Happy New Year!

My gliding club has a New Year's tradition of gathering at the clubhouse on Jan 1, 2010, sharing food brought by members, trading flying stories and trying to fly if weather cooperates. January 1, 2010 started with low ceilings and blowing snow and did not look too promising for flying. But miracles do happen and by noon the ceiling lifted enough to allow some circuits. With windchill close to -20C, circuit flying was all we wanted to do anyways.

By the time I got to clubhouse on Jan 1, it was full of people and food. I counted two kinds of chili, three flavors of meatballs, five soups and numerous cookies and cakes. Talking to friends I have not seen for a while, I noticed the glider being towed to the take off position and decided to go to flight line. Thinking about bone chilling cold outside and possibility of standing on a Rwy for a while waiting for my turn, I put on my full downhill ski outfit. 

Walking to the flight line, I heard the sound of the engine, then noticed the towplane heading towards me with the white tail of propwash behind it. Looking at the snow whirl generated by propwash, I was surprised to see a red tip sticking out to the side."Hmm, I think there is a glider in there" I thought to myself just as glider emerged in the clear above the propwash. I heard about the first tow on a fresh snow, but never saw it before until then. It looked really neat, but I was glad I was not the first one up.

My turn to go up came in about half an hour. Ceilings started to drop, so we had a nice albeit short flight, but I had some time to snap pictures of the snow covered runways and facilities. Then it was back to clubhouse for some hot food and more talking - a good start of New Year!