We are pleased to announce this week’s winner and say “Congratulations” to Steve Vihlen!

Remember, you must register each week for that current week’s drawing.  More about registering can be read here.

Below is a nice note from Steve:

Hi Bill, Rand and Marc,

Wow! what a surprise to find out today that I was the winner of this weeks’ iGlide Give-Away. Thank you very much.

I live in Germantown, Tennessee which is a suburb of Memphis. My family and I have been here for 23 years. It was FedEx who hired me as a pilot after separating from the Air Force in 1990. I joined the Memphis Soaring Society back in 2000 and my four boys and I have enjoyed many weekends flying at the club.

We also fly in the east Memphis/west Tennessee area. I’m fortunate to own and care for an L-19 Birddog which with help from friends serves as a great tow plane. I also own an ASG-29 and 1-26B which 3 of my 4 boys fly. We hangar our fleet at the Wolf River Airport (54M). The last couple of years we’ve been enjoying flying out of Hawks’ Nest Field (4TN3) owned by friends who also are FedEx pilots just a bit further east of Wolf River. Hawks’ Nest gives us a great place to fly at and from which nice cross-country tasks can be flown from, clear of Memphis Class B airspace.

I grew up in Southern California and learned to fly at 15, soloing at 16. I instructed at Santa Monica Airport during my senior year at USC. I learned to fly gliders while stationed at Hahn AB, Germany while flying the F-16 in 1985. The club I flew at was the DASC, German-American Glider Club above the Mosel River and the town of Traben-Trarbach. It was a great experience. Not surprisingly, I didn’t see an aero-tow until I got back to the US years later as we always launched with the winch. I fondly remember showing up at the club on a beautiful Saturday and being told “You will fly your Silver Distance today in the Ka-6!” I made it that day with not too much trouble. The X-C bug hook was definitely set.

I suppose I have many favorite sites that I fly at, but having the opportunity to fly with clubs while on layovers with FedEx, I’d have to say my time at the Cambridge Gliding Centre, UK ranks way up there. They have always been terrific, welcoming me to their club when I fly into Stanstead with our layover in Cambridge.

I’m really looking forward to using my new iGlide App on my iPhone 4. The plan is to use it as supplemental/back up nav in my 29 and 1-26. The ability to take it with me everywhere since it’s on my phone is a fantastic idea since I can use it at any other flying locations anywhere I fly! Take a weekend at the Cambridge club for example. I’ll just plan to mount it with a mobile mount and away I go!

Another idea is that for the last 4 months I’ve been using a Mophie Juice Pack with my iPhone 4 and it essentially doubles my battery capacity. I thought this would be an excellent addition to using the app as the battery use is probably higher running the software. It will be a lot of fun exploring the new app.

Bill, Rand, Marc and especially Butterfly Aero thanks again for giving me the opportunity to enjoy this exciting new product. I will let you know how it goes as the spring soaring season gets going. I’m planning on flying my 29 at Cordele and the bunch at Hawks’ Nest are all planning to take 4 of our 1-26s out to Moriarty for the Championships this year. Outta be a hoot!