SOSA pilots score well in international contests

Congratulations to SOSA contest pilots Jerzy Szemplinski and Dave Springford - Jerzy in the Polish Nationals, Dave in the USA's Standard Class Nationals at Coredle, Georgia. Details via the SAC Roundtable, here:

http://soaringcanada.riq.ca/viewtopic.php?t=2558

For details on the Cordele contest, in which SOSA pilots Andy Gough and Steve Newfield also participated, link here:

http://ssa.org/members/contestreports/ContestResultsDetail.asp?id=289

Spencer Hunt - SOSA's newest 'five hour' pilot.

It's the first FAI badge flight by a SOSA pilot in 2008. May 24, Spencer took off solo in the Blanik C-FCXC, relased from the towplane above the SOSA airfield and then began counting at zero time. He stayed aloft in some pretty good lift (and the accompanying sink!) for a further five hours, fifteen minutes. In soaring, the five hour flight is considered a milestone for a pilot. As one of the younger pilots at SOSA, Spencer has been working toward goals such as this. He says, "I'd like to thank everyone who kept talking to me on the radio. It was nice to have people like Jay (Allardyce) check in every hour. Also L-13 Blaniks have the most uncomfortable seats ever and my butt and back hurt for 3 days afterward. C-FCXC was the first glider I soloed on. Even though SOSA wants to sell it, CXC is still my favourite Blanik."

The Five hour flight is part of a trio of tasks that need to be accomplished for the Silver badge, which is awarded by the FAI (Federation Aeronautique Internationale). The other two are a 1,000 metre height gain and a 5okm cross country flight.

Congratulations from everyone at SOSA, Spencer!

May: cold, windy. SOSA keeps flying.

Blanik up, up and away on a challenging, windy May day. Student Mike, instructor Antony Kawzowicz and wing runner Joerg Stieber.

How are SOSA contest pilots doing in US contests?

Go here:
http://ssa.org/members/contestreports/contestresults.asp

The flying Season has started!

GDK has a new engine, after 2400 hours of towing the engine was due for overhaul. At the end of February the engine was removed by Kovachiks and the rebuild started. Today, Lee finished installing the engine on GDK and we put the first 2 hours of break-in time on the engine.


It was a busy day at the club today as Pat and Jerzy first held golf cart races and then cleaned up IQY for its first flights of the year.


The canopy needed a good cleaning after a winter's worth of dust.

The cockpit also needed a little tidying up to get rid of last year's grass.

Our new towpilot Matt was able to put about and hour and a half on the Citabria today in preparation for his tow check-out.

We also had our first visitor of the year, Bob Lepp, who after hearing via the grapevine that we were flying today trailered his SZD-55 to SOSA from Aurora and was rewarded with a 31/2 hour flight. At one point he reported a 9 kt thermal and was able to climb up to 6000 ft in blue conditions.

Ian Oldaker was one of the first to fly at SOSA this year, making Pat, Ian, John, Jerzy and Dave current and able to start spring check rides for everyone else.

Luke was able to stop by at the end of the day and was also rewarded with a nice soaring flight.

Here's to the start of a good season!

SOSA PHOTO HISTORY PROJECT - send your photos.

SOSA will be celebrating 60 Years of soaring this year and we need your help. Please send Herrie ten Cate your best SOSA photos from as far back as possible. High resolution photo scans will work best for the older photos. If you can't scan them yourself, see if you can find someone that can. Please include:

- Date photo taken.
- Information about the aircraft/people in the photo.

These photos will be organized by year and then posted for all to enjoy. Remember, there are only so many 2-33 photos that are considered "interesting". Please just send your best photos.

Herrie ten Cate
e-mail htencate (at) rogers.com (remove 'at' and replace with '@')

Seagulls on Soggy Airfield (SOSA)

Lake SOSA Saturday 5 April at 1 pm

With the warm temps the last few days, all of the snow has melted leaving Lake SOSA at its peak. Thanks to Andrew Corrigan who dug out a blockage in the drainage system on Saturday, the runway is drying quickly.

Lake SOSA Sunday 6 April 11 am

Pat O'Donnell took these two pictures less then 24 hours apart and they show how well the runway drainage is working.

At this rate if the rain holds off this week, we can start flying next weekend!

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

Pilots

Hmm?

Happy 25th Anniversary!

To Anthony and Jola:

From everyone at SOSA - the very best on your 25th Wedding Anniversary!

Annual General Meeting

It is that time of year again when we need to start thinking about the SOSA AGM and Awards Banquet.

The meeting and banquet will be held on Sat 23 Feb 08 with registration at 1 pm and the meeting starting at 2 pm.

After the success of the Warplane Heritage Museum last year we have decided to return to the same venue this year.

Year end account statments will be emailed to everyone shortly with more details about the meeting and banquet. Please read the notes with the statement so you don't miss out on any important details.

Annual Reports will also be in the mail to everyone by the end of January.

See you all there!

New Years Day - The After Party

After the majority of people left on New Years, both Bunny and Nimbus continued to celebrate late into the night.

LS4 Improvements

As discussed during the Summer General Meeting, the LS4 is starting to show its age and needs some work.




During the fall, plans were laid to improve the SOSA workshop to create a comfortable work environment during the winter. A ceiling was installed and two ceiling mounted propane heaters pumping out 90,000 BTU's were installed.




During the Christmas break a few team leaders started some exploratory work on the LS4 to hone their skills and determine the amount of work required.

The team leaders are now up-to-speed and we are ready to put teams in place to continue the work effort. Four teams will be required, one each for Saturdays and Sundays (AM and PM) during the months of January through April.

Anyone who is interested in helping with the project - please contact Alan Grant and let him know your availability.