K-21 Delivery and Unpacking

SOSA took delivery of our new K-21's on Wed 7 Jan. Many thanks to Andy Mazur who allowed us to use his loading bay and occupy his warehouse from 12:30 until 7:00 pm!


The gliders were secured in the container with steel frames that were screwed to the floor. Here Chris Wilson had to crawl under the glider to get to the one last screw.




The second fuselage is being rolled out of the container with Greg Finlay steadying the tail and Adam Zeiba and Dave Springford moving the dolly into place. Chris, now out from under the glider, watches the nose for clearance.




The fuselage dolly being put in place with Jerzy Szemplinski supporting the glider.

Adam, Chris, Greg and Dave (hidden) manouevre the glider to line it up with the trailer.

The two fuselages, one on a stand and the other being moved onto the trailer ramp by Adam and Tom Coulson (can you see him:)

Jerzy and John Burany removing the horizontal stabilizer from the container.

With the two fuselages and stabilizers out of the container, it is now time to move Jerzy's trailer and the rack holding the four wings. This was made easy by the 5 inch nylon rollers bolted to the frame under the trailer. The trailer axle had to be removed for shipping otherwise the rack was too tall for the container.

A short pause to gauge the progress.

Tom Coulson making his first visible appearance, but certainly not his first physical appearance on the job!

Adam, Greg, Jerzy and Dave add some safety straps to the rack while John Burany is caught in the lens like a deer in the headlights.

Dave and Chris remove the bolts holding the first wing to the rack, while one of our photographers, Steve and John Burany look on. Steve, of course, did more than just take pictures, adding his back to the lifting as well.

Dave, Chris and Tom hoist the wing root...

While Greg, Steve and John hoist the tip.

Our other photographer, Maria Szempliska caught in a rare moment on the other side of the camera, well done Steve! With Maria is Andy Mazur's spouse Jola.

Two pairs of feet, knees and hands setting up the trailer...

belonging to Greg and Chris.

Finally, a picture of the two fuselages in the workshop at SOSA. Thanks to Luke Szczepaniak who joined us at SOSA around 8:00 pm to offload the last glider.

For now, the gliders need to go through an import and conformity inspection before a C of A can be issued. The C of R paperwork is in the works. We also need to install some instruments and the radios before they are ready to go, probably some time in early April.

Thanks to everyone who helped out with the unpacking and delivery to SOSA. It was a long hard day, but well worth it!

Flying in the snow on New Years Day 2009

January 1, 2009 at SOSA Gliding Club, Rockton. In the Blanik are Andrew Corrigan (rear) and John Brennan. Standing are Steve Benedek, Les Waller and Ryan Maloney. All agreed that it was was a wee bit brisk.



We got out two Blaniks and our Citabria tug - coincidentally, it's the towplane with cabin heat. Throughout the short daylight hours today several dozen arrived to fly and did so.

Here's a Blanik, rolling behind the Citabria, plowing through the cloud of snow sprayed up by the tug. By day's end a couple of dozen had rung in 2009 with a glider flight - surely a harbinger of great flights in the coming year. Thanks to everyone who showed up with goodies to share today. Quite literally, there was everything in the clubhouse from soup to nuts after the flying.
One of the top questions asked about soaring is, "Can you fly in the winter? It must be cold up there." Yes, it's a cold way to fly. It's also a little harder to push gliders around in the snow and yes, it's absolutely the best way we can think of to look forward to the coming soaring year. SOSA wouldn't be quite the same without its annual New Years Day version of the Polar Bear Club.