Soaring News - June 2019

Photo Credit; Susumu Morita

Weather for soaring operations this month improved with 99 flights of mostly student training. We canceled 6 Operation days due to weather, an improvement over prior months. Total flights this soaring season is 194 which is less than prior years at this time, operation days usually increase after June.

The club had a few good soaring days this month, Saturday 6-22 was probably the best with all club gliders on the launch line plus 2 private gliders (Steve Rusinowski and Brian Navarette). The flight line looked like a contest day with 16 flights completed. Brian is enjoying the old club Cirrus that he purchased from Steve after the club traded the Cirrus for his ASW15. The ASW15 is becoming a fun glider to fly for some members, Dan Walker completed a checkout and went cross country on his second flight. Members that have at least a Private Glider Rating and mastered the ASK21 can get a checkout in the fun flying ASW15 with a glide ratio of 38:1.

Equipment maintenance has been low, members are paying more attention to connecting battery chargers correctly (white tape to white tape), a charge connector on one of the ICOM hand held radios was fixed and the K7 dolly rolls better after adding some washers under the wheel mounts. Thanks to members for taking good care of the gliders and equipment.

Both the club member distribution and operations invite list have been updated to agree with the June 2019 member roster. Most associate members chose not to get the operations invite emails but are on distribution for other club information such as Board meetings.

The member calendar information is updated at the beginning of each week to show who is towing or instructing and forecasted weather, you need to be signed in to access the member calendar. An invite is sent to get response on who is planning to fly on a given day and sent again to either confirm or cancel operations. Contact Tom Shipp if you want to be added or deleted from either list.

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.

Tom Shipp