New CISS Member

John Lerchen Jr. has joined CISS and is making rapid progress toward becoming a glider pilot with several flights in his logbook now.

 

His significant other Dolly Funk has taken a FAST flight with Olaf Tessarzyk but is sticking to riding her bicycle for the time being. She earned high marks from several pilots for the excellent muffins she brought to the airport. Welcome John and Dolly.

CISS On Site - Uvalde World Gliding Championships

ZA and DT have landed at Uvalde and will be on site to provide some first hand commentary exclusively for CISS members. Ron's first report and photo  .... "you can see the flags of all the competing countries . The contest gets under way tomorrow - skies today looked outstanding " .
Ron and Don.

Welcome New CISS Member

Brian DeWitt has joined CISS and plans to earn his glider rating. He is new to soaring and made his initial flights with duty instructor Larry Pennington towed by Lynn Joyce.

Brian has a Family Membership and Wesley and Mitchell should be getting involved along with him in the near future. Brian's father is Dan DeWitt.

Becker AR4201 For Sale

FOR SALE: $850 Becker AR4201 760 channel panel mount transceiver. It fits in a 2.25 inch cut out. 5 watts out, very low current drain (70 ma on standby), one of the most popular glider radios around the world. It's about 12 years old, although it has not been used for 7 years. Still in production and sells new for $1300 or more. I will include the wiring harness and stick mounted push to talk switch.

See the radio here http://www.gulfcoastavionics.com/products/420-ar-4201.aspx for a photo and description of the radio. If no club members purchase this, it will be put up for sale on the rec.aviation.soaring bulletin board next week.

Of course if you have any problems with it I will accept it back.

Don Taylor don_taylor@earthlink.net 317-848-9828

Congratulations John Day

On July 20th John Day became CISS's newest glider pilot.

 

John is shown above with DPE Dan Tannas. From the size of the smiles, it appears everyone was pleased with John's performance. Congratulations John!

New CISS Members

Two new members from Terra Haute recently joined CISS.

Jerry Hargis will be earning his initial Private Pilot Glider rating.

Josh Zuerner will be adding  a glider rating to his Private Pilot Certificate

Welcome aboard gentlemen and we will look forward to seeing you at the airport.

New CISS Solos and Pilots

 Congratulations to the following CISS members for their recent accomplishments.

 

On July 7, 2012, Lou "Duke" Koelsch earned his Commercial Glider Add-on Rating . He is pictured with DPE Dan Tannas, and his tow pilot Kris Maynard. 

 

 

On July 30, 2012, Tim Woenker soloed. Tim is shown in the picture being congratulated by Larry Miller, Mark Rottler, the Crew Chief that day, apparently was worried about the pilot being overheated. With temperatures in the high 90's several other members asked Mark if they could "re-solo" and take advantage of a cool bucket of water. (photo courtesy of Olaf Tessarzyk)

 

 

On June 24th, Richard Smith soloed. He is shown here with his tow pilot, Tom Eaton, and his wing runner, Tom Beckenbauer. Crew Chief, Tod Herrli is sneaking behind the tail with a large bucket of cool water in case Rich became overheated. 

CISS at Noblesville EAA Young Eagles / Learn to Fly Day

Tom Beckenbauer and Mike Nichols took Mike's Libelle and the CISS Airshow Booth to the Noblesville Fly-in on May 19th. Rick Hansen joined them to promote soaring with this target audience. Thanks guys for your efforts on this.

1202 Transponder Code for Gliders

FAA Safety Team | Safer Skies Through Education

New VFR Transponder Code for Gliders Notice Number: NOTC3762 New VFR Transponder Code for Gliders In a notice issued on March 7, 2012, the FAA will now offer transponder code 1202 for glider pilots to use when not in contact with ATC. The new code will help ATC differentiate gliders, which have unique flight and maneuvering limitations, from other VFR traffic. An accident, many incidents, and a National Transportation Safety Board recommendation highlight the need for a national beacon code for gliders that are operating VFR and not in contact with ATC. ATC personnel will be informed of the code, what it represents, and under what limitations the users are typically operating (e.g., unable to hold a requested altitude). Several codes considered in the past have conflicted with other operations. May all your experiences be uplifting! Bryan Neville, AFS-850 FAA Safety Team

Action at the Airport

May 11 and 12 were great days to be at the airport.

There were many flights, 39 flights on Friday and Saturday,  A new commercial glider pilot, a new private glider pilot and a new CISS member.

Welcome Mark Guay to CISS. Mark joined on May 12 and promptly took George Saunders on an XC Flight in the Blanik going at least to Stottlemeyer and back and getting up in the neighborhood.

 

Congratulations to David Waymire on his new Private Pilot Glider Rating and to Mike Nichols on his Commercial Glider Rating. Both gentlemen are shown below with smiling DPE Dan Tannas after their successful discussions and flights. 

 Ron Clarke did his usual Fine job of organizing Friday flying for XC pilots and there were many successful flights for Todd Rutledge's CISS Club Contest and also the OLC contest. Thanks to Lynn Joyce for towing on Friday and then again for his assigned duty day on Saturday along with several other tow pilots who also helped. 

CISS is behind Ionia and Caesar Creek in the OLC contest and needs everyone's help to raise our score. Please turn in your flights. 

If you have not been out joining the fun and doing some flying you need to put it on your to do list. Everyone is having a lot of fun.

CISS Founding Member Jim Ross DDS

2012 SSA Convention in Reno

The Soaring Cafe website has some excellent coverage of the convention activities including photos, videos, and a panoramic view that lets you "wander" around the convention floor.

Take a look at:

http://soaringcafe.com/2012/02/ssa-2012-convention-coverage/

Let's Go Gliding !

 The SSA has developed a new campaign to promote Soaring which was kicked off at the recent Convention. The following is reprinted from www.SoaringCafe.com. Links for additional information are at the bottom of the article.

See what you think of this. CISS has an opportunity to benefit. Everyone's ideas on how we can leverage this effort to benefit the club are welcome.

SSA’s “Let’s Go Gliding!” Campaign

 

February 9, 2012

By Rand Baldwin..

At the SSA General Membership meeting in Reno on February 3rd, SSA Chairman Al Tyler announced a new strategy and marketing campaign for promoting the sport and recruiting new glider pilots and SSA members. The campaign was developed by Bill Daniels and his Growth and Development Committee and described in detail by Bill in a presentation at the convention in Reno.
We have published Bill’s presentation in the SSA Convention News section of the Café, but I think the campaign is potentially so significant to the future of soaring in the SSA that I want to highlight it in this more prominent space on our site.
I have been an SSA member since 1972, so I’ve seen many campaigns, programs, and plans to grow soaring and the SSA, but none has had the financial backing and full support of the SSA Board as this one, and none has been so ambitious and forward thinking as this one.

Bill and his committee have developed some great ideas and tools for promoting the sport and the SSA Board has allocated enough funds for them to carry out their part of the mission.
Now it is up to us—the members—to do our part.
I encourage every soaring enthusiast in the U.S. to review Bill’s presentation, put a “Let’s Go Gliding!” bumper sticker on your car or trailer, and, even better, purchase the trailer-size graphic for your glider trailer. Denise Layton has informed us that she will have information about how to get the trailer graphics up on the SSA Web site in a few days.
We welcome thoughtful and constructive comments on the campaign, and we will forward those responses to the SSA, but before you respond to this post, please read through Bill’s presentation. We also encourage you to contact your SSA regional director with suggestions about how to make this campaign even better.

SSA President Al Tyler's comments are here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7o8UirEHhIU

The slides for the presentation on this exciting program are here:

http://www.slideshare.net/fullscreen/GliderPilotOrg/ssa-2012ssa-strategy-and-tactics-for-growth-v2/1