Too Muddy to Fly

With the warm conditions this past week, the field is unusable for flying this weekend. It looks like we have moved from the frozen season to the hurry up and dry season.

With the sun shining the last few days, the snow is completely melted from the runways and the runway lakes are relatively small for this time of year.

Hopefully, it will be a dry spring and we can fly over the next few weekends.

In the meantime, don't forget:

Instructor meeting Sun 25 March at McMaster University

CAS Cross Country Soaring Seminar Sat 31 March in Mississauga (for details contact dave"at"sosaglidingclub"dot"com)

SOSA Work weekend 14-15 April

More Flying on the 18th

With a frozen runway and some brisk winds from the north, we took to the skies again today. The photo above shows our CFI John Brennan and Dave Springford about to embark on a check flight. During this flight we were able to climb to 5000 ' with about 3 kts average and the vario indicating up to 6 kts at times. What was remarkable is that it was 1140 am (1040 sun time!). It is not often that conditions are as strong that early in the day during the summer.
Sassy also enjoyed her first flying day at SOSA taking her normal spot supervising from the Gator. She is very sensitive about the red coat - so don't bring it up - it is hard enough to get her to wear it, but at least it keeps her warm.

Terry McElligot soaring in ICQ. Note the altimeter reads 4250 ' and the vario is showing 4 kts. Also of note is the position of the yaw string. While many may think that Terry is flying uncoordinated, in fact, he is applying an appropriate amount of slip into the turn - a well recognized thermalling technique - and yes it is meant to increase the climb rate. There have been several papers published on this subject.

Of course a flying day is never complete without the post-flight gathering in the clubhouse over a bottle of Sleeman's finest.

Flying on the 17th of March - 2007 this time!

With the warm weather last week to melt the snow and the cold temps overnight to freeze the runway last night, the weather aligned just right to allow the first flights of 2007 today.

John Brennan - in typical Irish fashion remarked that it was a suitable manner to celebrate St Patrick's Day. Other particpants on the day were Dan Bush, Andrea Kuciak, Scott McMaster, Dave Springford and Luke Szczepaniak.

Of course with the cool temps, the Citabria needed a good pre-heat before firing up, but after 20 minutes of pre-heat and pulling the prop through a few times, by hand, it fired with no hesitation - I think she wanted to fly as much as we did.

Most people think of a snowball as something you throw, well today it was something you followed on take-off, because if you look really closely, you can see a blue and white wing sticking out of it! (Click on the pic to enlarge)

Here it is from the outside

There were even a few thermals, with the vario peaking at 5 knots. The duration award for the day goes to Dan Bush who managed 25 minutes, including a couple of spins from a 3000 ft tow.

And if you have never seen snow covered runways at SOSA from the air it is actually a beautiful sight.

With a forecast overnight low of -11 C, the runway should be good and solid for some early flying tomorrow as well. We plan to open the hangar at 9 am and do some more flying.

As the sun warms the ground later in the day, it tends to become a little soft so we will likely only be able to fly until about 1 pm and then we will need to stop when the ground softens up.

So if you want to fly come out early!

Spring Work Weekend and Small Hangar Unstacking

The Work weekend is scheduled for Sat and Sun April 14-15.

All members are expected to attend one of the two days to help prepare the club equipment and facilities for the up-coming season.

If you have specific tasks that you think should be accomplished please contact Herrie (facilities), Andrea (grounds and equipment), Al Grant (aircraft) with your suggestions


All private owners who have glider trailers stored in the small hangar are asked to remove their trailers from the small hangar on Easter Weekend 7-9 April.

Flying at SOSA on the 7th of March

A Blanik circling over the Lion Safari on the 7th of March.

A few hardy souls braved the cool temps and managed to get in the air. This early start to the season does not happen every year - things need to align just right, cool enough temps to keep the runways frozen, yet not too much snow to hinder flying operations. As it is, the snow is still covering the runway today, but a year ago we flew the first flights of last season on this day. With the warming trend on its way at the end of this week, and a little rain to wash away the snow, we might yet be flying before the end of March! Keep your fingers crossed. And for those who thought I was talking about 2007 - sorry about that :)