21 January, 1995

Well, we had our weekend run to Taos. There were sixteen airplanes there and some of the best aviating anyone can remember took place. I will never forget the reaction of Pat Mcknight after he landed on his Saturday flight; it was worth the whole weekend. Of course we couldn’t have pulled it off if we didn’t have the expert leadership of Connie Buenafe. Connie’s management of the launch operation was extremely efficient and led to a perfect safety record. The only issue that came up during the trip is that we have to reeducate Jimmy Weir in the basic function of adding two thousand feet to the field elevation; ask him about it I am only the narrator. Angel Pala put together a wonderful event. His and Carol’s hospitality will be remembered for years. The flying, the food and the fellowship made this off site adventure an event we will all embrace well into our old age, and as you can see I am already there. Go to the club website and take a look at the pictures.

By now you are probably aware that Laurie Carlton has passed the books over to our new book keeper, Erika Zahnle. One thing you should know about Erika is that she is training to run her first marathon. She is running it to honor her father who died of kidney cancer 10 years ago. She is training with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and she needs a little financial support to pull it off. Take a look at her web site (http://www.active.com/donate/tntnmep/EZahnle) and if you can see your way to help her, but a couple of ducats in an envelope and send it her way.

Brian Resor will give a lecture on Soaring Badges, what is out there, how you earn badges and what paperwork is required and what you need to do! Brian will speak at the Soaring Museum Annex at the airport on the 12th of August at 09:30.

Now another web site. It might be a long link, but it would be worth your time to take a look at this. It is an interesting article about our own Bob Carlton and his jet. Every boy should have a jet! Log onto: http://www.aero-news.net/news/sport.cfm?ContentBlockID=ED19724E-7E87-492E-8672-5B518B2BBB71&Dynamic=1 .

Pretty neat, huh?

Next topic. The key to a healthy and vibrant club is with its members. Our club has, within our membership, a potpourri of experiences and capabilities. Every career field, every age group and every education level is represented. Having said that, we are approaching a crisis as we are starting to see an exodus of active members to either the inactive roles or to "no longer a member" status. So what do we need to do? Well, duh, drag in some new members. It is important for each one of us to ensure the continuation of our sport and club. So each of you are hereby chartered to increase our membership. Now hit the road…after you fly.

The summer is slipping away, where has the time gone? Now it’s time to start planning for the annual gala dinner. So what does that mean? Well, I am told that our highly successful master of ceremonies, Howard Banks, will not be able to perform this year as he will most probably be out of town. So what I will need is for someone to stand up and say” throw it my way.” The great groundwork Howard has prepared makes this task a lot easier than one would expect. So I am asking for a volunteer to work with me so that we can continue this valued tradition. I await your call.

Let’s all meet at the airport and fly safe!!! Bob, El Prez

The OLC

The weather is not doing us any favors since the middle of the month. But there were some respectable flights in the first half.

There were many glights longer than gold distance, but the best flights scored for the OLC include: Time Feager (Sundance, 613km), Bill Hill (590km), Mitch Hudson (making the best possible use of his leave) 544km, K.D. Jensen (Sundance) 540km, Kathy Taylor (now proud owned of a full diamond badge) 505km, Mike Abernathy in his Stemme 494km, Banks 480km, Mark Mocho 461 km, Bob Leonard (Sundance) 451km, Art Hale 446km, and Carl Ekdahl 440km.

Chip Garner flew several flights geared mostly to speed (to help our league score – see related article in this issue).

The overall position remains more or less the same. Albuquerque Soaring remains way ahead in the US classic (distance) contest, with Warner Springs in second – a situation exactly reversed in the league).

But in the world classic OLC we are stuck firmly in fourth – and will need some gang-busters flying in the fall to do anything about it. Third place is held by SFZ Konigsdorf with a handy points lead. It is worth noting that the German club has 84 pilots logging flights, versus 31 for Albuquerque Soaring. Also that several of that club’s pilots ship their gliders to Namibia, South Africa or Australia to rack up the kilometers during our winter. Oh well. Anybody got the $$ to put a container together? It would also be nice if somebody in the club would buy an ASH-25 (one of their favorite mounts) for us all to go mega-miles!

Flying the League By Chip Garner

Albuquerque Soaring remains in first place in the world league ranking by a lot. But we are in 2nd place (to Warner Springs) in the US league. It is all down to the way the league is scored, based on Formula One motor racing where there is a one point difference between the places regardless of any difference in achieved speed.

It is all in the rules (and Brian Resor actually understands the nuances, so ask him). But if we are to do well with this aspect of the OLC, we all need to understand the tactics necessary to making the biggest score possible. So we asked Chip to lay down the best approach.

1) Fly. Last place is worth 15 points (depending on how many clubs participate) more than zero points if no-one flies. A second and third pilot score usually moves us up several places. Even if it is slow.

A missed weekend is a disaster in scoring terms.

2) Pick the best part of the day for the 21/2 hours. Use 3 hours for a little margin. On thunderstorm days you probably want to be back by 4:30, so leave at 1:30. On blue days it will probably be better a little later, 2:30 to 5:30 or 3:00 to 6:00 is probably the best.

3) Your ending point cannot be below your starting point. Write down the time and altitude when you get your first good thermal. Try to be at this altitude when the two and a half hours is up. If you are 3000 feet high, you probably could have skipped a thermal or been gliding much faster for the last fifteen minutes. This makes a big difference on such a short task. Of course, too low is worse as your speed will include the poor climb at the beginning of the flight. The best approach is to get off tow in a ripping thermal. When this doesn’t work, search around for a better thermal before climbing very high.

4) Optimize speed. The biggest trick in keeping up your speed is to avoid getting stuck. Brian recently quoted ten items from George Moffat (ref?) for flying faster. Nine of them should become second nature. The part about setting the MacCready to the climb rate in the last thermal is just wrong most of the time. Do this on a blue day, or if you are otherwise worried about making it. Leave the last thermal below what you need for final glide and bump the clouds.

5) For the league, remember that your final glide is to the start altitude of your first good climb at 2:30 minutes. I usually set the instruments for a final glide home and do a rough calculation for the time and altitude for the league finish. The GPS ground speed helps, 100kts indicated is close enough to two miles per minute. I usually don’t calculate a sink rate but watch the altimeter and try to bump clouds.