Towlines
The Newsletter of the
Mandatory Safety Down Day
August 27th at 9:30
a.m. at the club house.
You must
attend or substitute a full briefing before flying, or taking a tow, with club
equipment.
From the President By Bob Hudson
Well by now you must be
aware that there is an empty spot in the club hangar where the GroB used to
be. Unless you have been out of town, or
out-of-pocket, then you missed the point that we lost the GroB to a takeoff
mishap. The good news is that no one was
hurt in the incident…the bad news is that the GroB was damaged beyond
repair. I happened to be Ops on the day
of the incident and witnessed it. Here
is what we know…an experienced pilot, current and proficient, was making a take
off and was airborne, along with the tow plane, when the tow plane appeared to
hit a severe downdraft and recontacted the runway, causing damage to the prop
(the prop struck the runway sixteen times before the tow pilot could get it
airborne again). The GroB, upon seeing
the tow plane “hit” the runway, released immediately and began a shallow turn
away from what “he” supposed was an impending tow plane fire ball. As the GroB was turning the wing tip
contacted the ground which resulted in the plane spinning around and coming to
rest facing perpendicular to the runway.
The damage to the tow plane
was a bent prop, which will have to be replaced, and a tear down of the engine
to ensure no internal damage. The GroB
didn’t fair so well. The right wing is
broken in two (the spar was severed).
The fuselage was broken in half about four feet aft of the cockpit. The cockpit, surprisingly was virtually
intact with the exception of the front canopy, which was destroyed. Due to the extent of the damage the GroB is
not repairable. As stated previously,
the GroB occupants walked away with no injuries. We dodged a bullet!
I am thankful that we had
Don Kawal on site to put together the insurance info and to get the ball
rolling on getting us back in the air.
(Also I would like to thank all who helped with the cleanup and
follow-on: Geof Aiken, Clay Phillips, Mitch Hudson, Mark Mocho, and anyone else
I missed: please accept my apology.) As
of today, the insurance company is still working out the details to get our GroB
replaced and the tow plane repaired.
However, this incident has caused our Board to take a long hard look at
where we stand, safety and equipment wise.
In order to get us back in the air safely I have declared a Safety Down
Day for Saturday the 27th of August.
We will meet at the airport at 9:30 am to spend the morning
concentrating on Safety Operations. The
meeting will last about 2 hours and will encompass multiple topics. Also noted, from that morning, every member
of the Albuquerque Soaring Club will be grounded from flying operations (flying
club aircraft, towing with ASC tow planes, piloting ASC tow planes, instructing
in ASC planes, etc.) until such time as the meeting is concluded-and the roster
is signed. Those who can’t attend on
that day will be required to review the
meeting notes and sign a roster saying that they have read and understood the
information before they can fly. Moreover, if you are scheduled to perform the OPS duty on a day coming
up and can’t be at the airport on the 27th to attend the meeting,
then you will have to show the day of your Ops duty early and review the notes
or be fined the $75 just as if you didn’t show.
Right now we are planning on video taping the meeting and have the tape
available as a means to fulfill the missed meeting requirement.
I know some think that the
Board is being overly restrictive, but we need to stem the tide of mishaps, big
and small, that are slowly draining our club coffers. Additionally, these incidents are causing us
to have to endure higher insurance premiums, which translate to higher
dues. We will put together a positive
presentation that will help us all to be better pilots. So stop what you are doing and put the 27th
of August down on your “day planner” and come on out to your club and be a part
of the effort to put our Club back on the track to a clean safety record.
I want to add that after I announced the Safety Down Day, I received some
correspondence from some members who thought I was being dictatorial and
punishing some members for something they didn’t do…well, they missed the
point. If we can do something positive
that would just prevent one incident then we have done our jobs. Remember safety is always “job one.”
Now for good
news
By Bob Hudson
Congratulations to Chip Garner, who came first in
standard class in the northern hemisphere – and way out-performed the southern
hemisphere – in the FAI two-week special contest run through the OLC to
commemorate the international body’s centenary.
Chip managed a 1009.5 km (630.9 miles) flight on the second day of the
contest, July 10th, and tells his story below.
He will receive an FAI special certificate as reward. (Chip has also been picked as a
Other Albuquerque Soaring pilots also performed
magnificently.
Bill Hill came 6th in the 933-strong
standard class (and 3rd in the
Mark Mocho came 18th in the European
defined club class (mostly last generation standard class ships, where there
were 883 entrants), flying 593 km. More
importantly, Mark came 2nd in the
In 15 meter, where there were 430 entries, Jim
Cumiford was 15th, Bob Leonard (Sundance) was 27th, Art
Hale was 60th, Kathy Taylor was 85th, Jim Wier was 220th,
and Renny Rozzoni was 230th.
Angel Pala gets a special note. He placed in two classes. He was 202nd in 15 meter and 212th
in 18 meter (out of 614 entries in that class). The wooden spoon (though an A
for effort) goes to Jim Wier and H Banks, who placed 667th out of
730 entries in the open class, managing a 70km flight in the Twin dis-Asster
before their tailbones went into trauma.
The On-Line Contest
Take a look at the fascinating chart produced by
Brian Resor. Despite not so wonderful
soaring weather on average this year, the total miles logged by Albuquerque
Soaring pilots is actually running ahead of last year.
At the latest count, we are number one in the
The pilot who have been doing most to help have been
Kathy and George Taylor logged several flights at
Ely ‑ which raises an interesting point.
If you look at the flights logged by Albuquerque Soaring pilots, the
vast majority are in fact flights from Moriarty. Contrast that with our major US rivals in the
OLC league, where a very large proportion of their flights are not from their
home field but from Ely, Parowan, Uvalde and, of course, also Moriarty. It is the same story when it comes to the
leading European clubs, where they ship their gliders to
Fly often, log every flight, we need the miles.
Your mother doesn’t clean up here
By Jim Wier
It
seems that we can count on our club members to do things that surprise us. I
went to fly the Twin Astir with Howard and we could not find the cushions for
the back seat . We found them down at the ops area on the ground. We need to take better care of things that
belong to the Club. The equipment and
planes belong to each one of us and we need to treat them as if they belong to
us personally ‑ because they do. Also it would not hurt to wash the
planes sometimes. They are our planes and we should treat them as such.
The club web site
Yes,
it has been down for a while, but with a little bit of luck – and lots of work
by Brian Resor – it should be back up by the time you read this. And a whole lot better and more capable. By the way, this has been a great way for us
to find out who actually uses the website because many of you have written to
complain that it’s down. Thanks for
using the site and I think you will really enjoy the next generation that will
roll out soon!
The club by statistics
Thanks to the efforts of the indefatigable
Heads up on OLC in ‘06
There isn’t much information
yet, but something to be watched is the takeover of management of the On-Line
Contest by the SSA “for the entire US” starting next year.
What has happened here is
that the guys who originated the OLC in
The OLC organizers wanted US
participants to pay their share of the costs for
And so we wait with bated
breath to see what the SSA does to our involvement in the OLC. There are lots of questions – which are
especially relevant to soaring at Moriarty, since we were the first club to make
heavy use of the OLC and to adopt it as the basis for our club championship.
Our success has, of course, encouraged many other clubs in the
For starters, will the SSA
leave it nice and simple, as it now is, or will the hangar lawyers get to
complicate it, “to make it fairer” for those who don’t have our kind of soaring
weather? Not likely? Just try reading the SSA’s competition rules
to see complication. Presumably SSA
membership will now be required to compete in the
Let’s leave aside for later
concerns about the SSA taking on another task when all we hear from
The fact that the SSA will now hand out a
certificate to the
How I fly
1000km By
Chip Garner
I am not good at picking flying days. I have done most of my flying in
competitions, and you don't get to pick the day. I have been studying the
BlipMaps, but have not really figured out how they apply. I picked this one because the OLC two week
contest was on, and the day before had been really good and I didn’t want to
miss another one.
Preparations are the key – though they require
preparation!
I always seem to take off an hour or two after the
lift has started on the good days. Ten
hour days are possible from Moriarty but it is difficult to get everything
ready for an early start. Carl Ekdahl
often assembles his glider the day before.
I was tired enough after this eight hour flight that ten would have been
a bad idea. One needs to work up to it.
As for food,
I usually don’t eat much in the glider but long flights require more
food. Half a turkey sandwich, an apple,
and some bread or crackers seem to get me through 8 hours. I try to drink water early in the day and bring
about two liters to drink in flight.
I usually agonize over where to tow while assembling
and getting everything ready. If you
don’t take off early, you can just tow to the clouds forming off the end of the
runway.
My standard plan for OLC flights is to pick the
right direction, fly about 500 km, and then turn back toward home. This plan has yet to work. I went north on this day, because I like the
mountains up there and the clouds looked the best, although it was OD’ing
toward
I got a good climb off tow and flew fast to a very
good looking cloud near the Ortiz mine.
It looked a lot worse as I approached and the lift was broken, but I
needed to be higher to get to the mountains near
I got fooled and circled in terrible, broken,
rotor-like thermals all the way up to
When I finally got a little altitude, things were
OD’ing to the south and I thought I might not be able to get home that way, so
I headed west where the clouds looked best.
Just as I came off the terrain near Questa at about 2:30, I hit a very
good thermal. It was like a switch had been
thrown. For the rest of the day, even
after 7:30pm, every cloud had lift under it.
Heading west I was still thinking in terms of just
making it home, maybe going south a little.
The over-development looked pretty tame, there were veils of rain but
the tops were not going very high. I
kept pushing west as it was good and there were clouds ahead.
Near
It was hard work to stay below 18,000, and I was
paying attention as there have been discussions of disallowing OLC flights that
go into Class A illegally.
There was rain east of
The final glide was 80 miles. I got to the field with 4000 feet and
extended south, landing at 8:17, two minutes before official sunset. The sun was already well below the Sandias.
I tried to estimate my distance and thought I might
have a chance at 1000km when things kept working so late. I planned to add an OLC computation to Glide
Navigator, but I am not really sure knowing how far you have gone is of any
help in going farther.
This flight could have been a lot better. I could have started earlier with better
preparation and more long flight practice.
Getting stuck in
2005 Membership Count
|
|
2004: End |
2005:Jan |
Feb |
Mar |
Apr |
May |
Jun |
Jul |
|
Executive |
2 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
|
Family |
2 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
|
Honorary |
5 |
5 |
5 |
5 |
5 |
5 |
5 |
5 |
|
Associate |
52 |
51 |
50 |
43 |
50 |
49 |
48 |
54 |
|
Owner |
13 |
13 |
13 |
13 |
13 |
13 |
13 |
17 |
|
Regular |
40 |
40 |
42 |
42 |
41 |
41 |
43 |
37 |
|
Youth |
9 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
11 |
11 |
11 |
12 |
|
Total |
123 |
122 |
124 |
118 |
124 |
123 |
124 |