On the 16th
of December we held a membership meeting. If you were there (and we know who
you are) I thank you. This was the most
important meeting the Cub has had since I became a member because some serious
issues were discussed. These important
issues all basically dealt with financial matters. Your Club board has been grappling with cash
hemorrhages for quite a while. When I
say cash hemorrhaging, I don’t mean a popped artery in the cranial cavity, but
more like an ulcer that is slowly sapping your strength. Before the situation gets to the terminal
stage we, the Board, tasked a select group of gray beards (Don Kawal, Stan
Roeske and Tom Tichy) to take a look at the Cub revenues and the Cub
expenses. They were told to leave no
stone unturned and to their credit that did a superb job.
Space doesn’t allow me to go into a great amount of
detail, but I will have a pamphlet with copies of the spreadsheets our Blue
Ribbon panel prepared and positioned at the Cub House so that you can see where
we were coming from.
To save space I will get to the important issues, all
passed by unanimous voice vote.
Oxygen use
The first item we tackled was the question of the use
of oxygen. As you know almost all of our oxygen usage comes from airplane
users, either club members or guests. Most of the time we eat that usage. It was passed that starting in April we will charge
all private aircraft owners $25 a year for the use of oxygen (club members) and
$10 a refill for guest and non-members.
We will use the time between now and April to work out the details.
The Twin
Astir
The next issue dealt with the use of the Twin
Astir. Our records show that the Astir
is used very sparsely and actually costs the Club just to own it. Additionally we pay $1,800 a year in
insurance due to its retractable landing gear.
The members present voted to sell the Twin Astir and turn the profit
from the sale into an asset account that we would not touch in an effort to
ensure we would have funds to cover contingencies. This sale would also reduce our current
insurance expense and open a hangar spot that we could garner some revenue
from. (How about that ending a sentence with a preposition?)
Club hangar
rentals
This opened the discussion to the use of hangar
space. It was discovered that we could
rearrange the hangar spacing by moving the oxygen cart to our other hangar,
selling the tractor (to which I understand we have a potential buyer ‑
they don’t refer to Clay as an Aggie just because he drank his beer in College
Station) and rearranging the cabinets in the main hangar we can add another
spot. We voted and passed upping the
price we charge for hangar space to $90 a month (up from $75 a month).
Tow prices
Next we took on the cost of tow prices. As a lot of you know we were forced to add a
surcharge to our tow prices due to skyrocketing gas costs. Our team of financial gurus looked at the
club’s tow costs and for comparison at the prices being charged by Sundance.
After discussion, we voted to make the club’s tow prices competitive but still
within the outlines of the surcharge.
Our new tow prices will be posted in the club house
(per by-laws). A recap of what they are
follows: $15 to hook up and then $.75
per 100 feet. This means that a 1400
foot tow (the minimum) would be $25.50, up from the surcharged level of $23.40.
2,000 foot tow would be $30.00, up from $29.50. A 4,000 foot tow would be $45,
up from $44.
Aircraft
rental prices
The membership also voted on raising the rental cost
for club aircraft. These increased fees
will also be posted in the club house per the by-laws. These increased fees were kept low so that we
don’t discourage flyers.
Items not
voted on
We on purpose didn’t suggest charging for training or
increasing the initiation fees. However we chose to take a look at these
opportunities if the voted on initiatives don’t stem the cash flow
problem. The bottom line is that
thirty-one members took the time from their busy schedules and the holiday
season to help formulate a plan to help the Albuquerque Soaring Club to reach a
better financial position.
Good
News By Bob Hudson
The fact that our Club’s financial situation is in
Threat Level Yellow, but there is light at the end of the tunnel, has caused
some members to step to the plate and they deserve recognition. First, Angela
Pala has declared that he is changing his status from Associate Member to
Regular member. While this move doesn’t
push us over the brink, it is an indication of the membership picking up the
gauntlet.
Following in Angel’s footprints, Geoff Aiken has
pledged to turn his year’s end bonus over to the Club to be applied to our
asset fund. I tried to talk Geoff into
putting it in for his use, but he wanted to return something to a group he
really appreciates being part of.
I am not telling you about Angel or Geoff to prod
anyone into doing something that they are not moved to do, but you should know
about the selfless actions of two of our members. At the Gala we should raise our glasses to
members such as these.
Election
of officers
At the recent Member’s meeting, the officers for the
upcoming year, 2007, were selected. The
newly elected officers are:
President:
Vice President:
Mark Mocho
Secretary:
Geoff Aiken
Treasurer: Brian Morrison
Members at large: Bob Carlton and Billy Hill
The appointed positions were also “populated” with:
Operations Officer: Constance Buenafe
Maintenance Officer: Open
Web Site: Brian Resor
Safety Officer: Billy Hill
Chief Tow Pilot: John Farris
Chief Instructor: John Daffer
Parachute Maintenance: Paul Briggs
Newsletter: Howard Banks
Membership (new position): Constance Buenafe
Emergencies
on Tow By W. G. Hill
The greater majority of emergencies on tow are self
induced. These generally are a result of
something that was missed during the pre-takeoff checklist. On occasion, they may be aircraft related in
that something has failed on the aircraft.
A few weeks ago I test flew a relatively new Ventus
2c. It looks like my Discus except that
it has flaps. The reason I was test
flying it was because the pilot had made a hard landing. Why did he do that you ask?
Shortly after takeoff, the spoilers popped open. As it turns out the detent on the spoilers
was not adjusted sufficiently to keep them closed. The pilot attempted to close and lock them and
here is where the situation morphed from a problem to a crash landing.
It takes a
good deal of force to lock the spoilers closed, but not to hold them closed. The pilot in
question made multiple attempts to lock them.
Each time he did so, he induced a PIO, (pilot induced oscillation),
which became violent enough to cause him to lose sight of the towplane. At that point, he released from tow and in
the course of attempting to land straight ahead, made a very hard landing which
fractured or perhaps broke his back along with trashing the landing gear.
So, what did he do incorrectly? He lost his focus while attempting to correct
the problem. Had he merely held the
spoilers closed rather than attempt to lock them, he would not have induced the
PIOs. Once off tow, he could have
trimmed the Ventus for level flight and he could have sorted out the spoiler
problem.
Klem Bowman lost his life in
I’ve mentioned this accident in previous safety articles,
but because it’s tow related and Klem was killed, and therefore it is worth
repeating.
Getting back to the Ventus 2c test flight, before
takeoff I set the flaps at one notch positive, set the trim for a neutral and
off I went. As is my habit, once airborne,
I attempted to trim off the stick pressures.
As I did so, the flaps popped out of position and followed the position
of the trim. Frankly I think this is a
poor design on the part of Schempp-Hirth as the collar for the trim slides over
the flap rod. Any friction on the trim
collar combined with worn flap detents will allow the flaps to pop out of
position. This didn’t pose a problem
since I was at minimum wing loading and the control forces were light. Had I been full of water and close to critical
tow speed, it might have been another story.
After landing, I alerted the owner of the problem.
Some other tow related issues are things like a rope
break. Sure, you’ve done the simulated
rope break on check rides, but you were expecting that to happen. Do you still do your three hundred foot call
out during other than check rides?
I was giving instruction in the Sundance Grob and my
student was consistently high on tow. I
kept telling him to get back down and in position as Rick pulled us across the
top of the airport at mid field. At that
point I noticed the tow plane was well below us and getting lower. Rick had had a total engine failure, and was
about to feed us the tow rope when I realized what had happened. This took but a few seconds to recognize, but
frankly it had caught me off guard. I
should have reacted sooner, but didn’t.
Rick did a masterful job of getting the Callair back on the ground. With no power and a windmilling prop, that
thing falls out of the sky like a set of dropped car keys!
During the course of mentoring from the back seat of a
too-dirty-three, I’ve had the canopy pop open not once but twice! The reason that happed is because I didn’t
cross check the student to ensure he had properly closed and locked it. In both cases I was able to catch the canopy
by the cross bar and prevent it from fully opening. Although I was lucky enough to catch the
canopy, I was still a bad CFI for not following up on the student’s pre-takeoff
actions. No banana for me on those days!
Many many seasons ago, while flying a Phoebus, I
retracted the gear while on tow. After
getting to release altitude I was unable to release because the tow rope is
attached to the landing gear. Needless
to say I stayed on tow while I reviewed the whole process and finally figured
out what I had done wrong one thousand feet later.
What you may be asking is the point of all these
examples? Don’t turn a challenging situation into an emergency by exacerbating
the problem! Above all, devote
all your brain cells and efforts to flying the glider. Far more often than not, (rope breaks and tow
plane engine failures not with standing), there will be ample time to sort out
the problem. If you ain’t sure what’s broke, then don’t try and fix it!
See you at the airport.
Want
to be a partner in the Twin Astir?
Club member Phil Newman is interested in finding
another club member who might want to buy the Twin Astir with him. Phil says that he is a very careful pilot and
very meticulous in all that he does. He
wants to see the plane in perfect shape.
Phil is a weekend pilot who wants to fly cross country.
Contact Phil on (505) 281 2688.