A celebration of NESA’s 75^th Anniversary was held June 28,2026 in the Perry-Morgan Hangar at Hartness State Springfield VT Airport.

A banner was unveiled by the New England Soaring Foundation during the social hour.

A delicious catered buffet dinner was provided by NESA; expertly organized by Bill and Cecilia Detrich

Presentations of the history of NESA were made by past presidents of NESA:

Bill Foley, Bill Doerr, Bill Batesole and Alasdair Crawford gave the attendees an interesting overview of how the organization came to be, what it has become flavored with all the characters and events (good and bad) along the way.

A Presidents photograph was taken of the 10 past presidents that attended the event:

L-R:  John Watkins, Andy Kozak, Larry Perry, Bill Foley, Bill Doerr, Jerry Smith, Alasdair Crawford, Bob Noeding, Bill Batesole and Jim Malecha

 To the next 75 years!

If anyone didn’t see Andy Kozak’s post to the NESA Email list, there were some spectacular flights last Sunday and Monday from both Springfield and Post Mills

Check out the Region 1 OLC:

Sunday: Daily Score OLC-Plus 2026 – USA – Apr 26, 2026

Monday: Daily Score OLC-Plus 2026 – USA – Apr 27, 2026

A breezy day for our first day of operations, but we got 4 instructors (Jim, Jerry, Alasdair & Bill Barry) current in gliders today including a flight review for Bill. Bill Batesole is already current from flying his Carat so we are in really good shape with 5 instructors ready to go this early in the year.

Adler, Caleb and Derek worked hard running wings and retrieving gliders while we completed all the instructors currency flights but they each also got their first instuctional flights of the year late afternoon. So the junior section is back in the air too!

Thanks to Jim, Jerry and Alasdair for towing and also to Bill D. and Andy K for coming out to help get oeprations back up and running. A great team effort today

16 tows for Day one today.

Unfortuatenly the Wx for tomorrow looks like a bust so we have cancelled ops for 4/19. We will see everyone next weekend.

All, thank you for the great attendance on Satuday (4/4) for this years Annual Pre-Season Spring Safety Seminar. We had 32 members in attendance (21 in person and 11 on-line).

For those that were unable to attend, the agenda was as follows:

• Club & Equipment Status / Season Readiness – Andy Kozak
• Tow & Instruction Scheduling – Bill Barry
• FAA Accident Database Review/Lessons Learned – Jerry
• Instruction and Safety – Bill Barry
• Airport Operations Review and Discussion- Alasdair
• Open Forum – All

All presentations will be uploaded and available shortly in the usual ‘NESA Safety Seminar Presentations’ section of the reference Library which can be found under the Resources Tab of the website.

Here are a few pictures from the seminar:

Thanks also to Jim and Larry for organizing breakfast and lunch.

After the meeting several members stuck around to help with pre-season preparation. We got the first of the club ships (Yellow 2-33) re-assembled and back into the tie-down line. That helped make room in the hangar for the Callair Annual to continue (overhauled Mags are finally here). The 2-33 looked pretty lonely out there all on its own, but it won’t be very long until the rest of the fleet is back out there to keep it company.

Remember – First scheduled day of operations is Satuday 4/18. It’ll be a check-out and currency day. In order of priority we need to get Club CFIG’s glider current, Licensed Pilots Spring check-out flights completed and then back into student training.

Please sign up for instruction and check-flights. See you soon.

P.S. Please sign up for Ground Ops and line-crew slots on the schedule. There are many holes!

As usual the Thanksgiving Snowbird at Harris Hill tends to mark the end of the flying season. This year it was just Andrea and I that made the trek from VT so I flew for my old club Valley Soaring.

The Weather didn’t cooperate on Friday but we got a nice flying day in on Saturday followed by the annual HHSC/Snowbird banquet at the National Soaring Museum. Here are a few pictures from the event.

If you haven’t been to the NSM or aren’t a member please consider a visit or a membership. Thanks!

Have a great Christmas and New Year. See everyone at the annual meeting January 18th.

With Alasdair as tow pilot, Bill Batesole as instructor, and ground support from David Beach, Bill Detrich and Larry, NESA launched several flights today. Adler, Gavin and Caleb each took instructional flights in the orange 2-33, and Rick Sheppe from Post Mills had a fun end-of-season flight in LEL.

Yesterday marked the last Monthly meeting of the season, the annual glider wash day, and our return to the air after maintenance.

Thanks to Larry Perry, Jerry Smith, Bill Detrich, Greg Hunter, David Beach, Ed Burt and Erik Nelson for coming out on a cool, blustery day. It only took us two hours to wash the gliders. Also, a huge belated shout-out goes to Andy Kozak, Ed Burt and Bill Detrich for washing the CallAir a few weeks ago. It looked great.

We did a few tows after the glider wash – the tow plane runs great after getting it back from Springfield Aviation.

Again, thanks to everyone for volunteering their time to make the club a success.

Here is the wrap up photo album, video and thank you page from this years ACE Academy. Thank you to all our volunteers: https://www.flynesa.com/ace-camp-wrap-up-2025/

Some nice news articles too:

Mountain Times: https://mountaintimes.info/2025/08/06/ace-aviation-camp-gives-vermont-youth-flight-experience/

Springfield Reporter: https://fb.newzgroup.com/Papers/489184/2025-08-05/flippingbook/files/assets/common/downloads/publication.pdf