The Newsletter of the Albuquerque Soaring Club                                                                   June 2004

Club Notes

Weather — wind actually — won the Memorial Weekend non-soaring contest. The barbeque, thanks to Angel Pala and Mitch Hudson (using his birthday present grill), turned into a well-attended lunch event after flying was blown out.

The club's popular excursion to Durango has been put back to mid-September or even to mid-October, when the leaves will start to develop their fall color.  Fred Watson is the liason with the Val-Air operation.  If you are interested in going please let him know.

Congratulations:  To Angel Pala for his 300k diamond goal.  To David Harmony for his Gold distance and completing his gold badge

Busy flying coming. Parowan region 9 contest, followed over July 4^th weekend by Hobbs Region 9 south contest.  It is also the season for long flights out of Moriarty.  With 21 Albuquerque pilots now filing in the On-Line Contest we are still running clear first among US clubs.  Latest details and standings on the club web page.  Fly often, file every flight.

President Kathy Taylor notes that during the otherwise splendid Taos weekend (see later note) the Grob canopies were damaged by being slammed open by the wind. 

She says: Please make it your habit that if you close a canopy, you immediately lock it.  Never close a canopy thinking that nothing will happen in the few minutes that it takes you do another task.  A closed canopy should be a locked canopy.

The next general meeting for the club will be on Wednesday June 30^th at the Skybox  restaurant at 7 pm.  Main item of business will be to vote on the proposed by-law change, detailed below.

Proposed by-law change

The club's by-laws require that notice of proposed by-law changes be published twice.  It is anticipated that this proposed change will be voted on at the June 30^th  general meeting.

The board would like to change Article IV of the By-Laws to give the Treasurer and the Board a higher spending limit.  To reflect inflation, the $500 for the Treasurer would be raised to $1000 and the Board limit from $6,000 to $8,000.

4.4          The Treasurer may authorize purchases in the name of the club for amounts not to exceed $1000. The Board may authorize club expenditures not to exceed $8,000. Approval of two thirds of the voting members present at a club meeting is required for expenditures in excess of $8,000.

4.5          All checks in excess of $1000 will be signed by two authorized club officers, one of which shall be the Treasurer.

 

New Challenge Trophy

Mitch Hudson, has donated a "Challenge Trophy", to be contested by the Alamogordo-based White Sands Soaring Association and the Albuquerque Soaring Club. As of this writing, the trophy is mounted on the wall in the Moriarty clubhouse, but at any time it may be seized by any member of the WSSA who flies a glider to Moriarty from Alamogordo.

 The trophy is small enough to tuck into a glider and be carried off to Alamogordo, at which time it will be displayed in the WSSA clubhouse until someone from ASC flies there to take it back.

The rules are that if the marauding WSSA pilot arrives early enough in the day, ASC will provide a free tow to the captor of the prize. Should the captor elect to trailer back to Alamogordo, refreshments (beer, probably) will be provided. WSSA will extend the same courtesies to ASC pilots who fly down to Alamogordo to recapture the prize. 

The trophy has lots of space to permit it to be engraved with names of pilots who complete the task.

 

ASC joins the information age

                             Mitch Hudson and Brian Resor

There is rapid growth in the use of the club webpage (www.abqsoaring.org) and we’ve got the new computer in the clubhouse.  The club webpage has some useful new information lately.  From links in the left sidebar, you can access the ASC cross-country contest scoreboard (link named “Standings” - updated weekly) and a new page that describes the land out options in the local area (link named “Moriarty Turnpoints”).  Thanks to Mike Stogner for taking a Sunday afternoon in March to fly Mitch and Brian around the Estancia valley in the Clipper taking photos and grabbing GPS coordinates of dirt strips.

We announced last month that the Board approved the purchase of a “basic” computer system and SeeYou software.  The system was purchased from Dell for a total of about $1000 (including SeeYou and shipping) and is now installed in the clubhouse in a locked cabinet in the corner (use the same combination as the front door).

Alongside the system you’ll find both a Volkslogger and Cambridge cable (if you’ve got other systems, you’ll have to provide your own cable).  You also can easily use your Garmin cable to download your flight to the computer into SeeYou.  You will only get gps track information, no altitude, from the Garmin unless you have a barograph capability.

The SeeYou software produces a wonderful representation of a flight, turn by turn, cruise by cruise, animated over beautiful 3D satellite images of the area.

The computer is also being used to score a weekly competition of ASC pilots under Sports Class contest rules (pilots meeting held each Saturday morning in the clubhouse at 10:30).  If you are interested in participating in a club ship, it is recommended that you get your silver badge, or at the very least have done cross-countries of silver distance or greater.  On your first contest day, an experienced mentor will be assigned to advise you on strategy.

To help new cross-country pilots, Mitch Hudson has loaned a data logger for use in club ships.  If there is enough interest, the club will review acquiring data loggers for ASC club ships.  Similarly, for now there is no phone line connection to the internet in the club room. If the computer gets as much use as we expect, then we will pursue that capability later.

Mitch and Brian are ready and happy to help the computer challenged.  All you have to do is ask

 

HEADLINE: Glider slams into inbound airliner!                                                                                                  Billy Hill

Of course no such thing has yet happened, but the possibility exists none-the-less.  What are the odds you ask?  Beats me.  I guess, because it hasn’t happened as yet, the odds could be small.  On the other hand, because such an event has not yet happened, perhaps the odds are increasing a bit more each time we fly. I would guess close to fifty percent of the arrival traffic into the SunPort are fast-movers from the east.  This means about the same percentage would apply to east-bound departures as well.

What ATC sees   Air traffic controllers at the SunPort are using the most current iteration of ATC radar, the ASR-9.  In conjunction with that, there is a software program that allows them to assign a computer generated block of data to the secondary electronic target generated by transponder equipped aircraft. As we know, by virtue of the current regulations, [(CFR 91.215, (b), (3)], we are exempt from equipping our gliders with transponders.  Above a certain altitude and within and around certain airspace, all other general aviation aircraft are required to be transponder and encoder equipped.  If an aircraft is in communication with ATC, it will be assigned a transponder or beacon code that will be specific to that aircraft and will allow controllers to track it as well as hand it off to adjacent air traffic control facilities.  When an aircraft has been electronically tagged, the radar’s computer will predict the aircraft’s direction of flight based on its previous track history.  If the aircraft makes an abrupt maneuver, the computer will lose the track for perhaps a sweep or two of the radar.  During this time the computer is searching for the aircraft’s discrete transponder code and will “re-tag” the aircraft when it re-acquires the aircraft’s location.

There are a number of features that modify the information processed by the ASR-9 radar.  One of these features deletes from the controller’s scope non-moving things like mountains as well as slow moving things such as birds and highway traffic.  When you park in the mountain wave; you, for all intents and purposes, become non-moving.  At this point you might as well be flying an F-117 as you are every bit as stealthy!  Because you are facing West, you will never see the airliner that smacks into you while going 450 mph! Ask Bob Leonard about his very, very close call with a C-17 while wave flying! 

If an aircraft or glider is not transponder equipped then the computer and by inference the controller can do only a very limited job of keeping tabs of that aircraft/glider. If you are circling, the radar return painted by your glider will appear and fade from the controller’s scope.  If he or she is busy, it’s very unlikely you will be even seen much less issued as traffic to some inbound fast mover.

What airline and some corporate pilots see   We all know that when we fly by visual reference to the ground, we are operating in a “see and be seen” environment.  In a perfect world, the “see and be seen” concept would prevent mid-airs.  In a perfect world. 

We would all like to think that the non-flying pilot in that great silver bellied wind-sucker that’s blasting along at the speed of heat is spending all his time looking out the window for VFR traffic. After spending six and one half years as an airline pilot I’m here to tell ya that’s not how it works. Pilot workload during the arrival phase is such that not enough attention is paid to what goes on outside the flight deck and that is why we still have near misses and actual mid-air collisions.  Since the advent of TCAS, (Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System), pilots rely on this device to inform them of possible traffic conflicts. Of course this only happens if the traffic which is on a collision course with the airliner is —let’s hear it class: transponder and encoder equipped!  If you have equipped your glider with the above mentioned equipment as I have, then the airliner will be aware of your bearing, range and relative altitude.  Based on that information, the computer portion of his TCAS equipment will give him a conflict resolution solution that usually involves a turn.  You only have to fly a TCAS equipped aircraft once to realize how important such equipment is in helping you avoid other flyers.  The only caveat is the other aircraft must also be : transponder and encoder equipped!

The SSA has been instrumental in keeping the FAA from forcing us to put this equipment in our gliders.  However, now is the time to meet the Feds half way on this issue. The rules should be changed to allow us to equip our gliders with transponders but not to require us to have the transponder turned on at all times as is currently required.

We are getting into that time of year when we are consistently climbing to altitudes which conflict with both east and westbound fast movers. You can make the argument that gliders have the right-of-way over powered aircraft, but at the closure speeds involved with a fast mover, it’s an argument you are going to lose.  You must be prepared to take the evasive action.  You must be extremely vigilant when you are above eleven thousand feet in the Moriarty area.  Equipping our gliders with transponders and encoders will go a long way towards keeping the odds in our favor.  The alternative could possibly be the headline I used as the title of this article.  Rest assured, if it ever happens, the news media will tell the world it was the glider that ran into the airliner!

Jim Crisp Memorial Soaring Fiesta at Taos

Eleven private ships and the club's Grob had a wonderful flying weekend at Taos for the Jim Crisp Memorial fly-in June 3-6.  There were many flights way up into Colorado and some highlights were Bill Hill and Jim Cumiford’s out and return to Salida and Mitch Hudson's out and return to Durango.  Kim Buehre put in more than a dozen flights in the club Grob and Jim Miller did more than 30 tows with 62Y. Thanks to organizers, Angel Pala and Terry Blankenship (of the Caprock Soaring Club, Lubbock), and to Angel's wife Carol for a super barbeque at their home.

 

Out but no return                              Brian Resor

On the morning of Sunday May 16, I looked at the windsock upon arriving at the airport and said to myself that today could be a day for a downwind dash.  Mitch heard me say it and he wouldn’t let me forget it.  For the first time I used 1-800-WXBRIEF as it was meant to be used: "I’m going to fly a glider from Moriarty to Liberal, Kansas. Can I get weather information and winds aloft along the route?”

The sky was not developing around Moriarty as I wished it would and so I delayed my takeoff until 1pm.  While on tow and as I climbed out I thought, “this really feels like rotor…and there’s a lot of wind blowing straight from the Manzanos.”  I kept looking around thinking that this is NOT the way I pictured beginning my first downwind dash over unfriendly terrain.  I wanted nice cloud streets and evenly spaced thermals guiding me toward Texas.  Instead, I was fighting the effects of a wave off the Manzanos and staring at thick cirrus moving in from the west with nothing but blue between Moriarty and Santa Rosa.

I was almost ready to chicken out, land, go home and take a nice Sunday nap when ten miles west of Clines I found a boomer to 16,200 ft.  The computer says I am 500 feet above glide slope into Santa Rosa, winds were 250 at 28kts, I have 70 miles to find more lift along the way, and Mitch was already driving down the road ahead of me.  No more excuses, time to leave home and not look back! Along the way to Santa Rosa I found plenty of thermals to keep me high.  In the distance I was eyeballing a narrow line of clouds that appeared to be running from Santa Rosa towards Corona.  It was a nice strong convergence line.  The west half of the line had nice high, flat, dark bases but bases on the east side were MUCH lower and really ragged.   Eventually I arrived in the vicinity of the clouds and connected.  The bases on east side of the convergence were down around what looked like 5000 feet below me and so I had to fly around them to continue east (I really wished I had my camera!).   I was 12,000 feet above the ground near Santa Rosa.

I didn’t even get my first look at the road to Tucumcari until I came out from around the clouds.  Mitch was absolutely right, nothing but large uninhabited mesas and a carpet of bright green small trees, (deadly to gliders) and a clear blue sky with no signs of lift.  According to my calculations I was 2800 feet above glide slope to get to Tucumcari.  I dove onward into the blue. It was the longest glide I’ve ever done.  After a while I saw a small cloud pop off of a mesa south of I-40 so I veered over to it.  It did me no good.  After 45 miles of gliding I was low enough to come in right above the cloud wisp at 11,700ft.   In this new airmass thermal heights were much lower and I was still above them.

Closer to Tucumcari, I headed for some wispy cu’s in the general direction of the airport.  I found my first thermal after a 74 mile glide! These thermals were not strong and the sky ahead also looked weak so I dumped my water and started to climb at a comforting 3-4 knots.  After a small climb to 10,400 feet I headed toward Logan where I could see a few wisps forming near the lake.

I quickly learned that if I could see a cloud forming, then I was too far away to get there and use the thermal, no matter how close it was.  I struggled around Logan trying to get high for the next leg of the adventure towards Dalhart.

After closely examining the terrain ahead and learning that I was unable to climb successfully in any of the choppy thermals I was finding, I turned back toward Ute Dam airport at Logan.  I had seen the trailer on the road near Logan on Hwy 54 so I knew Mitch would easily hook up with me and we would be home by dark with an undamaged glider if I chose the public airport (which was conveniently pointed right into the 30kt wind).  After landing and a quick phone call to Mitch, my trailer arrived in less than 15 minutes.

Moriarty to Ute Dam via Santa Rosa and Tucumcari is only 154 miles and I was on course for only about 2 hours, but it was one of the major eye-opening flights I’ve done.  Sure, it’s nice to cruise for 500km around the local area on a good day at Moriarty, but flying straight out with no intent to return is a different game.  The wind is pushing you and the terrain rolls by quickly underneath.  The scenery between Moriarty and Kansas is really diverse.  Combine that with the challenge of dealing with a variety of soaring conditions all in one flight and you have the makings of a real adventure!

 

2004 ASC Cross Country Contest Standings as of June 9
Scores are equivalent to handicapped kilometers flown in 5 flights