Where is Paul?

Some of you may recall hearing that Paul Fish was off to Africa for six months of volunteer work. Paul has created a blog so that everyone can keep up with his adventure.

His blog is located at:

www.paulinsierraleone.blogspot.com


Drop in and see what he has been up to.

New Flightline Timekeepers' Board

Thanks to the carpentry skills of Doug Bremner and the concept from Pat O'Donnell, we have a new portable flight line office.

In this photo you see the "office" in the carrying mode....all folded up and easy to carry into or out of the bus.

Photo #2 Shows it in recording configuration....the daily flight sheet is held down by two Plexiglas strips (much the same as our old unit worked) and the flight tickets are shown parked on the upright board. To the left of the blue line are the airborne tickets ...to the right of the green line are the "on the line" tickets.

Photo #3 Illustrates the interior storage spaces where there is room for a year's supply of daily flightsheets and at least a month's supply of pink tickets along with space for pens, pencils and the clock.

Photo #4 Shows the daily temporary storage bins for the filled-out-after-landing pink tickets, the filled-out-after-landing white tickets and the blank ready-to-use tickets.

Many thanks to Doug and Pat for seeing something that needed fixing and going ahead and fixing it! It sure looks like this office will help improve the timekeepers' fare on the flightline, especially on those days when it is too wet to move the bus.

AGM

The AGM and Awards Banquet will be held at the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum on Sat 24 Feb 2007.

More details including the Menu for the Banquet will be forth-coming.

Circle the 24th on your calender and join us for a wonderful evening celebrating the successes of our members during the 2006 season.

Flying in November

It looks like the weather is finally going to cooperate this weekend.

With the sun and wind all week the runway should dry out enough that we can do some flying on Saturday November 25.

Come on out and lets do some flying!

Another New Solo at SOSA in 2006!

Is it really possible to solo this late in the year? Just ask Justin Allport who flew his first and second solo's yesterday. Congratulations to Justin on this big step in a lifetime of challenges that soaring has to offer.

In total we flew 11 flights on the 10th of November. Scott Hube, who was driving along highway 8, noticed the flying and stopped in just in time to get the last flight of the day. The air was perfectly smooth, and Scott remarked that he had never flown in air so smooth before. In fact he just had to do the "look ma, no hands" routine.

Despite the wet weather lately, it is still possible to do some flying before the end of the year. If we can get a few days of drying for the runways, we can keep flying until the runway is buried in snow.

Also don't forget the annual New Years day get together at the clubhouse starting around 10 am on the 1st of Jan!

Work Weekend

The work Weekend scheduled 4-5 Nov saw a small group of dedicated members out to help prepare the club facilities and equipment for the winter. Many jobs were accomplished, including some glider clean-ups. Shown here are Ange Savoia, John Brennan, Tom Coulson, Sam Savoia and Luke Szczepaniak replacing the tire on the Junior ICQ.

Tom also winterized the clubhouse water system, so for the rest of the winter the only useable bathroom is the handicap bathroom.

Another crew lead by Sergei Morozov, Wilf Krueger and Jean-Marc Henry looked after the demolition of the office trailer parked near the hangar. Now that the superstructure has been removed it will be much easier to dispose of the chasis.

While Scott and I were in New South Wales, Australia in October we took one day to visit Southern Cross Gliding Club in Camden (south of Sydney). It's amazing how gliding clubs all over the world are all the same. Everyone was extremely friendly and helpful. We even ran into someone who had been to Sosa and taken a flight in our Puchaz in 2005!!

Scott took a flight in their DG1000 and I flew their Lark. The Lark isn't as glamorous but I had never flown one and may never get the chance again. It felt like a higher performance Blanik. I would definitely not recommend a Lark for Sosa. I found the control harmony unpleasant; you had to lead with the rudder just like the Twin Grob and the ailerons were extremely heavy.

Scott's comments, "Special thanks to everyone at Southern Cross, Bill Nixon in particular, for arranging this, it was a busy day with great soaring, you can imagine that there was a fair line up for the airplane.
Since SOSA is in the market for another 2 seater I was particularly keen
to compare the DG 1000 to the DG 505. Generally I found the two
airplanes very similar. Handling and performance were close enough that I had a hard time telling them apart. Advantages of the 1000 over the
505 include a simpler tail ballast system and slightly higher
performance (46:1 vs. 44:1). Another advantage is the way the 20m tips
are angled on the 1000. This moves the ground contact point into the same place as a 17m wing, reducing ground looping possibilities.

Disadvantages were confined to the tail wheel landing gear configuration; on the DG 1000 the lack of a nose wheel makes it a pretty big step up to either cockpit.
While it is a beautiful ship I can't recommend getting the DG1000 instead of another DG505. I didn't feel the tail ballast setup and performance increase justified the extra price, especially when it would mean adding an extra type to our fleet with all the subtle conversion issues that brings with it. That said, if we did get one everyone would love it (as long as we got a 3 wheel undercarriage!)."
Look at the attached picture of the DG1000...notice the guy hanging off the nose of the DG1000 so they can get the tail dolly off?



We also had the opportunity to fly a Super Ximango motor glider with one of their very generous members, Richard "the dentist" (everyone called him that so even I have forgotten his last name).

Thanks Richard for letting me do all the flying. I got the two hour scenic tour to Stanwell Park on the coast, flying south over Wollongong then heading west over Kangaroo Valley. We shut the engine off at that point and soared back north to Camden. I couldn't tell how strong the thermals really were because most pegged the vario (over 10kts)!!!

Then Scott took a shorter, one hour flight with Richard over the Blue Mountains. I hadn't realized just how hilly the east coast was! I had assumed all of Australia was like the outback, flat.
I must say that Australians are just as friendly as I expected. We'd definitely go back for a visit in a heart beat. Although the 14 hour flight from Los Angeles wasn't as bad as we expected the 14 hour time change when we got home wasn't something I would want to repeat too often.

Andrea

Altruism is alive at SOSA

For those that don't get the email posts through the mailing list, here is a feel-good story about one of SOSA's more altruistic members, Adam Zieba, as written by Tomas Rezek:

"I would like to share an interesting, heart-warming experience I had at SOSA some two weeks ago. As I mentioned that we are potentially interested in a trailer at SOSA campground, Adam Zieba approached me with an offer to sell his. However, his condition was that instead of paying him, I should donate the entire proceedings to the Canadian Junior Soaring Team. My family and few other people witnessed this, and it had an interesting impact on my teenage son, who has been thinking about it ever since. It might have been a first instance he has experienced such generosity in a "stranger" first hand, and I am pretty sure it will have some impact on his future behaviour. Therefore, not only do I want to think Adam for being such a nice guy, but I would also like to share the feeling we have about this event with others, to "make the world a better place" :)

So, all you flying juniors, enjoy Adam's donation and have fun!"

Nicely done. The good Karma produced by this and other unselfish actions by club members reap future benefits since for every event that occurs, there will follow other events whose existence was caused by the first.

Flight 3500

With three fabulous flying days on the Thanksgiving Weekend the total number of flights at SOSA for 2006 has already exceeded the 2005 total flight count. We also had three new solos lately. Congratulations to Gary Green, Mark Karamanis and Francois Labelle.

We have now flown more than 3500 flights making 2006 the second best year on record in the last 10 years. Our best year was 1998 when we flew 4399 flights!

If the weather cooperates for the next 6 - 8 weeks we have a good chance to break the 4000 flight mark. So lets keep flying and see if we can break 4000 flights and get a few more solos before the snow closes the runway.

Hamilton Airport news

Mark Voysey noted this article in the Business Edge magazine on September 15th and finds the Hamilton activity a possible threat to SOSA in the future

Challenges, including the long list of air carriers that have set up shop in Hamilton only to leave shortly after, might make a less resilient city give up hope of ever supporting a successful airport.
Originally opened in 1940 to train flight crews during the Second World War, the Mount Hope airport, as it was then known, continued to operate for years under the shadow of Toronto's much larger Pearson Airport.
However, with almost one million passengers and 91,000 tonnes of cargo passing through each year, today the Hamilton airport has never been more successful.
Privately owned TradePort International Corp., through its fully owned subsidiary Hamilton International Airport Ltd., is now celebrating its 10th anniversary at the John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport, having successfully managed the airport into Canada's 10th largest and the largest "dedicated air freight" airport in the country.
Photo courtesy of Hamilton International Airport
Hamilton International Airport president Richard Koroscil says Hamilton provides a low-cost structure for airlines.
Hamilton International Airport (HIA) is now the eastern hub for three courier/cargo companies: UPS, Purolator and CargoJet.
Purolator is the largest of the three courier/cargo carriers at HIA, with more than 1,000 flights per year, 200 employees and a 93,000-sq.-ft sorting facility.
CargoJet, with almost 900 flights in and out of Hamilton, shuttles more than 400,000 lbs. of cargo between 12 Canadian cities via its fleet of nine Boeing B727's.
And while a significant amount of the 318,000 tonnes of cargo that flies in and out of Toronto is carried in the holds of passenger aircraft, Hamilton still lays claim to the largest volume carried by cargo jet traffic in Canada.
HIA also boasts two national passenger carriers. Air Canada's Jazz airline has daily flights to Montreal and Ottawa, and through its Montreal connection to many international destinations. WestJet, despite its change in strategy to operate out of Toronto in 2004, still has a significant schedule of domestic flights in and out of Hamilton.
Richard Koroscil, president and CEO of Hamilton International, outlines the company's approach: "We determined early that we should operate as a secondary airport (to Toronto's Pearson Airport), which presented a great alternative for passengers and carriers. This provides for a low-cost structure for airlines. Toronto is one of the most expensive airports in the world. For example, a Boeing 737 landing in Hamilton would save $4,000 in landing fees.”
(The total cost of airport fees to land at Hamilton for a 737 would be $910.)
"Another advantage is the lack of congestion for air traffic," explains Koroscil. "It's much easier to get in and out of Hamilton airport. And because we're situated close to the GTA market, unlike many European secondary airports, the opportunities are much greater."
TradePort is a consortium of Westpark Developments, a local Hamilton land development company, the Labourers International Union of North America (LIUNA) and YVR (Vancouver) Airport Services Ltd.
The Regional Municipality of Hamilton-Wentworth (which has since become the City of Hamilton) was losing upward of $500,000 a year on the airport, so it brought in TradePort in a 40-year build-operate leasing arrangement.
Under the terms of the lease, the city is to receive a portion of the profit from operations. 2006 is expected to be the first year of payment and the amount will not be determined until yearend.
Since the private company took over, the city, the Hamilton airport and its partners have spent $120 million to extend runways, expand services and double the size of the terminal to 6,200 square metres.
With an administrative staff of 50, HIA oversees the operations of the airport, an entity that it claims generates $120 million in employment income for some 3,600 workers and property taxes nearing $1 million each year.
The City of Hamilton's economic development department has declared the airport and the proposed industrial base surrounding the airport as one of its major economic "clusters". But airport management has its sights on even more expansion.
Koroscil feels that HIA now has several compelling reasons why passengers and carriers should consider flying out of Hamilton.
In 1999, a 10,000-ft. runway was constructed (its second runway is 6,000 ft. - Pearson has a total of five runways) that allows for even the largest airplanes to land there.
HIA has unrestricted 24-hour operations, and the airport recently installed a $1.5-million CAT II instrument-landing system that guides aircraft landing under reduced-visibility standards.
"We're one of six airports in Canada with this system," boasts Koroscil.
In 2004, the province built a new section of Highway 6 linking the airport to Highway 403, opening a new access to the west. A proposed Mid-Pennisula Corridor would provide a highway running from Fort Erie right past the airport's front door and connecting to points further east.
Transportation linkages such as air-to-road and rail-to-port are a focus for the city, the Hamilton Port Authority and the newly formed Southern Ontario Gateway Council. Koroscil would like to see a centre for excellence in transportation set up in Hamilton.
As with most development, however, not everyone is as excited by the plans for airport expansion. To the northwest of Hamilton International Airport lies Ancaster, a once cozy village now a mushrooming commuter community featuring subdivisions as plentiful as the cornfields that once stood in their place. Resistance to airport expansion erupted several years ago, making headlines and prompting the HIA management to make some adjustments.
"We pay a lot of attention to the whole noise-management issue," explains Koroscil. "We have a noise-management committee including citizens from the surrounding area. We have equipment that monitors noise levels.
"We've seen a change in the aircraft industry to a much quieter type of airplane. We asked the city to extend the airport-influence zoning to take into account for the high-noise area surrounding the airport (for future development) and they've agreed to do that. And, because we are still in a largely rural area, we have an advantage that other airports don't have."
The city views the 3,200 acres immediately surrounding the airport as an opportunity for industrial and commercial development and has initiated plans for the area to be rezoned from agricultural to urban lands, calling the project Aerotropolis.
But again, opposition to expansion has resulted in the city's zoning proposal being appealed at the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) by citizens and the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing.
Their main objections centre around the lack of public consultation and the removal of so much agricultural land without specifically identifying what will take its place. The city claims that the rezoning is to merely facilitate a study to determine options.
Opponents point to the dozen or so similar studies conducted by the city without the need to change zoning. The OMB has scheduled its next hearing for late September.
Janice Currie, a resident of Ancaster, questions the city's rationale.
"I'd like to see some kind of plan from the city. They want to take 3,200 acres all at once. Why can't they develop the properties as required? I also have a hard time believing the city's claim that this will create 52,000 new jobs. How do they know that without some kind of plan?" Eric Gillespie, a lawyer representing Hamiltonians for Progressive Development, says: "Once the zoning is changed from agriculture it will never go back. There is already a portion of the land that is not necessary as agriculture - why do they have to rezone all 3,200 acres? There are still a number of properties, large parcels of brownfield, that could accommodate the infill that the city keeps talking about. Why not use them instead?" Koroscil notes that the province's Greenbelt Plan skirts around the airport. At the same time, the Places to Grow Act of 2005 places severe restrictions on the removal of agricultural land for urban development.
Koroscil sees the development of "employment land" as an enticement for airport activity, but secondary to the development of the HIA facilities itself.
HIA plans to invest a further $1.3 million to double its international arrivals section of the terminal.
Currently, WestJet and Air Canada offer passengers more than 150 flights to 45 destinations a week.
"The airport can easily grow," states Koroscil. "We can grow to 5.5 million passengers (per year), which would make us the fifth-largest airport in Canada and realize $2.5 billion in economic input into the community.”
Koroscil has the target date of 2015 in mind.
Ambitious? Perhaps, but then Hamilton has long called itself the Ambitious City.
With Hamilton International Airport playing an essential role in transportation and the movement of goods in and out of the city, those ambitious goals, and challenges, may well be met one by one.
(Lawson Hunter can be reached at hunter@businessedge.ca)

Great Sunday afternoon fall gliding. A busy flight line and lots of people in the air. Dan Bush and John Brennan in heated discussion about Luke's landout (see previous blog); lots of happy intros flown by Luke and Mark Voysey; Martin had a great flight in the 505 with his Dad in the back seat, Thomas doing his duty in the bus, Jerzy and Mike Trigvasson doing the towing. What a great afternoon full of thermals small but strong and even some cloudstreets. Paul dropped by on his way to Pearson to take his daughter for a promised ride.

A day in the life of a cross country pilot

Well, now that you’ve seen photos and description of Wilfried’s adventures, here is one about Luke. Apparently this is the readers digest version. Luke decided on a 300km trip to Lucan, Dundalk and return and during part of the journey Luke had hooked up with Jerzy. Having gotten low near Toronto Soaring Club at around 5pm Luke thought he might not get back and Jerzy decided to head back to SOSA to prepare the retrieve. Luke did manage to land safely and Tomas Rezek and Andy Mazur returned for the retrieve but it was after midnight. Luke had instructed that the Cobra trailer was for the Ls4 but he suddenly remembered about 10 minutes before Tomas and Andy arrived that there were two Cobra trailers at SOSA. Needless to say they had the wrong one. Tomas Rezek Mira and Andy Mazur who volunteered as crew (wow!! thanks guys) and had a long journey back to get the correct one (even bigger - thanks guys) . The photo shows the farmer hauling the Ls4 Cobra trailer out of his field at 3:00am. Luke arrived back at SOSA at about 6:00 am and then went straight to work. He later told me that the icing to the story was that this was his wife’s birthday !!!!!

SOSA communication survey

In an effort to further improve communication and involvement of SOSA members with the club we would like to conduct a brief member survey.

Erin Templeton (Pat's daughter) has agreed to undertake the survey and give us some feedback on any issues of improvement. Erin is currently in Sydney Australia and is studying for a masters degree in professional communication. She is taking on this project as part of her course work and as a "client".

Erin has created a survey questionaire to gain our opinions and feedback about SOSA communications issues. She would like some honest and helpful opinion from members. Erin will get back to us with the results and her advice as our consultant.


The survey can be found here,
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=670172513752

If you want to contact Erin her address is etmpltn@yahoo.com

Adventures of Wilfried Krueger in K2

Wilfried sent me these three pics in a 21 meg file which took me for ever to download. However the muttering under my breath tapered off when I saw these astounding pics. Just feast your eyes on these!!!

K2 at Mount Wheeler Nevada.

The photo was taken in June 2006 by Holger Weitzel during a 1000km flight which we team flew. Mt Wheeler is located 40 miles East of Ely Nevada and is~ 13000' high. Nevada is a paradise for Glider pilots.There are lots of Mountains and we cruise most of the time between 12000-17000'. Thermal strength is between 800-1400fpm. From our base "Ely" I flew this year alone 6 flights over 800km the longest being 1190 km.

The next photos were taken a few weeks ago (end of August) by Holger Weitzel, a friend from Germany who visited the USA and Canada with his ASW 26E. We left SOSA in marginal conditions, flew via Hagerstown to Niagara, where conditions improved a lot. The Photo was taken at ~ 6500' . Soaring conditions at the Peninsular are often outstanding and this was one of many flights I enjoyed over this territory. There a lots of Airports on the road to Niagara and going in this direction can be lots of fun

Fall Student Flying

Despite the wet weather lately, the fall season can be an ideal time for students to continue their flying training.

For example today, on Sunday 24 Sept the forecast was for 60% chance of rain, and the only two students at the field were able to fly 5 flights each. Condensed training like this will speed up your progress towards your first solo.

If the weather cooperates, there are still 6-8 weekends left this season to continue flying. In fact, for the last few years some students have continued flying into December! Remember you don't need blue skies to continue your training, so come on out and solo before the end of the year!

Also don't forget that SOSA will run a groundschool in the clubhouse for 3 consecutive Saturdays starting 21 October.

Paul Fish off to Sierra Leone

Paul Fish is leaving for a 7 month period to this west African country. He is working with the international development agency "Volunteer Services Overseas". The humanitarian work involves setting up a simplified assessment system to support the maintenance of infrastructure such as roads, sewers and water supply. You can follow Paul's travels on his blog site www.paulinsierraleone.blogspot.com until he returns for the flying season in May. (He'll do anything to avoid winter!!)

Summer General Meeting

The Summer General Meeting was held last weekend 16th September and was a great success. There were 42 members who took part in a lively discussion over a 3 hour period. Dave Springford chaired the meeting and led the discussion about the current status of flying this year and how we can get more efficiency out of the flight line. One of the more interesting parts of the evening was a review of our options to aquire the next glider in the fleet. There was undoubted agreement about the merits of a motor glider in particular in the early training phases for landing and take off. Cross country familiarity would also benefit greatly according to Herrie TenCate and the room agreed. Apart from the motor glider many other suggestions were made and debated. All of the minutes are uploaded to the Yahoo Groups file for members.

Joerg talked about the mentor program and how this is of great benefit to the students. He encouraged all to take part.

Dangerous or edible? Olga Burany needs some answers

Steve found and picked these mushrooms on the diagonal runway across from the hangar..today...Sept. 3rd and he wants to fry them and eat them...and I say .."hey...wait a minute"...

I wonder if any member might be able to indentify and tell us whether these are "good mushrooms" or "make you sick mushrooms"???

They are huge and he thinks they are good to eat..

thanks for anyone's input..
Olga

Board Meeting

• 
  In an effort to better communicate the activities of the SOSA Board, the blog will have a review of past meetings and the "public" topics we discussed.
  
  The image is the antithesis of the calm and cool manner of the SOSA board :-)
• Aerobatic Program. There was a request to permit solo aerobatic maneuvers under instructor supervision for those students having achieved a particular standard. The Board referred the issue to the CFI committee for their comments
• The club mission statement is to be reviewed to include the issue of equal opportunity and harrasement
• Ground School is to be held once again at the clubhouse Oct 21,28 and Nov 4th. The issue of fees was discussed. The merits of putting on the school was discussed having regard to the effort required. To be investigated is the issue of inviting a professional instructor from a power flying club.
• Trillium. Considered was the potential to apply for another grant this time for Youth Camp purposes
• The past youth camp performance was discussed and generally reported to be very positive. No incidents or accidents of note. Good flight line activity and great attitude of the participants. Thanks to Tom, Lorna, Dave Dan Martin and Willem for acting as instructors and chaperones. Likely to repeat the camp next year
• Request for the 505, LS4 and Jantar to be taken to the ridge in early October. Jerzy Sergei and Anthony to lead the group of 6 SOSA members. The request was approved at daily charges. However if the weather forecast at the weekend looks good the LS4 has to stay for members use.
• Paul is away for 7 months from Sept end and Graham Smith has offered to assist in his absence.
• Summer AGM agenda items
• Communication issues. We need to communicate Board activity better in addition to the minutes in the clubhouse. Resolved to blog the non-sensitive matters.
• Next Board meeting - Nov 11th at 0930. Venue to be determined

Summer General Meeting

Just to confirm, the Summer General Meeting for next Saturday September 16th at 1930 hrs (7:30pm) in the clubhouse.

First of all we are hoping that a member of the Trilium Foundation head office will be able to address the members and to see the work we had completed with their financial help. We are hoping that more funds are available for other projects.

We will dispense with the usual standard reports from each board member since we would like to focus on some discussion on the following topics

• Safety Officer - Willem Langellan will discuss various issues
• Flight line efficiency - how can we get more flights into the air
• Club procedures
• Next glider aquisition - nothing is formally proposed but this is a session to get some feedback from members
• SOSA runs on an entirely volunteer basis. Does this need to change?
• Mentor Program - how is this going? Feedback?
• Temporary help for club secretary
• AGM location for February 24th
• Any other business

Each board member will be available for questions

All SOSA members sustaining or not are invited to attend and take part in the discussion.

Youth Camp

SOSA is pleased to host the annual Junior camp that runs from Aug 23rd through September 1st. At the camp this year are 12 licenced young men and women who are given the opportunity to fly the more advanced aircraft at SOSA. The Juniors come from across the country and this year a heavy contingent from the Maritimes. Please welcome these youngsters to the club. Jay Alardyce mentioned that none of the Juniors have experienced thermalling and during the first couple of days there were soaring conditions which amazed the youth pilots. The photo is supplied by Kyke Nordman and is last years camp members. This years members
are pictured above

Dave Springford success at Uvalde

Dave won day # 3 in the U.S. Std. Class Nationals flying 80.03 MPH around a 326 mile task and then won again on day #7 flying 87.14 mph around a 398 mile task. See the link below.

http://www.ssa.org/members/contestreports/contestresults.asp

Take a look at the wheels on that baby

Your SOSA board has just approved the latest piece of equipment proposed by the Grounds Director, Andrea Kuciak.

Andrea reports that it is a Massey Ferguson 255 with the larger engine which makes it the same as a MF265. One of the nice things for the price is it's low time engine (1400hrs out of 5000 TBO) with a late serial number (which means all the kinks have been worked out) in almost new condition. The machine has been looked at it and is highly recommended. We moved on this opportunity since these tractors don't come up too often and sell fairly quickly. We are likely to spring for the tractor without the front end loader.

Westenbergs news

....and another future SOSA member. Many will remember Ed and Mirjam Westenberg who decamped back to the Netherlands for a while to raise their new family. Their return to SOSA has just been delayed by the arrival on August 3rd of the latest addition Lara 7.6 lbs , a sister for Lars who is now 2 years old. Congrats.

Don in Vancouver

Don Plewes sent me this great shot of his new sport ... jumping off Grouse Mountain with nothing more than a tent over the head. I suspected that a western sabbatical might have rather unpredicatable results but the normally cautious Don has surpassed expectations! It must be the inspiring view.

Don writes (with my edits) that things have been going well here with lovely weather. Generally very sunny and pleasant temps. I attach a photograph from the top of Grousse Mountain ~4000' ASL ..... and stayed up for about 30 minutes getting good ridge lift. These things fly so slowly and and circle in very tight little regions of lift. The nearby crows and eagles where doing about the same size cirlces for their lift as they soared together. It was wonderful to see.

Don is spending a year away from SOSA as well as taking a break from his job as research scientist at Sunnybrook Hospital.

Happy 40th Birthday SOSA

Last Saturday SOSA celebrated 40 years of flying at Rockton.

The celebration took place after the flying was done for the day (see photos below courtesy Andrea Kuciak) and the evening was spent in some obvious fun and games. Apparently golf was popular and Mike Sury reports that the winner Tomas Rezek edged past Angie Wilson to capture a free dinner for him and his family by driving the ball closest to the pin .... It was wonderful to see such a great turn out says Mike who did all the organizing. Marc Thomson brought his model aircraft which were admired by Andrew Corrigan and offspring. The dinner celebrations were a complete success with hamburgers hotdogs and even a huge birthday cake. If anyone knows who made this please add a comment to the bottom of this post.

Thanks to Pat O'Donnell for the great memories on film. The evening was capped by a huge burst of colourful fireworks. We shouldnt need to wait for 40 years to do this - how about an annual birthday event?