Promising Weekend?

Congratulate John Earlywine and Lachlan Ohman of the Kendallville club on the new Indiana open multiplace 100km triangle speed record at 50.46 mph, flown on July 8. They broke Don Reid's record set 20 years earlier! They also established an open multiplace free triangle distance record at 65.2 statute miles.

Likewise, congratulate Gerry Whitson on setting Indiana open singleplace and sports class records on 29 May in the Distance Using Up To Three Turnpoints category, at 116.66 statute miles. Gerry also set records in the 15M and standard classes, but I need to pin him down on which ones he wants to claim - his flight would qualify in several categories and under the 2004 revisions to the Sporting Code, a pilot can only claim one distance record in each class.

The first weekend of October looks good. Come on out and fly!

I still hear your sea winds blowin'

HURRICANE RITA TROPICAL CYCLONE UPDATE
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL
255 PM CDT WED SEP 21 2005

DATA FROM RECONNAISSANCE AIRCRAFT INDICATE THAT RITA HAS REACHED CATEGORY FIVE INTENSITY WITH ESTIMATED MAXIMUM SUSTAINED SURFACE WINDS OF 165 MPH. THIS WILL BE REFLECTED IN THE 4 PM CDT ADVISORY.

FORECASTER AVILA

I Know What You Did At The Last Resort - update

George Saunders sends this:

THANK YOU!
Thanks to everyone who made the Last Resort weekend a great success. To the tow pilots who worked overtime to get the gliders back and forth – Gerry W., Rich S. and Eric D. Eric deserves special praise for being the only tow pilot on Sunday. He really worked hard.
Thanks to the glider pilots who took some very LONG tows – Ron C., Dan D., Nyal W., John M., Dale I., Ken H., Todd R. and Cheryl B.
Thanks to Dale who flew the tow plane back on Sunday. I was VERY happy not to have the tow plane left on the ground for Monday’s storms.
Thanks Ron, Dan, Mario, Pete, and Mike N., who hung around on Friday waiting for the ceiling to lift above 1000 feet so we could ferry the sailplanes over early. It never happened.
Thanks to the crews on Saturday and Sunday who put out a special effort – Dick H. did a great job tearing down and moving things back to Alex!
Thanks to Nyal who helped arrange the weekend. He made sure we did it right. As a novice at this I really appreciated it.
Finally, a special thanks goes to Pete D. who really made this happen. He set up the operations and spent all day Friday, Saturday and Sunday working. He was the crew chief on Saturday and the crew chef on Sunday. Thanks for the great breakfast, Pete.
We have a great club! I had a lot of fun working with you all.
George S.

ZA says:

A sincere THANK YOU to the organizers of the CISS "Away weekend" .
George and Pete you guys deserve special mention as we know you bore the brunt of most of the organizing and arrangements to ferry equipment back and forth etc. As well the Crews, operating at an unfamiliar airstrip and the Tow pilots all did an outstanding job.
The field was a very good venue, especially the camping facilities.
Ron (ZA)

By the way, ZA has notified me of a state record claim from Sunday.
Vice President Tom Ruble and Chief Instructor Nyal Williams also expressed their gratitude to the Wilson family. Original post here.

Seymour Fly-In

Larry Pennington reports:

There is a 'Fly In, Aviation event' at Freeman Field, Seymour, IN the weekend of Oct 8/9. George Robins is connected with this event and has asked if we would do a static display of a sailplane. If you could get this to the private owners or anyone else that may want to do this, they can call George Robins at [area code eight one two, phone number five two two dash three five six five]. If anyone wants to do this please send me an email. Thanks.
Larry

(Larry's email address is: lpenni [at] netzero [dot] com)

Away Weekend September 17-18

There will be NO SOARING operations at Alexandria Airport Sept 17-18. Our operations will move for that weekend to Last Resort Airport (7IN9).
Address: 7406 North 100 West, Springport IN.
GPS: Lat 40-02-15.0N Long 085-24-38.0 W.
Questions? Contact George Saunders by phone (his number is on the crew schedule) or by email: gsaunders[at]comcast[dot]net

More Silver and Records

Larry Pennington got his silver altitude on Saturday, September 3!
Ron Clarke also notified me that he flew a triangle distance record over the weekend. Details to follow.

It Rained Here

We got a couple of inches of rain in Indianapolis on Tuesday from the low pressure system formerly known as Hurricane Katrina. Meanwhile the Gulf Coast, especially New Orleans and Mississippi, is having the humanitarian crisis of a lifetime. Donate money.

Thinking about doing your silver distance ?

Ron Clarke starts the discussion:

If so here's a thought or two:

Some of you may remember the talk Frank Reid gave to our members about cross country flying a couple of years ago . In the talk he suggested that if there were airfields each 3 miles everyone would fly cross country without the slightest concern all the time!
But of course airfields are often not just three miles apart. If however they are 6-10 miles apart that makes the task of flying a 50 km course very doable on a day when thermal tops are 4-5000 agl.

This is the time of the year [in Indiana - ed.] when those conditions abound !

One of the choice courses from our launch site is Alex to Terry airport ( about 56 km ), especially if there is a NE wind component . This course is also one where there are a number of good airfields en route ( about each 6-10 miles ).
Stimulated by the video tape Pete presented at the club meeting this month I have a couple of suggestions :

1) Take out a chart and draw the course line from Alex to Terry.

2) On a non-flying day,or on your trip home if you live in Indy or Carmel go visit EACH of the airfields on or close to that route . ( I had a debate recently with a member who differed with me on the direction of the runway of one of those airfields - he said EW, I said NS )
Seeing is believing , and once you have visited each airfield your confidence level about overflying it with the knowledge of where it is and how landable it is ( or isn't) will increase markedly. Think also about whether you could tow out of that field if you needed to. FYI there are about 8-9 airfields on that route I would go look at - at least one good one not on the charts (Stottlemeyer - just west of Frankton)

3) Make sure you are familiar with the Barograph and its operation.

4) Calculate the max tow altitude you can take, using the 1 % rule. [see below - ed.]

Now on the next day when the lift goes to 5000msl you are almost guaranteed a succesful Silver Badge flight .

Happpy landings ,

ZA.

Nyal responds:

To this I would add another thought:
After you have done this exercise, pick out another course generally northeast and with the same characteristics and do the same exercise with it. This will increase your chances of making a downwind dash on any day the thermals top 5000ft.

I haven't looked at the chart to see if there is a really good course line with lots of airports for a silver flight in that direction. There might not be one as good as going to Terry, and it is off-course for your drive to and from Knotts Field.

Nyal

Mario, our newest silver badgee, responds:

I'd like to add something for those, like me, planning to do XC, even if only for the Silver Badge.

If you are flying the PW5, you should know how to assemble and disassemble the plane, and how to put it in the trailer and properly secure it for transportation.
Use every opportunity to learn how to do it and get good at it. In a weak day (of which we have many) propose to your instructor to disassemble the plane. Then re-assemble it again. It doesn't take a single tool to do it, and the wings are not very heavy.

Be there when the plane is being assembled and disassembled.
Read the manual.
Have you ever carefully looked at the trailer? Do it.
Do you know what this dolly and that ramp are for? Ask.
Can you identify, of all the junk sitting in the trailer, what pieces are not part of the PW5 trailer gear? Find out.
Bad news: nothing about the trailer is in the PW5 flight manual.

I think a big reason so few pilots fly cross country is not the problem of landing out, but having to disassemble, transport, and re-assemble the plane.
One thing I learned crewing at the National Championships in Utah is that, with practice, you can assemble and disassemble the plane in 15 minutes, tape and all.
Ground retrieval of a plane does not have to be a big production.

Mario

Let me add this:
On flights less than 100km, the formula for the 1% rule is:
Maximum release altitude in MSL = Altitude of landing point in MSL + (distance flown / 100)

So if you are planning to fly 55 km, your tow release must be no more than 550 meters (1804 feet) higher than your planned landing point. A 2000 foot tow is too high, and remember - when you pull the tow release and make a climbing turn to the right to clear the tow plane, you are going to gain some altitude which will show up on the barograph trace! I recommend you release a couple of hundred feet lower than what the 1% rule would permit - even earlier if you hit a decent thermal on tow. On a good day (good enough to be trying for silver distance anyway) you should be able to get away from a tow release well below 500 meters. But don't wait for the perfect day! Everybody else will want the glider.

No Flying Saturday 8/27

Crew Chief Jeff Melin just called. They are shutting down operations at Alexandria for the day and the crew is going home, because the weather is not promising and no one showed up to fly anyway. See you all tomorrow!

Mario is SILVER

ZA reports on 8/22:

Today was Mario's day - he flew the coop and landed at Terry. Conditions were good but not great and he obviously was well prepared (no wet jeans at the end of the flight).
This completes his silver badge - now for a 330 ! - CONGRATULATIONS MARIO.
The Monday Crew