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?

Convergence Zone

Joerg Steiber reports on todays excellent gliding conditions



The 3:15p satellite photo shows a string of cu following Hwy 401 from Windsor to London. This is a convergence zone where the seabreezes from Lake Erie and Lake Huron meet, producing a lift street from London to Windsor. According to the tephi for the day, cloud bases should be around 6000 MSL. I hope many of you were out flying enjoying these rare conditions.

Joerg Stieber (JS)

Mud Bowl, 40th anniversary bash with fireworks

This weekend we're running our annual club contest the Mudbowl. The weather looks very promising and I hope many will participate.

The tasks will be relatively easy. The idea is to learn and have fun. The first prize is bragging rights for one week!

I would also like to thank the following for helping to run the contest:

Contest Director Dugald
Chief Tow pilot Doug O' Connell
Scoring Luke
Grid Boss Neil Wilson
Weather Bob Carlson
Task committee Joerg and others

Even if you're not planning to enter the contest feel free to sit in during the briefing and hopefully we'll be able to show the race on the computer at the end of the day.

We are also holding a big celebration bash Saturday evening Aug 5th to acknowledge the SOSA 40th anniversary of flying at Rockton. A BBQ with gliding stories and a barrage of fireworks. Please let Mike Sury know if you would like to attend. mtsury@yahoo.ca


Happy soaring,Martin

Aerobatic program attracts a visitor

The now famed and unique Canadian experience, the SOSA aerobatic program, is getting attention far and wide. Last weekend a student from the Quebec gliding club L'Association de vol à voile Champlain paid us a visit. Simon-Pierre, a young 21 year old student arrived by bus (a 10 hour ride) from Montreal on Friday evening and had arranged to take aerobatic instruction from the only Canadian club offering this type of flying. That shows some dedication.

Although the weather was pretty awful Saturday, Pat O’Donnell was very kind and took Simon-Pierre to the flight history museum in Hamilton. By Saturday evening the weather suddenly cleared and at about 7 pm Scott got the DG505 out of the hangar and on the flight line. Andrea jumped in the back seat and Scott in the tow plane and a couple of flights later Simon Pierre had a smile on his face.

Lorna and Terry entertained him later to a quiet dinner and a nice chat and about midnight Simon Pierre camped out at the clubhouse. Sunday was great and Joe gave Simon Pierre another 3 instruction flights before the rain set in again in the afternoon. What a great weekend for this visitor.

Simon –Pierre has been flying for only 4 seasons at his club but had earned a license from cadets over 9 years ago and he has a power license. He is studying to be an aircraft technician at Ecole Nationale Aerotechniique where he in his first year. Scott and Andrea are visiting Montreal to compete in power aerobatics and I’m sure they’ll look up Simon Pierre.

Texas Tales

Some of you may have noticed (tongue in cheek) that our Pres Dave Springford has been away. He has taken his trailer and the LS8 on a trip down to Texas (avec Virginia and Sassy) competing in various contests. Obviously he's having much better weather than at SOSA and he has promised to send it up here when he's finished with it. Dave sent me this economical dispatch but hasn't mentioned results.

The weather in Hobbs was fantastic, we flew 9 out of 9 contest days with one rest day in the middle. I also flew two great practise days. We are now in Uvalde, the contest starts on Tues, so I am resting a couple of days and will fly one practise day.

Gardening - great job

This is a bit late but still worth blogging. Andrea put a team of volunteers together to plan and then put in place a new garden on the south side of the clubhouse. The family von Dyke were a large part of the operation - thanks to Katalin, to Malcolm, Dennis and his brother. Also to Charlotte Dannard (Don Plewe's wife) and to Wendy Tweety (Brad Muir's friend) . Well done Andrea for rounding up the troops and getting this going. Much help was given by Seven (Graham Smith's friend) who does gardening professionally. The garden looks great - and it's had lots to watering lately!!

Comments?

All of the articles on the blog have a comment box at the end and we'd like to get some feedback from you. Let it all out, c'mon.

Several people have asked me about these and anyone can append a comment. I get to moderate the comment because the site is open to all and I can usually get to it in a few hours. You'd be amazed at the obviously non-SOSA idiots who write "?**!! stuff".

Paul

Who and how many visit the SOSA blog

Someone asked me how popular is the SOSA Blog. I installed a meter at the bottom of the blog page for anyone to see. Just scroll down and click on the "site meter" image. There is a wealth of up to the minute useful and not so useful information. Seems that since March we have had about 5,500 visits, averaging 40 per day and roughly 300 per week. People come from all over the map - see below. This month visits from Taiwan and Netherlands (Westenbergs again?).