Spring Work Weekend

The SOSA Spring Work Weekend will be held on 19- 20 April. We plan to start at 9 am each morning.

Some of the jobs that need to be completed are:
Wash and wax all the gliders and towplanes
Repair the main hangar door support
Clean out the flight line bus
Clean up the workshop
Clean the hangar
Clean the clubhouse and seal the floor tiles
Put up new windsocks
Clear trees that are infringing on the runway verges
Put up white lattice along the fences at the threshold of runways 36, 03, 28 and 10
and many more ...

We have delayed a couple of weeks from our typical dates since the airport is still under a foot of snow. Hopefully the weather will cooperate and give us warm weather for the weekend.

Come on out and help us get your club ready for the 2008 flying season!

Situational Awareness test

nothing beats keeping a good lookout, right?
http://www.dothetest.co.uk/

The Worlds Fastest Glider

Did you know that the Space Shuttle's glide angle is about 20 degrees? A normal ILS approach flown by the airlines is only 3 degrees. This gives the shuttle about 3:1 for L/D or about the same as a brick with a good tailwind! Sailplane and Gliding magazine recently interviewed Shuttle pilot Gordon Fullerton who discusses the concept of Energy Management.

"Energy management is the number one thing you worry about. When you are at Mach 25 half way around the world from your landing point its very important to be at the correct speed and altitude all the way along so that when you get to your intended landing site you are not coming up short. Going fast is just as bad and you could end up whistling right by at a high Mach number and never be able to get back.

Going too fast or too high is as bad as being short because the Shuttle has a poor turning radius and, for instance if you arrive overhead at Mach 2 rather then the planned Mach 1 you probably don't have enough energy to turn around and get back to the airport. It takes too much energy to make a turn at high speed and you would find yourself short on the far side of the airport, which is just as bad.

Keeping track of that energy, which you can't do by looking out the window like in a normal glider - when you are out over the ocean, there is nothing but water so you are dependent on the electronics and navigation system.

Until you get down to Mach 1 and 45,000 ft over the landing airport you can take control manually and actually control the altitude and direction, but you have no way of doing that accurately without the navigation system, so crews usually fly coupled into the auto-pilot.

All of the Shuttle landings so far have been controlled manually, So once going through subsonic in the vicinity of the airport, the pilot will take control manually to get the feel for the handling and do the rest of the approach, line up, final approach, flare and touchdown with his hand on the stick."

While flying the Shuttle is obviously quite different from our gliders, the concept of energy management is certainly the same. You have probably heard instructors talk about energy management. Gliders have two types of energy, Potential Energy and Kinetic Energy.

Potential Energy is gained from altitude and is expressed mathematically as PE = mgh (mass x gravitational acceleration x altitude)

Kinetic Energy is gained from speed and is expressed mathematically as KE = 1/2 mVV

(half x mass x velocity squared)

Some of this energy is lost due to drag, and this is the reason that gliders cannot stay up for ever. While flying, a pilot manages this energy by trading potential energy for kinetic (altitude for speed).

When talking about energy management we need to consider that both speed and altitude come into consideration. So for example, we normally join the circuit at 1650 ft ASL (800 agl) at about 50 kts. This gives us a certain amount of energy to use up in the landing pattern before coming to rest on the runway with zero energy. If a pilot were to join the circuit at 1150 ft ASL (300 agl) at 120 kts does he have the same energy available to use? Mathematically speaking, yes.

Flying gliders, especially in the circuit and in preparation for landing is all about energy management - just the same as the Shuttle, only on a much smaller scale! The spoilers are also a part of our energy management, since they increase drag and allow us to shed energy.

As pilots it is our job to judge our energy and make the appropriate trade-offs between speed, altitude and increased drag so as to arrive at the intended touch down point with just enough energy to flare and touchdown.

This Just In from the SOSA Newsroom ...

2008 Senior Contest – Seminole Lake Gliderport, Clermont Florida: Four of the top dogs, at positions 2, 4, 7 and 12, are Canadians. See if you can spot the SOSA Glitterati. The top 10 from a field of 55 were
1. DB Butler, Dick ASH-26E
2. K2 Krueger, Wilfred DG-808B-18
3. 100 Jacobs, Doug DG-1000
4. 44 Gough, Andy LS-8 15
5. RF Clark, Robin LS-6A
6. 711 Kelley, Tom ASG-29-18
7. 410 Hollestelle, Ed LS-10a-18
8 . EG Spitz, Bob ASW-28
9. CGC Ridenour, Ron DuoDiscus
10. 93 Eisenbeiss, Duane Ventus 2BX
11. MP Packard, Mike DuoDiscus
12. SZ Milner, Brian V-2CX-18

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

So that's what it looks like

18 Metre Nationals, Hobbs New Mexico inside the start gaggle with lots of other gliders - how many do you see? Click on the picture to enlarge it.

World Team Fundraiser

The fundraiser for the Canadian Team that was held at the SOSA AGM and Awards banquet raised just over $3000 to help send the team to Germany in August. The winners of the prizes were:

SOSA 2008 Membership - Wilfried Krueger

SOSA 12 Hour Block - Kevin Taylor

Limited Edition photograph by Maria Szemplinska - Andrew Parker

$25 Restaurant Gift Certificates - George Haeh and Marc Thomson


Many thanks to all who particpated in the fundraiser for the team.

SOSA Awards Banquet

Joe Stubbs, Luke Szczepaniak and Tomas Rezek receive certificates recognizing the completion of the their Instructor Ratings

Lukas Rezek and Ryan Maloney receive certificates recognizing the completion of the their first solo glider flight

Joerg Steiber receiving the Doug Winger 500 trophy for the fatest 500 km triangle flown from SOSA during 2007

Eric Gillespie receiving the Dr Wolf Dietrich Leers Award as the SOSA Instructor of the year. In his second year of Instructing, Eric flew 111 instructional flights arriving at the field by 8 am every weekend.

Tom Sands receiving the Rienhard award for contribution to the non-flying operation at SOSA for single-handedly painting the exterior of the clubhouse.





Diane Maloney receiving the Ken Larmour award for a significant contribution by a non-licensed pilot for organizing an on-going support system for the Rezeks.


The Junior All-round Trophy was awarded to Alan Grant for his back-to-back 50 km flights

The SOSA Flight Achievement Trophy was awarded to Adam Zieba for his outstanding 803 km flight from SOSA

The Royal Crown Cola Trophy was awarded to Greg Finlay for his 509 km flight - the best flight by a Silver Badge pilot

The Douglas C. Winger Trophy was awarded to Adam Oke for his significant contribution as a tow pilot