.5 hours. many other people had extended flights.

May 20, 2005 Foggy and hazy morning turned on this afternoon. Mike VanKiuken towed to 2000 ft at 4:30 this afternoon and is cruised around at over 4 grand.

May 10, 2005 Dion decided that winds gusting to 20mph+ weren't going to keep him on the ground, so we towed him up. He also decided that assistance with ground handling would be a real problem if he landed out, so he decided to just do short local flights.

May 8th, 2005 In a great south wind today Kris Grzyb flew 20 miles past WW for a total
flight of 112 miles reaching heights of 6600'. Guy Denning in a U2 had over an hour and over 6000'.

May 5th, 2005 We've been flying for a few weeks now, but there has been nothing too exciting. Just the normal start of the hanggliding season! As you may know, the weather is often at its best in the early season. Today Dion had a flight over an hour and reached altitudes of 8800' AGL! He says he had to land because he wasn't prepared for the cold.

October 24, 2004
Light westernly winds, warm temperatures and lots of sun will make for an excellent flying day. We will have both tow planes flying most of the day to keep up with flyers for one of the last good days of the year. We will be in Tennessee the next couple of weekends.

October 21, 2004
Gary Solomon came out and got a short thermal flight and did a tow. Still some good flying.

October 5th
Gary Solomon soloed 3 tows! We have a another new tug pilot!(in training)

September 20th
Keith Smith soloed 6 tows! We have a new tug pilot!

September 14th
Davis Straub (of the OZ Report on the Web) is visiting flying areas. He was on the east coast, headed west and stopped at cloud9 in Michigan for a few days. He will be arriving at Cushing Tues. afternoon around 6 PM. He will be at HGC Wednesday for sure, and I guess may hang around a few more days if the weather is good. For those who don't know, he fly's a lot of cross country, participates in the major competitions and writes about our sport. Come out and hang!

September 5th
Joe is inviting all to a labor day weekend party at his airfield (called "Enjoy Field"). The barbecue (with a top local chef! - Bill) will be on Sunday, September 5th around 6pm. Overnight camping and an area for sleeping bags above his hanger are available. There is running water and toilet facilities. There is a pond for swimming and boating. There will be a great camp fire, bring a chair. Anyone who is interested can call Joe for directions(219-746-1480; or email:[email protected]). Joe is offering $50 to the first hangglider pilot to do a cross country flight from ushing Field to Enjoy Field on Sept 5, 2004. Enjoy Field, is located about 10 miles south of Kankakee at the Chebanse exit (#302), route 57. It is about 5 miles from there.

September 1st
Dr. Jack says 400 fpm to 4000'.

August 29th
After extended bad weather conditions for today look excellent with light north winds and good soaring. We will be flying all day.

Aug 21, 2004
All (John L, Jim, Gary, Lucas..)agreed it wasn't a great day. EXCEPT FOR KRIS GRZYB!
Kris went up got high and left town. He flew 100.4 miles! He flew to Joe's new place, (about 50 miles) and for much of that was under 2000'! When he got to Joe's he decided to keep going and ended up over 100 miles out. He's hard on our egos.

August 15,2004
Woa dude, an excellant day! Saturday had promise, but today we got the payoff. All who came out had nice flights. Warren was up for hours. Dragan had an hour and 45 to 6400'. Dion was up for 2 hrs 14 and flew to Morris reaching a high of 7400'. Kris G only flew about 30 miles so we think he might be losing a step. Eric had the falcon to 6500' and flew with abandon! Gary's long flight was 1 hr 30 to about 6k'. Others were out, all had good days, sorry if I missed ya!

August 13, 2004
Lukasz Grzyb flys 11.5 miles to Morris airport on a Falcon! Okay, so Dragan tows up, and Luca goes right after. Dragan gets fairly high, and decides to set his GPS for Morris and head that way. Luca has gotten over him to 6000' on the Falcon (in a T-Shirt) and decides to follow! So Dragan goes on his 1st XC, which would be the story, if Luca hadn't followed him and gone on his 1st XC while on his ?2nd? ever thermal flight! Dion, in a, by now mundane performance, flew 14 miles S and landed in some beans.

August 11, 2004
Cooler temperatures and lots of sun will make for some excellent soaring conditions. We will be flying all day.

May 16, 2004
Another good day for flying top of the lift was only 2700 ft and light choppy lift but at least it was warm and sunny.

May 15, 2004
A day everybody flys and everybody stays up and its a weekend. Top of the lift was 4200 ft and 300 to 400 fpm up common. We got to watch 3 and 4 gliders in the same thermal. To top the day off Brian Eames soloed with an excellent flight and a stand up landing.

May 6, 2004
Eric Rys became our first solo of the year. "That was cool." was his first comment and immediately did another flawless flight. I expect that we will be seeing a lot of Eric this summer.

May 3, 2004
Dion and Mike came out and did a couple of short flights. Dion hit the strongest thermal he had ever been in at 1400 fpm but was not able to stay in it.

May 2, 2004
Ron Stanley, Ian Morris and Greg Wilhelm took flights before things over developed and the rain started.

April 23, 2004
Dion and Ian came out and got 1 1/2 hour flights topping out at 4000 ft.

April 19, 2004
The winds are expected to die down this afternoon so should be good for training and and some sled runs in the late afternoon.

April 17, 2004
Edwardo got a 1000 ft altitude gain on his 6th solo. Gary Solomon and Raynor Gillette both got 5400 ft and had to fight to get down after flying for an hour and half.

April 16, 2004
Ron Stanley came out for an hour flight and reach altitude of 4500 ft. Bob Gorman flew for about 40 minutes in the 195 Falcon.

April 14. 2004
John Kruger had the flights of the day topping out 6000 and 4900 ft in his Talon. Dragan did some expert thermaling down at 350 to 500ft to lengthen his flight. Keith Smith took a thermal from 3000 to 4200ft in the 195 Falcon.Mike Vankuiken, Gary Salomon and Greg Wilhelm also took some flights.

April 10, 2004
Keith Nelson and Mike Vankuiken braved the cold and took a couple flights. Arlan did 6 tandems with Stanley and Geri who both will be ready to solo next weekend.

April 9, 2004
Dion, Tom, Greg, Gary, Raynor and Mike all got some flights in. Theve were tremedous dust devils in the morning that tumbled a couple of gliders however the thermals were lighter as the day went on because of high cirrus that moved in. The guys were topped out at 2600 ft.

April 7, 2004
Brian got to 2500 ft in a thermal from 1700ft . Allen Gibson. Wes Schield, Dion Santi and Greg Wilhelm also all took flights.

April 5, 2004
Dale Mauss, Terry Kramer, Edwardo and Dragan took advantage of some warm weather and good lift. Dale had the flight of the day with over 2 hours and top out at 4000 ft.

April 4 2004
Chris Gzryb flew to Rantoul for 84 mile flight. He reach a highof 6500 ft and had climb rates over 1000 ft/min.

April 3, 2004
Dion, Mike and Keith all flew yesterday. Mike was able to dophin fly lift to get 300ft and 500 ft altitude gains. The windy conditions made a challenge to launch and the glider and plane looked like it was parked into the wind. About 11:00 with gusty conditions to 30 mph. we called it a day.

April 1, 2004
Arlan, Mike, Gary and Angelo flew at Mt Baldy. Angelo launch first and did a few passes before heading down then ridge. After Angelo flew Arlan took a turn doing a number of passes on the ridge before heading down the ridge. Gary flew next and being the good guy he was headed down the ridge to make room for Mike. On Mike.s 3rd attempt he climbed up above the ridge for 30 minute soaring flight. Gary ended his 20 minute flight with a 3/4 mile walk back to launch. Thanks to Gary for buying dinner for helping him carry out his glider.

March 27, 2004
Keith Nelson Mike Vankuiken, and Greg Wilhelmi were waiting for the weather to break. Around 12:30 PM when Gary Solomon showed up there started to be a break in the clouds. (Some priased his sunny presence) The weather was on and off all afternoon, but open enough so that all could get in some flights. Yahoo! in the air again!

March 27, 2004
Opening for towing.As of Friday night (Mar 26), the weather looks better for Saturday than Sunday, so come on out. It looks a little windy Saturday evening, so we are moving the party back a week.

March 26, 2004
The skies are supose to open up by the afternoon will winds around 10 mph out of the west. We will be flying in the afternoon.

March 15, 2004
The parachute clinic's are now history and we are continuing to get our equipment ready. We are hoping that the forecast for warmer temperatures is correct for the weekend.

February 29 ,2004
Mike Vankuiken did two flights on Sunday in 20 mph plus winds at
Cushing Feild. Jason had to help Mike maintain the glider on the cart while we got in position. Once in the air the air was relatively smooth. With the high winds both Mike's landings were no step light touch downs. Mike Vankuiken was the first hang glider pilot to fly out of Cushing Field yesterday.

February 20, 2004
The runway is too soft to operate off without tearing it up but with the warmer temperatures we will be flying soon.

January 7, 2004
I hope everyone had a Happy New Year. Arlan and Jason will be headed to Florida again January 21st to do some winter flying. In the past 2 hour flights were common in Florida this time of year. Contact Arlan at 815-325-1685 if you are interested in coming along.

2003
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.