Soaring News - June 2018

Photo Credit; Jean-Marie Deschamps

With 6 Ops days canceled this month, the club did 83 flights. The ASW15 is starting to get some great flights of over 3 hours by Neal Miller and Brian Navarette, more members need to get checked out in this great flying glider. With little to no wind, plan 5 miles distance on 1K altitude at 60 mph. Just remember, full left rudder and stick back for the takeoff then controls as needed to go straight.

Radios are working in all gliders. To switch the 2 frequencies on the display (active and standby), push the transfer button. To change frequencies, use the large knob to change the first 3 numbers (122) in the active frequency and the small knob to change the last 2 numbers (.80). This works for all club gliders since they are all Becker 4201 radios.

Before you buckle into the K7, lower the volume on the rear seat vario by pushing the - button, push the + button to increase the volume. Set radio volume on other radios using the AWOS frequency.

Since the Juniors glider contest is now over, I will provide a summary in this news. Sunday July 1 was a practice day and the contest was Monday July 2 through Saturday July 7 with an awards banquet Saturday night in Tecumseh. We flew 5 of the 7 days with 20-24 gliders grid each day during the week. The Club Pawnee did 48 tows, two of them retrieves from Bent Oaks Airport and Rossettie Airport. With 3 tow planes, we launched a grid of 24 gliders to 2K altitude in just over an hour from RW23 and RW05 grass. Sandhill Soaring provided an L19 Bird Dog flown by Jim Nowacki and a Pawnee flown by Joel Zachrich, Tom Neese and I shared tows in the Club Pawnee.

It was great to see many friends from Sandhill Soaring who also provided help to launch the contest gliders. We all weathered the heat but had fun. On Friday, we counted 12 gliders in the same thermal near the Adrian airport, only a gaggle of 8 gliders was seen Saturday but there was 2 gaggles within a half mile of each other. I was told that the last glider contest at Adrian was 1974, we may have another in 2019.

Thanks for the help from ASC members, Tom Neese, Jim Thompson, Jean-Marie Deschamps, Bill Lynch, Bill Neiderman, Doug Collings, Neal Miller, Don Parish, Don Smith, Brian Navarette, Dave Huck, Rick Clark, Susumu Morita, Nate and Cameron Kemppainen. Cameron flew in the contest. Also a big thanks to Steve Rusinowski for installing 6 electrical RV outlets on the North side of the hangar, adding a second fridge and stove. With the help from the Sandhill helpers, we had a very efficient and safe launch.

Stay tuned, looks like Wednesday 7-11 will be OK to fly.

When turning from base to final, keep the nose down and speed up. Inside rudder during turn is not good.

Tom Shipp