January 2005

From the President Bob Hudson

Welcome to 2005! I am honored that you felt that I am qualified to lead our club into the new year…it was either that or the fact that I wasn’t at the meeting in which the vote took place. I have been “afforded” more “opportunities” by not being present when the train went through. Be that as it may, I am excited about the direction our club is headed. Kathy did a great job posturing us for the future. She stepped in at a tough time and kept us moving ahead. I plan on taking the groundwork begun by Kathy and moving it forward.

Joining me in this endeavor is a great Board. I feel confident that the folks that are part of our Board are the right people to help the Club to succeed. Our appointed officers have all signed back up to fulfill the tasks that they performed so brilliantly last year, plus Ryan Thomas has taken on my old role of Maintenance Officer. Jimmy Miller is stepping down in March as the Chief Instructor, and John Daffer has jumped into the fire in this slot beginning in March.

Our new Board has not met yet; we plan to meet the Tuesday after the Annual Banquet, but we are already looking at agenda ideas. One thing I would like for us to do this year is capture our ideas and put them into a Strategic Plan that we can use as a template for the future. There has been lots of talk about changing equipment, but until we clearly come up with a plan, it is just talk. The same thing can be said about basic and advanced training. There are lots of great ideas out there: we just need to formulate a plan, put it in a document and get Club “buy-in”.

Another thing we need to work on is our publicity. Each month I see where new soaring pilots are introduced to our sport through first solos and completed check rides, yet we never see it mentioned in our magazine, Soaring, nor even in our newsletter. (Shoot I get excited seeing an ad in the classifieds that mentions Moriarty!) I am going to try and recruit a photographer, and task the instructors, to help document these events so that we can properly honor those who have taken the “step”.

Anyway, I appreciate all that people have done to get the Club where we are today, and I look forward to see where we will be one year from now. Fly Safe.

Airport Business Brian Resor

There was no Moriarty Airport Advisory Committee meeting in January, but Steve Hill (Chairman) provided some updates via email. Much of the discussion lately is related to the new crosswind runway.

Recently an Airport Planning Forecast was compiled for inclusion in the report that went along with other information to the FAA for crosswind runway planning. It shows the current state of the airport regarding the number and type of based aircraft and the flight operations. It then projects the numbers for 2005, 2009, 2014 and 2019.

Needless to say, coming up with the forecast requires a lot of WAG-ing but we have pretty good numbers for 2004. The State keeps a form for the FAA called the Airport Master Record which also uses these numbers. The FAA was suspicious of the numbers at first but when Steve explained the situation at our airport (lots of glider operations) they finally accepted them.

With the help of ASC, Rick Kohler, and some of the Sundance Aviation staff we came up with flight operation estimates for 2004. Mark Mocho and Steve performed a thorough inventory of based aircraft as of December 2004. We estimated 23,396 operations in 2004 and counted 195 based aircraft. Glider related operations are well documented and accounted for 11,976 ops for Sundance and 5500 for ASC. Using Sundance fuel sales we estimated another 1920 transient ops and 3840 local ops. We get a few military aircraft at Moriarty estimated at 160 ops for 2004. We counted 118 gliders and ultralights plus 77 power planes at Moriarty.

The forecast was made by assuming that a certain number of new hangars would be built during each period that would contain a mix of gliders and power planes.

Steve is trying to get the DigiWx log from the computer at Sundance in order to prove to the FAA that our existing runway does not cover enough of the wind conditions and therefore we need a crosswind runway. If the data shows 5% unusable days or more we can send it to the FAA for further justification of the new runway.

Studying Our Task Area / Turnpoint Database Brian Resor

I’ve made some valuable information available to the world about turnpoints and airports (and emergency landing sites) on the club webpage at http://www.abqsoaring.org/turnpoints.htm (or simply click on “Moriarty Turnpoints” at the bottom of the left sidebar of the webpage).

Here you will find written reports and photos on many of the airports and turnpoints in our most recent turnpoint database. Winter is a good time to sit down and go through the descriptions. A dreary, overcast day might even be a good time to take a drive around the Estancia valley to see many of the turnpoints from the ground. Flying cross country can be made much less stressful when you fully understand the landing options that are available to you (that’s assuming you keep them available to you!).

If you read this page and find that there is inaccurate information or that you have additional information, please let me (resor@netzero.com) know about it and I will update it.

On the subject of turnpoints, I’m going to get interested pilots together sometime soon (either in January or February) to go over the 2004 turnpoint database again. We made some changes and additions last winter and now we need to sit down and review the database to see if there are problems that need to be fixed or points that can be deleted. Also, we need to define the most important turnpoints as “Control Points” for the purposes of the 2005 1-26 Nationals coming this summer (although, this might be a job for the competition director). Let me know if you want to take part in this meeting

2004 – What A Year!

The cherry on an eventful soaring season at Moriarty was that Albuquerque Soaring won the US club On-line Contest by a country mile and came in 4th in the world rankings, in the first year we entered (details below). But there were many other events and personal achievements worth noting.

Several new members joined in 2004: Ben Travelstead*, Bryan Wilson*, Robert Devine, David Sharp, Matthew Sigala*, Matthew Gallegos*, Spencer Guillory*, Austin Heerman*, Max Lubitz*, Bill Salopek, Ken Duling, Thomas McGhin*, Bob McGhin, Terry Buss, and Mike Carris. (*indicates student member)

Among our new young members Austin Heermann was soloed by Ash Collins who has also signed Austin off to take his written exam. Jim Wier signed Austin off to fly the 1-26. Jim Miller signed Mike Kleinfled off to take his Private glider check ride, he passed with flying colors. Jim also signed Patrick McNight off to take his Private glider check ride, he too passed with flying colors. Jim soloed Max Lubitz, who did a great job on his first solo.

Notable among the total of 18 check rides carried out by Al Santilli during the year, Rob Devine transitioned from power to glider. Same for incoming President Bob Hudson, who also had his first flights in his "new" DG-101G. (Turned out to be a lot more adventurous than Bob expected when the control stick came apart on tow. He and the plane survived just fine.)

Jim Wier checked out on auto tow early one morning in the late fall. Watch for more experimentation with this lower cost launch method; meanwhile, Sundance hopes to get a winch operating at Moriarty.

SSA badges were added by several members. Those listed in Soaring were: Angel Pala - Gold Badge # 2445 and Diamond Goal, Gold Distance, Silver Badge # 6452 & Silver Distance, Duration; David Harmony - Gold Badge # 2449 and Gold Distance; Howard Banks - Diamond Distance; Jim Cumiford - Diamond Distance & Diamond Goal, Gold Distance.

There were many day-to-day changes that made a positive difference to our operation. We bought a computer for the clubhouse and installed SeeYou software so that members can compare their flights immediately after landing. The Moriarty turnpoint database was revised and updated. The website was updated and broadened in scope. The revised Operations and Policy Manual is now available on the website and so is material for new member applications. The board spent some time improving our communication with SSA on membership issues.

Three bylaws changes were enacted: to better define the Family Membership; to formalize the Student Membership; and to increase check-writing limits to accommodate inflation. Tow rates were increased to keep the club in the black. The Grob 103 was refurbished. A number of the club aircraft radios were repaired. The board approved gravel for the parking lot – it will be installed once the ground thaws. And, the best, the club finally sold the ATV and disposed of the ancient bus.

The well-attended 2004 annual club banquet was regaled with a speaker on the Wright Brothers. A neat slide show of Moriarty pictures accompanied pre-dinner drinks thanks to Mike Abernathy.

Albuquerque Soaring took a major part in the highly successful Jim Crisp memorial soaring camp at Taos – where Angel Pala was one of two key organizers, and a club Pawnee and the Grob took part. The club also welcomed to Moriarty the Junior National Soaring Team members, hopefuls, and mentors for a highly successful week of training, which has become a model for running these camps. At least seven club pilots took part in SSA-sanctioned contests during the year.

It is worth repeating the basic statistics for Albuquerque Soaring's involvement with the On-Line Contest, which has had a far greater impact on cross-country soaring at Moriarty than even the enthusiasts anticipated. We had 24 pilots log flights, though two of them logged only a handful of flights. Our 435 flights logged encompassed a total of over 160,000 kms, over 100,000 miles. Even more impressive were the distances logged. Two flights over 1000km (both Chip Garner). Nine over 800 km (including one of 997 km, logged to Warner Springs – US junior team pilot Garrett Willat turned for home about a minute too soon). Sixteen over 700 km. Forty-seven over 600 km. Eighty-eight over 500 kms. And no less than 109 over 300 km, the basic gold distance.

Note too, that there were many Albuquerque flights that were not logged on OLC, including some long ones. This includes flights by those like Mark Mocho – and club pilots flying the club aircraft – who did not have legal loggers last year. And there were many contest flights – at the Senior's, the Parowan region 9 and Hobbs region 9, and standard class nationals – not logged. This year these will count.

There were some personal changes too. After logging a hundred hours of taildragger time in it, Bob Woods has sold the Hairy Canary in order to spend more time soaring. He says he can do a lot of gliding for what he was paying per month for hangar rent. Jim Miller will be stepping down as Chief Instructor at the end of March. John Daffer has agreed to take over as Chief Instructor at that time. John Farris, after some medical scares, remains as chief tow pilot.

And where would we be without tow pilots? John Farris notes that we did HOW MANY TOWS ETC. Both Pawnees were in good shape for most of the year, and we had no major tow plane problems in 2004, unlike some previous years.

We started 2004 with 9 tow pilots: Carlton, Farris, Schery, Stogner, Thomas, Tichy, Wadsworth, Work and Wright. In April, we lost Steve Work as a tow pilot because of work commitments. In May, Billy Hill agreed to switch from instructing to towing which was great timing since in July, John Farris had to ground himself for medical reasons. Hill, Schery and Jim Miller kindly filled in for the dates when Farris had been scheduled. Schery moved from NM in Jan 2005 so his Dec 2004 scheduled tows were the last for ASC except when he visits us each summer. However, Terry Buss, a new tow pilot, joined ASC just in time to replace Schery. So we now have 8 tow pilots, and if the FAA Medical people give Farris the OK to tow again, we will be back to 9 tow pilots. In addition several instructors, such as Jim Weir, are also tow pilots and they help by standing in when needed. Jim helped tow for the Region 9 contest in July and Jim Miller and others at Taos.

If you have any interest in becoming an ASC tow pilot contact either John Farris or Don Kawal.

Thanks to all those who responded to help pull this summary together – and shame on the rest of you: thanks go to Kathy Taylor, Jim Miller, Jim Weir, Al Santilli, Renny Rozzonni, Bob Woods, and John Farris, but any blame goes to the editor.

Looking for Stemme S-10 Partners

John Farris (Ph. 797-2279 or JohnAFarris@comcast.net) is looking for several partners to purchase the Stemme S-10 that is now located in the Sundance hanger. The plan is to: (1) lease it back to Sundance so that Rick Kohler can use it for cross-country soaring training & other advanced training, and (2) have the Stemme S-10 available for use by the 5 or 6 partners at a reduced hourly rate. The Stemme S-10 is a motor glider with side-by-side seating and a 50 to 1 glide ratio. Contact John Farris for more information on this investment and to see his Stemme S-10 brochure. Contact Rick Kohler (Ph. 832-2222 or info@soarsundance.com) to see the Stemme S-10 & to discuss its outstanding world record setting performance.