Soaring News - November 2018

Photo Credit; Brandon Schultz

I am sad to write that our 2018 season is closed as of 11/18/2018, the last fly day was 11/14/2018. The club completed 596 flights but canceled 46 operation days due to varies types of weather. The most days canceled were 19 for Wednesday fliers, 15 Saturday and 11 Sunday. Still a good year even with the high number of days canceled. Good maintenance and members taking good care of the equipment kept us flying on the good weather days.

There is an item that we all need to pay more attention to next year. Connect the battery charger to the battery rather than the instrument panel cable. The charger and battery cables have white tape on their connectors, so remember to turn off the master switch and connect White to White. If the charger cable is connected to the instrument panel cable and the master is on, the polarity is reversed that trips the circuit breaker in the radio and blows the vario fuse. Yep you guessed right, we don’t find the problem until the next pre-flight when time is limited to remove the instrument panel to replace the vario fuse and reset the radio breaker. The good news, Matt Schultz has purchased a supply of fuses, just in case….

2018 Highlights: ● Total flights were 596 so we end the season with money in the bank for future maintenance. ● Hosted the Juniors Contest during July, last contest at Adrian was 1974. Three tow planes launched over 20 gliders in about an hour, Neese and Shipp were the ASC tow pilots. Neese said it was like towing into a hornets nest with 12 gliders seen in one thermal. ● The club didn’t go to Merillat this year but held our annual picnic at runway 11. Food was great, grilled by our Chefs Neal Miller and Jim Thompson. ● Student pilots soled, Nate and Cameron Kemppainen, Bob Kuehne, Mark Geudtner, Dan Walker and Jim Thompson. Dan Walker added a glider rating to his power license and Mark will be ready for a Private rating early next Spring, weather got in the way for Mark this year. ● Nate and Cameron Kemppainen (Father and Son solo same day, same time with Matt and Brandon Schultz (Father and Son) instructing and towing. A history event for them and the club. ● Don Parish, long time member returned to the club, flies mostly on Wednesdays. ● Brandon Schultz completed Commercial and Instrument power ratings and working on CFI with plans to complete this year. Brandon is also our youngest tow pilot doing a great job towing. Dave Huck added an instrument rating to his power certificate. ● New Becker 4201 radios installed in the K7 and K13 and working great. ● The tow pilots ride in style on a new Pawnee leather seat with red stiches, thanks Brandon. ● Hosted a Car Club and got 8 guest rides, would have gotten more but weather moved in. They used our newly installed electrical outlets for RV’s installed by Steve Rusinowski on the North side of the hangar. ● Our new club Web Site Operation Day scheduling is working great plus we got more than 50 requests of information for guest flights through the Web Site. That resulted by more guest flights done by the club this year. Thanks Jean-Marie Deschamps!

Thanks much to our tow pilots Vaughn Bateman, Tom Neese, Tom Shipp and Brandon Schultz for a great job towing and thanks to our instructors Rick Clark, Matt Schultz and Dino DiNatale for their skill in helping our students stay within limits of the Pawnee rear view mirror. Dino is our newest Glider Instructor. We wouldn’t be much of a club without full time members and student members who support the club by flying. See the September Soaring news issue for our most recent Student Pilots.

We have about 500 hours on the factory rebuilt Pawnee engine that was installed in 2014 so it will get a magneto rebuild kit during the annual inspection plus new brakes and a few other repairs to get it ready for the 2019 season. Oil analysis that is done at each oil change is not showing any unusual wear so the Aeroshell 100 Plus oil appears to be working. This new engine also required a tweak in our cool down procedure after glider release due to thicker cylinders compared to the old engine. The thicker cylinders take longer to cool properly.

It has been a great year, thanks to all members who have kept our Operations Manager out of the FAA accident investigation office by making good landings, takeoffs and letting other traffic know where you are located in reference to them.

When turning from base to final keep your aim point on target, nose down and speed up. Outside rudder is OK but inside rudder is a control position for spin training.

Enjoy the Winter, attend every Webinar you can, see you next year. I will be contacting some of you to help with Glider-Pawnee Annual Inspections, probably February 2019.

Tom Shipp