Congratulations to SOSA's newest solo pilot, Rafael Nunes. He joined SOSA this year and dedicated his time to learning to fly. These photographs show the sequence from getting ready for his first solo flight, his approach and landing, walking the wing of the L-23 Blanik back to the flight line after the flight, and then ... once again, the traditional aviator's baptism of a proper dunking with a bucket of cold H2O.

Paul fish profiled in the papers

Most SOSA members know Paul Fish. Paul has been a big part of SOSA for several years, ever since he arrived at the field one day, signed up and immediately became involved. He's served on our board of directors, been bitten by the cross-country bug, and he's the man who began the SOSA blog.
Recently, the Toronto Sun newspaper profiled Paul, regarding his volunteer commitment in Africa. Read the full article here.

Solo is a team effort

Getting a student ready to complete a successful first solo takes dedication from both the student and instructors.

Sunday September 21 played host to a successful first solo which was the combined effort of over a half dozen people. James' wife and family provided support while Dave Springford towed with GDK. Dianne Maloney drove the Gator during the retrieve while Neil Wilson ensured James Stang was in correct position. Joe Stubbs distracted James with an empty bucket long enough for John Brenan to sneak up from behind and drench him with water. The whole event was expertly captured by James's daughter. 

We cannot leave out James Stang who although somewhat nervous has joined an elite group of people who have taken to the skies on their own.

James Stang was preceded by Martin Camenietzki and Chris Day for a total of 8 solos this year at SOSA.

Super Tuesday

Tuesday 16 September was another great flying day at SOSA. We had our first launch at 12 noon and the last launch at 7:30 pm.

All in all we flew 33 flights - not bad for a Tuesday in September. Students, private owners, Intros, soaring flights, training flights - what a day!

How about next Tuesday?

Solo flights at SOSA

Congratulations to Diane Maloney, who carried out her first solo. In the left photo, Diane is about to touch down at the end of her first solo flight. In the right image she's getting the customary graduation ceremony in the world of flying, which involves a bucket of water.

Solid congratulations also go to Martin Camenietzki, who soloed the same weekend!

August into September 2008 flying

Instructor Joe Stubbs, writing about the end of August: "We had a busy weekend. Attached is a reasonably good photo I took of Janet Trost flying Sunday evening. During one of the last club flights of August 2008, Janet successfully flew in the setting sun in CXC with her instruments covered with post-it notes and wing tape."

SOSA Chief Flying Instructor John Brennan reports Saturday, September 6th: "Dave Springford says, 'Luke Szczepaniak and I had great soaring flights while the pundits on the ground said it wasn't a x-country day! Hah! Bald Eagle in a thermal and a sea breeze front on the same day, the soaring gods were smiling on Saturday'." John Brennan commented, "Dave flew Lake Ontario sea breeze while most of us wondered what all that low hanging cloud to the East meant. The season is not over yet."

SOSA Mudbowl Contest Results

During the Labour day weekend the annual SOSA Mudbowl contest was held. We had a total of 18 participants with 4 pilots visiting from Great Lakes and Toronto Soaring.

On Saturday, the contestants gridded with expectations of a reasonable soaring day, but due to the moisture in the ground, it took too long for things to heat up and the convection to start. The day was scrubbed at 1430. Eleven competitors decided to launch for practice and were able to fly locally for 2 -2 1/2 hours. They all agreed that is would not have been a contest day.

Sunday was the first contest day. The launch was started at 1300, after Ray Wood had been airborne in VS for an hour. The task was changed in the air before the gate opened to take advantage of the Cu that had formed to the north. The task and day scores are shown below (click on the score sheet to enlarge it). All the pilots had a tough time on Sunday and many were close to landing out several times during the flight. Although there were cu, they were not honest and many of them had little or no lift under them.

Monday was another contest day with better soaring then Sunday, but it was not without its challenges. About 35 km from the first turnpoint at St Marys, the cu ended and the sky was blue. Most pilots minimized their distance into the blue and turned as soon as they were within the 20 km zone. The second leg to Tillsonburg had a few wispy cu, but south of Tillsonburg near the Lake Erie shoreline there were large good looking cu. Most pilots made it to these cu and then ran back up to St George under the clouds. The leg back west to New Hamburg went blue again about halfway along. This combined with the slowly weakening sun slowed things down at the end of the day.

Congratulations to Jerzy - the 2008 Mudbowl Champion!

It seems that there has been a turn for the better in the weather patterns over the last few weeks and the flying conditions have been much better then experienced during the last half of July and first half of August. Hopefully this dry weather will hold for the remainder of the season. We still have at least 8 weeks of flying weather before the end of the season, so come on out and keep flying. Besides soaring flights, there are lots of other things that you can work on. Students can continue to work towards their first solo or license, licensed pilots can take up some aerobatic or unusual attitude training or work on progression through the fleet.

See you at the Airport!

ANNOUNCEMENT: SOSA Summer General Meeting

SOSA Gliding Club's 2008 Summer General Meeting will be held in the clubhouse starting at 7PM Saturday, September 20th. All members are invited to take part.

Joe Stubbs
Secretary, SOSA Gliding Club

SOSA's K-21's in Progress at the factory

After the contest in Luesse, I had the opportunity to tour the Schleicher factory in Poppenhausen Germany and see SOSA's K-21's in production. The picture above shows one of our K-21 fuselages just after the two halves were glued together. The gentleman in the picture with me is Ulrich Kremer one of the company owners and grandson of Alexander Schleicher, the founder of the company,

This pictures shows the second K-21 fuselage alongside the first.

and finally, the wings.

The gliders are on schedule for a November completion and will be ready to fly at the beginning of next season.

First solo, traditional ending

This is a great photo of the ending of Vlada Dekina's first gliding solo. Vlada, who recently came to SOSA, had prior experience as a power aerobatic pilot. She soloed on August 23rd, a little over a month after joining. Her first solo flight in the Blanik, her nineteenth on type, was uneventful ...
That is, until Andrea Kuciak showed up with the time honoured aviator's welcome to the ranks of pilot in command, involving a bucket of ice-cold water.
Congratulations Vlada, and may you enjoy many years of flying accomplishments at SOSA Gliding Club.

Rain? What rain? A couple of dedicated guys - part 2

The year's wet weather is not a barrier to two SOSA pilots accomplishing milestones: a return to solo flying, and a multi-hour flight.
On Monday August 5th, Dave Simek (bottom photo) flew solo, returning to flying after many years away from soaring. A few days earlier, Poul Hansen (top photo) did his first five hour flight. Poul's flight is the second successful five hour duration flight from SOSA this season. The flight, often called the "silver duration", is part of the requirements for the FAI silver badge.
Dave says, " With the continual help and quality training from the instructors I was up to speed in no time. I found that if I was able to dedicate the time, then someone at the club most certainly was willing to accommodate. After 18 years of not flying I was not sure what to expect but the enthusiasm at SOSA is contagious. I showed up in late October of last year and talked to Dan Bush who said, 'this week should have a nice day. E-mail me if you can make it.'
We were out on the Wednesday for five flights as easy as that! After some more training, the next thing I know "thumbs up" and nobody in the back seat! Just amazing! Thanks Guys! "

SOSA at the Worlds: Photo Page

Dave Springford, Jerzy Szemplinski and Joerg Stieber are at the Worlds in Germany at this writing. Maria Szemplinska has set up a photo page on the SAC website. View it here.

Aerobatics at SOSA

Joe Stubbs, star of YouTube, in the Salto! Click the picture to see the flight.

SOSA pilot arrives in Mennonite country

Sunday August 3rd, Herrie ten Cate departed on a cross-country flight. How did it work out? Herrie and his retrieve crew relate the story:
Nothing ventured nothing gained. The forecast looked promising and with Anthony Kawzowicz's coaching, I prepped the club's Jantar and took to the skies just after 11 on Sunday morning, for an attempted 500KM triangle. The task was Rockton - Flesherton - Thamesville - Rockton. I fought a strong headwind on my way north to Flesherton and then turned southwest towards Thamesville.
I was a little overconfident and was suckered into an aerial dance with a promising little thermic number that was all tease and no action. Needless to say, I was back down on the ground after three hours of airtime. I chose a cut barley field that was at least 4000-feet long ... so the outlanding was a piece of cake.
The highlight of the afternoon was meeting the curious on-lookers who stopped to gawk. I'd landed right beside a small county road. Three local Mennonite men parked up their bikes for a closer look. I showed them around and even let them sit in the cockpit. If circumstances were different for these guys, I'm sure, would love to learn how to glide.
I've promised to mail them a copy of the photo ... email and the Internet isn't part of their lexicon or lives. Needless to say, meeting these guys made landing out a great experience. My 500KM flight will have to wait for another day...
Les Waller and Rob Russell came up from SOSA to retrieve Herrie and the glider. Les said "Herrie picked what must be the biggest field in Ontario ----about 5000' long in my estimation----Whatever grew there had been harvested,
'could have easily put a Dak (DC-3) in it or something bigger even!

Thanks to a couple of dedicated guys

Dave Simek (left) mowing the grass in front of SOSA's clubhouse. It's great that Dave came out and pitched in on a non-flyable day, but here's the thing: it was raining cats and dogs at the time, plus he brought his own mower. Poul Hansen (right) got out the weed whacker and noise protection, and joined in the fun. SOSA runs on a lot of volunteer work, much of it everyday tasks such as these. Thanks to Dave, Poul and everyone of you who step up and take care of these otherwise thankless details.

Follow our Canadian Team at the World Contest

Dave Springford, Jerzy Szemplinski, SOSA pilots, are Canada's representatives at the World Contest. Link here to follow their contest blog entries.

Joerg Steiber will report on the proceedings twice daily as of Monday, July 28th here.

The World Gliding Championships, Open, 18M and 15M classes in Leusse, Germany - 2nd to 16th August. Good luck to our team!

FAI World Gliding Championships on in Italy until July 20

The 30th FAI Worlds comprehensive website, which makes following the action easy, can be found here. The link was supplied via Tom Knauff's online newsletter, in which he makes the following observation: "If you go to the world championship web site, it is interesting to observe the starting times for each pilot and team. The French mastered the art of team flying many years ago. Other pilots latch onto the French in particular, but there are also other very productive teams. It is interesting to watch the USA team pilots. They obviously do not team fly. One of the reasons for this is the team selection process makes USA pilots always competing with one another, and team flying is not practiced, or encouraged in USA contests."

Globe and Mail newspaper profiles National Team member Dave Springford

Left: Dave Springford - SOSA president, World Contest pilot, chef.

The Globe and Mail, read across Canada, is one of the country's top news organizations. Reporter and pilot Peter Cheney profiles SOSA pilot Dave Springford prior to the World Glding Championships. The piece contains a great video. Read and see the videos right here.

A first solo at SOSA

Congratulations to Mike Kinsner, who did his first solo flight at SOSA Gliding Club on Sunday, June 29th. Mike joined the club just a few weeks ago after finding us on the web, and has dedicated the required time to learning. In this photo Mike, left, is about to fly with SOSA CFI John Brennan, right.

Weekend Dinners in the Clubhouse

Saturday June 7th, 2008

"What a great day of flying" says Janet Trost. In the evening I was treated to an amazing diner prepared by Nadia & Andrea Pellegrino and Poul Hansen. What incredibly gracious people. They made me feel so welcomed and part of a great club. Thank you Janet