PILOTS
Tom Anderson
Tom is our Director of Operations. He is a commercial pilot in gliders, single engine airplanes and seaplanes with an airline transport pilot rating in multi-engine aircraft with multiple type ratings. He is a flight instructor with a CFI-II-MEI-G. Tom has logged more than 12,000 flight hours in many different types of aircraft, with over 2,200 hours of flight instruction given. He is also one of our tow plane pilots. Tom’s wife, Jen Stamp, is also an instructor at Sugarbush Soaring.
Rick Hanson
Rick is our Chief Flight Instructor. He is a commercial pilot in single and multi-engine airplanes, single engine seaplanes, and gliders. He holds an instrument rating along with several Type ratings, and is a CFI and CFIG. Rick has logged more than 12,000 flight-hours including more than 5,500 hours in gliders. He resides in Warren, VT during the summer and spends winters in the Boulder, Colorado area.
Luc Zipkin
Luc first came to Sugarbush in 2015 for a scenic ride in the ASK 21 and was hooked on soaring. After returning for several Youth Soaring Camps, Luc is now a Commercial Pilot in single- and multi-engine airplanes and gliders and a Flight Instructor in airplanes. When not flying the towplane at Sugarbush, Luc is a student at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT and the owner-operator of Goodspeed Flying Service, a tailwheel flight school at Goodspeed Airport (42B) in central Connecticut.
Danny Burns
Danny is a commercial pilot and CFI-G in gliders and private pilot in single engine airplanes. He has been flying at the Warren Sugarbush airport since 2017, when he started as a Line Crew member. Danny participated in the Line Crew program for five summers and then worked as assistant airport manager before becoming a commercial ride pilot. Danny is currently serving as the Secretary of Flight Experience for Youth and is pursuing a degree in mechanical engineering at Olin College of Engineering in Needham, MA.
Steve Platt
Steve is a commercial pilot in single engine airplanes, single engine seaplanes, and gliders. He holds an instrument rating and is a Certified Flight Instructor for airplanes, instruments, and gliders. He has logged over 4,000 flight-hours including over 2,000 hours as a flight instructor. He is a retired IBM Engineering Manager and resides in Warren, VT adjacent to the Warren-Sugarbush Gliderport.
Jen Stamp
Jen is a commercial pilot in single engine airplanes and gliders. She holds an instrument rating and is a Certified Flight Instructor for airplanes, instruments, and gliders. She has over 1,500 total flight hours, over 500 of which have been spent giving instruction in gliders. She is currently serving as President of Flight Experience for Youth. During the weekends and youth camps, she instructs in gliders or buzzes around in a 1941 Taylorcraft (BC12-65). During the week, she works as an aquatic ecologist for Tetra Tech’s Center for Ecological Sciences. Jen’s husband, Tom Anderson, is Director of Operations at Sugarbush Soaring.
Graham Ramsden
Graham joined the club in 1999, and has logged over 1,300 hours of flight time (1,200 in gliders). When not instructing or giving rides, he floats around the sky in his LS-4. Graham spends his summers in Vermont. The rest of the year he works as a college professor at Creighton University in Nebraska.
Mark Bigelow
Mark Bigelow, a commercial glider pilot and CFIG, is one of our glider instructors. He started flying gliders at Sugarbush in the 1990’s, and has logged over 800 flight hours. Mark resides in Warren, VT for part of the year, and spends the other part in Pennsylvania or in Cape May, NJ.
Tim Larsen
Tim Larsen, a commercial glider pilot and CFIG, is one of our part-time glider instructors. He has logged over 2,800 flight hours over 34 years and has flown in New Zealand as well as all over the US, including Tennessee, Georgia, West Virginia, Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, Nevada, Alabama, and North and South Carolina. Tim recently earned his Eastern Diamond Distance (500 km) soaring badge in Tennessee. After a 20+ year hiatus, he recently started flying power planes again in a 1941 Taylorcraft. Tim resides in Moretown, VT.
Dave Bahnson
Dave Bahnson is a commercial pilot in single engine airplanes, seaplanes, and gliders. He holds an Instrument rating and is a Certified Flight Instructor. He has logged over 4,000 hours of flight time, which includes two trips to Alaska in a C206 with a motorcycle in the plane. Dave has served as an adjunct faculty member at the Vermont Tech Professional Pilot degree program and is a retired orthopedic surgeon. He resides in Mendon, VT.
Dave Setser
Dave Setser is a commercial pilot and CFII/MEI with single-engine land and sea, multiengine land and instrument ratings. He has logged more than 1,700 hours of flight time as a pilot, and more than 600 hours in experimental military and civilian aircraft as a flight test engineer and test director. He is an Air Force military veteran and retired Air Force senior civilian engineer, and is currently a Principal Research Engineer at Georgia Tech Research Institute. In the soaring off-season Dave and his wife Ellen, SSA's business manager, live in southern New Hampshire and fly a Van's RV-7 they built together.