Great images from the SOSA cartoon meister, Mr. Waller

Apologies. Jamie Pinto and other members of the testosterone variety have been found wandering vaguely in the wrong washroom mistakenly going in the same direction as has been usual for many years. Sorry guys. This prompted a request made of Les Waller to prepare some images that can be affixed to the appropriate door. Thanks Les.

Any comments (useful) ?

Member Profile – Terry McElligott

Most of you know Terry McElligott, one of the more established SOSA members but this is what Terry looks like when at work as a radio host – pretty much the same as his towing togs but different earphones.



Terry can be heard at Jazz FM introducing the world of Jazz in the 10:00 am to 3:00pm slot – just turn the dial to 91.1 FM and you too can listen to his soothing tones. Last week Terry invited me down to the cool new studios at Liberty Village in the Toronto King / Dufferin area and gave me a fascinating tour. Terry’s favourite music is pretty much all Jazz styles except Big Band or Vocals although he mentions the traditional blues of Charlie Parker, and the modern style of Philip Glass played by the Kronos Quartet. The Jazz fm web site http://www.jazz.fm/ has the following background on Terry.

Growing up in Montreal , Terry tapped into the music and art of many cultures. Sometimes he'd stay up late listening to strange radio signals beaming in from distant cities. By the time he was in high school he'd developed a serious interest in the medium of radio.
One of his first on-air jobs, running an overnight jazz program on radio, was a step toward a long and highly successful radio career on some of Canada's most popular radio stations in the 1970s and 1980s. In the 1990s he moved on to teaching at Toronto's Humber and Centennial Colleges while applying his long media experience to the Web. Little did he suspect that his early jazz program experience would lead, decades later, to a return to radio and a fascinating stint as an on-air host and webmaster for JAZZ.FM91. But it did … and he's forever grateful to have been given the chance to play jazz on the radio.

After his radio host duties Terry also designs web pages as a professional and in fact he originated the SOSA web page.

At SOSA Terry flies his DG 200 and logged about 60 hours last year as well as his duty as tow pilot. Terry is Mr. Nice Guy around the club – always an encouraging word to say. Terry started gliding in Montreal when he was 17 and now is just as enthusiastic. He tries like many to balance SOSA with a family life; married to Joanne Thomas and one (non-flying) child. Joanne, Terry says, did take a flight once upon a time but having exclaimed “that was very nice dear” she has not ventured near SOSA since. We now have a welcoming clubhouse and so …. you never know.


If you don’t know Terry just tune in or say hello to him on the SOSA field. Hint – he is also partial to a (WBBT) worlds best butter tart, baked and sold near SOSA.

Jay Allardyce - new SOSA member

Welcome Jay Allardyce a cross country pilot who comes from Winnipeg. Jay spent a couple of weeks at SOSA last year flying the now departed Single Astir in the CAS Clinic and the Junior Camp. Jay is a proud new member of SOSA for 2006.

Jay wrote me an e-mail having read our blog page.

.... I have been keeping up to date with the latest happenings with the SOSA blog that you maintain. It is quite informative and I enjoy reading enthusiastic posts.

I have managed to find a full-time job for the summer in the Hamilton area, and will be living in Dave Springford's trailer for the summer. I should arrive the weekend of the 29th of April, and am looking forward to a great summer of soaring and wonderful flying weather.

Please welcome Jay when you see him at the field

Ian Oldaker flies #200 at SOSA this year

There is a lot of flying going on this year
Wednesday evening 19th April Ian took flight number 200 in his PW5

Ian has generously offered his PW5 as a club ship and so members (who are signed off) can fly this nice 13 meter ship under their usual club flying privileges. Thank you Ian. The PW5 resides in the main hangar.

The glider was the winner of the IGC international World Class Design is made in Poland. On the outside of the cockpit you will see the words SMYK and I am told that this means "mischievous boy" although we might get some additional comments from the SOSA Polish community on this?

Ian requests as follows.
Wash only with wax Tar and Bug cleaner (in hangar on table with other waxes, etc), NOT water as this leaves a rough deposit - difficult to remove. If you land out, please ensure that only persons who have de-rigged and loaded the trailer before, do so to assist you. The glider has some damage from incorrect handling in the past! I will arrange some rigging/derigging sessions on Sat /Sun mornings soon so that you may learn the ropes!

Cleaning up ??

Herrie Tencate our grounds director is looking for a recommendation of someone in the SOSA area of Rockton to do clubhouse cleaning. If you know of a service or someone who does a good job please send an e-mail to Herrie at

htencate@rogers.com

Les Waller reporting

Monday April 17th
I was out flying today......A very strong cold east wind
made flying the libelle a real challenge , some broken bits of lift
shot between 2 and 8 up , you needed tight straps and to keep
tongue away from your teeth . Real fun ? You bet!

Open for Business - after flying

Luke Szczepaniak is the official and chief 2006 superintendent of beer fridge duty and after much renovation in the clubhouse Luke sent this photo evidence that yes, those lazy evenings chatting over a little refreshment are here again.

What a great May err April weekend

Yes, we could have mistaken this for a beautiful May weekend. The photo is Oscar Hotel and Hotel Kilo soaring in a thermal over the Safari, snapped by Luke Szczepaniak.

We had more than 40 flights on Saturday with the last flight close to 7:00 pm. I am sure many flights were memorable and long and I’d like to hear from anyone with an interesting story to tell. Dave Springford test flew the latest private ship, the Discus “1W” for the proud new owners Marc Thomsen and me. Thanks Dave, and a great landing, seen on the photo.




Sunday started out a bit slow because the 36 runway needed some rolling – thanks to Dave Springford - but after the clouds drifted away at 10:00am the flight line was busy again and the thermals were cooking. Sean Coulton and I were checked out by Terry Macartney-Filgate for our first flights in the LS4 later in the day. Thanks Terry. What a blast. Sean and I both had 1 hour rides and an amazing step up from the Junior. Ernie Prack flew two intro rides and Tom did some instructional flights. Luke Szczepaniak took his first soaring flight in Hotel Kilo. By 3:00pm I noticed that we had 175 flights logged so far this year – amazing for mid-April. The only misfortune is that we had not organised a flight line duty and things like time sheet tracking was haphazard. Note from Dave – we have to be more diligent and log our piloted flights. More photos below are Lorna Novosel our Chief Flying Instructor doing stellar towing and another pic of 1W that I couldnt resist. If anyone has other photos please send me an e-mail to Paul@sosaglidingclub.com

Paul Fish, SOSA Secretary and Blog correspondent

Crazy

Gliding across the the English channel - see the link to this article. I calculate a 3.9 glide ratio



http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3112095.stm

Pete Vados reporting on flight 100 this year

I was out at SOSA today and hummed and hawed if I should bother flying. Pat O'Donnell did 3 instructional flights in the Puch and managed to get 30 min so I gave it a shot. I managed just under an hour in 2-2.5 average lift at best up to 4000' in very broken, narrow and WEAK thermals under a cirrus sky with a not so inviting halo around the sun. But more importantly it happened to be flight #100 for the year. I'm guessing we're off to a good start.

Adam Zieba and Chris Bieniecki to fly the L23 in the Nationals

Adam Zieba and Chris Bieniecki have been approved to fly the SOSA Blanik L23 in the Nationals in July. Good luck.

Excellent work weekend leads to pizza shortage in Cambridge

What a great turnout at the weekend. Both days we had more than 30 members and the pizza shortage in Cambridge became extreme. Saturday started about 7:15 am when Lou Tarsitano the plumber and his mate arrived, and then we raided the Rona store of all remaining washroom fixtures for Lou to install. Before 9:00am everyone else had arrived and were busy either on the field or doing various jobs around the clubhouse, electrical, floor finish or wood finishes. Sunday was outside and polishing the gliders the main order of the day as well as getting all that garbage out of the clubhouse and furniture in. Much was also going on in the workshop. All this is great preparation in anticipation of a busy summer.

Residents impressed with the makeover

The SOSA clubhouse makeover challenge is at the home stretch and a good initial reaction from the residents is emerging. Here are the Burany clan ready to move in. After two days of enthusiastic work weekend April 8th and 9th effort we have finally put the furniture back in the lounge, cleaned the windows, put up some light fixtures and generally cleaned up. Phew! The plumbing, Lou tells me, will be completed by next weekend for the formal "welcome mat" move in. Wow.

Over the past week or so there has been a rush to the finish line with Sergei Morozov completing all the Safety Board requirements for the changeover to a 200 amp service, Eric Zoebelin doing a critical job of the washroom partitions and with Eric’s help, Angelo Socci installing the kitchen. A whole host of members were also involved in the never ending final phases of

floor finishing,
light fixtures and receptacles
door staining,
fridge moving,
plumbing installation
cleanup (where did all that old garbage come from?)
blinds hanging,
ceiling tile repairs and replacement,
furniture moving


Many thanks to Virginia Thompson who has tirelessly advised on design and re-design, paint colour, kitchen and all manner of support on the committee



SOSA members should also heartily thank Angelo Savoia, who put a huge amount of time in since the January 14th starting gun. His firm Dagmar relinquished up to 3 employees to work on our project. As usual we required the flexibility of design and scope and the project took longer than anticipated. Thanks Angelo and Dagmar.

Lastly but certainly not least to appreciate is the Trillium Fund award of $75,000. One of the SOSA grant conditions from Trillium is that membership is increased by 10% this year and our application made a special emphasis on women. So we now have our objectives and we have a nice clubhouse as a foundation for the appeal for new members. Thanks to all of the volunteer efforts of SOSA members.

News from the Nationals

The following members have been allocated club gliders to enter the National Championships at SOSA 28 June to 7 July 2006

Anthony Kawzowicz - the Jantar
Sergei Morozov - the LS4
Ernie Prack - the Junior
Jim Carpenter - the DG505 and Jim will be taking a roster of other SOSA members as passengers in the back seat

Spring work weekend - 8th and 9th April

OK we need a good clean up for the flying season. So come down to SOSA early - we'll start at 0900 hours, lend a hand and let's get the field ready. The clubhouse is virtually done, (phew!) with the last major job being the plumber, Lou who is arriving 7:30am on Saturday to complete this. However the clubhouse needs to be cleaned up, (beer fridge moved back!!) etc., and the furniture vacuumed and cleaned and taken back. There are likely to be jobs to do in the hangar and on the field as well. Rewards are camaraderie, pizza and beer on the new patio.

Meet Jack

You'll find Jack around Lorna and Terry's summer home so dont forget to give him a friendly pat and welcome him at SOSA. He is a wonderful little pup and eager to share mascot duties with Sassy Springford.

SOSA members win SAC awards

• Pat O'Donnell was awarded instructor of the year
• Dave Springford the Canadair trophy for 6 best flights
• Joerg Stieber - BAIC trophy for best soaring flight of the year