Convector
Newsletter of the Mid-Atlantic Soaring Association

It was a wet day in the desert. Day 7 of the 15-Meter Nationals in Tonopah, Nevada. As the cu began building around us, it was clear that showers and thunderstorms would be a factor in the competition that day. As the pilots soared through the start cylinder, the crews prepared for action.

By 4:30 P.M., there were rumors of a task interrupted. On the radio, pilots announced their early returns to the field, calling "no finish." Shortly afterward, the gate began to relay coordinates for land-out locations.

Soon after 6:00 P.M. the phone call came - Chris (O'Callaghan) was down at Snowball Ranch, about ninety miles away by air. By ground, who knows? I checked my Nevada State Road Map. Somewhere in a large patch of brown nothingness, with widely scattered roads and few towns, I had to locate one 1000 pound glider and one 200 pound (approximately) husband. Thunderstorms were circling like a gaggle of hungry vultures, night was approaching, and there wasn't much beer left in the cooler.

Now, I am a city girl. To me, wide open spaces are mall parking lots. Roughing it means having to do my own nails. Driving through the desert alone, at night, in bad weather was not on my agenda.

As I decided whether or not to panic, the guardian angels began to appear. Several pilots and contest officials helped me get a detailed map identifying the location of Snowball Ranch. "Laura, don't go alone," everyone warned. And again, help appeared. Bob Jackson and his crew, Dick Luiken gallantly volunteered for the mission. "Are you sure you want to do this?" I asked, "This could be ugly."

"What are friends for," was Bob's reply.

Bob drove, Dick was the GPS navigator and I followed the map. With our route optimistically highlighted in red, and the GPS pointing northwest, we left the field at 7 P.M.

Driving west on Route 6, Bob, Dick and I innocently chatted about favorite books, and the possibility of alien visitors from area 51, little realizing the ordeal ahead. As we were about to make our first turn off the highway, we encountered another crew, returning from their retrieve. Jim is an experienced Tonopah pilot. "Oh," he said, pointing to our red-highlighted route on the map, "Don't go that way. You'll be on dirt the whole time." He re-directed us to go around east and north of the ranch, and circle back in order to stay on pavement. Again, we headed off, away from the sunset, far from civilization, as the ice melted in the cooler.

We were headed for a place called Currant, where we had to turn off onto Highway 539. It looked like a decent-sized dot on the map. With, maybe, a 7-eleven? No such luck. After an hour and a half of driving we passed only a few cars and an oil refinery. No Burger Kings, no Texaco's, and no Holiday Inn Express. Not even a jackrabbit or a rattlesnake. The aerosol cheese and crackers I was serving for sustenance were about to run out.

It was now fully dark. Lightning flashed in the distance. It began to rain.

Half an hour later, approaching the town of Duckwater, a police vehicle passed us in the opposite direction, and then pulled up behind us with the lights flashing. I was sure that the trailer tags were current. What was the problem? The pleasant Duckwater Tribal Police Officer was out trying to locate the crew of another downed glider, "7." Bob solicited some advice on where we needed to turn to get to Snowball Ranch and we continued. It started to rain harder.

After passing Duckwater, the road turned to dirt, or more accurately, mud. Bob Jackson drove like a master, maneuvering the Suburban and Trailer through the rain, and mud, avoiding the ditches, and slithering through hairpin turns. The gravel and mud felt like snow beneath our tires as the trailer swayed behind us, even with 4-wheel drive turned on. To Bob, it was child's play. No problem. The rain continued.

We reached the proverbial fork in the road some time later. Several smaller dirt tracks led off in the approximate direction of our destination. We consulted the map, the GPS and made our decision. "I think this is the right one," I said. "This looks right to me," Bob and Dick both agreed. A few minutes later the road we chose came to a dead end at Fish Creek ranch, where glider contestant "7" was standing next to his glider, waiting for his crew, in the pouring rain.

A soaking wet boy, who lived on the farm, advised us to go to the farmhouse and ask Larry the Rancher for help. Dick leapt from the truck, raised the umbrella, and sallied forth to the task. Bob and I waited. "I think they decided to keep Dick," Bob said after several long minutes. Then lights appeared and a pick-up rolled out of the driveway. Larry the Rancher guided us through the labyrinth of mud tracks to put us on the road to Snowball ranch. The rain continued.

According to the GPS, we were about 10 miles away when my cell phone rang. For the past two hours I had no signal. The call was from Chris, "I've purloined a pick-up," he announced. "When I see you coming, I'll sit at the ranch entrance and shine my lights at you." "Great" I said, "We'll be there soon."

Now, we had a new map drawn by Dick with Larry the Rancher. It depicted the road going over a couple of cattle grates first. Great - they showed up just as advertised. Then we were to drive through a curvy area of abandoned buildings, up a rise and the ranch would be on the right. We drove through several curves and up a rise. "That wasn't very curvy," Dick said.

Then, we drove through a few more curves and up a rise, "That wasn't very curvy," Bob said. Another set of curves and another rise later, "That wasn't very curvy either," I agreed. When we eventually found the real curves, we knew it. The road bent like a paper clip through several switchbacks. Abandoned stone and wood huts were just a few feet from our car windows. Signs read "Minimum Road Maintenance, Proceed with Caution." The raindrops slid down our windows.

Coming out of the ghost town, we saw the headlights in the distance and cheered. They flashed at us in welcome. But after going around another curve, they disappeared.

We kept going, but still no lights re-appeared. "I know Chris pretty well," I said, "and I don't think he's dumb enough to turn off the lights. We must be too low to see them."

Minutes later the lights, pick-up truck and husband appeared. Apparently he had been watching from a high spot and had to drive down to the road to meet us, causing the lights to disappear. Bob, Dick and I followed Chris in the purloined pick-up into the ranch and pulled the trailer right up to the glider and, finally, got out of the Suburban.

What a site! The Suburban and Cobra were covered with mud and debris. It had been two hours since we could see through the rear window, which was also caked with mud. The glider was wet and of course, it was still drizzling rain. Outside our headlights, it was total darkness. But we made it! Quickly, Bob, Dick and Chris whipped the glider into the trailer, while I had the crucial role of flashlight holder. We were on our way back in minutes and miraculously, it stopped raining.

On the ride back we heard Chris's story. The owner of Snowball ranch was deceased and all power to the buildings was cut off. A ranch hand drove him to a high point in the hills so he could get a cell signal to call for the retrieve. After the ranch hand left, night fell and it was pitch dark. He said he could see nothing except when a lightning flash lit the area, and he could run a few feet toward the nearby buildings. All this while in a drenching rain. After several sprints during the lightning flashes, he reached a shed, where he found the old pick-up complete with keys and gas and "purloined" it. (Without the pick-up we would never have found the ranch entrance.) Of course he returned it to its original home before leaving.

Eight hours after leaving, we drove back into Tonopah Airport, ready for bed. Without Bob Jackson and Dick Luiken, I don't know what I would have done. "My heroes! How can I ever thank you?" I said as I hugged them both, "Without you I would be out in the desert somewhere, crying and out of gas."

"What are friends for?" Bob said again.

The soaring season is rapidly coming to a close. Oktoberfest is behind us and the temperatures are beginning to fall. I woke up this week to a temperature of 37° F. It seems too early to be getting so cold but the leaves are definitely beginning to change around Fairfield. As the flying slows, we need to take a look at the many projects needed to prepare us for next year.

Fairfield is a mess in the sense that there is always too much to do. We have a contract to remove many of the trees off the departure end of the runway. Unfortunately, we have not yet finalized plans to also clear the trees jutting into the approach course from the adjacent land. These are the true obstructions and we hope to do something in the future. We also have a quote and are doing the paperwork with the state to extend the drain pipe off the end of the runway and grade this area making it a more acceptable overrun. By the time this issue of Convector is distributed we will also have a contractor repairing the FFD clubhouse roof. The planned repair should stop the chronic leaks we have had and allow us to fix up the interior. An important task needing to be done in the clubhouse is the construction and installation of some window inserts to help control heat loss. This was done last year using plastic sheet and it worked well. It is time however to make it a little nicer. Helping this all happen at Fairfield will be our new facilities manager, George Burns. George can't nor shouldn't have to do this by himself. Give him a call and see how you can pitch in and help.

The orange 2-33 at Frederick has been taken out of service. For the last couple of months we have been watching some wear on the stabilizer braces. The plan was to repair it at the end of the season, and for that glider the season's end has arrived. We have known for some time that we would eventually need to invest some time and effort into this glider. After 33 years, the fabric is in terrible shape and the paint is an eyesore. Dave Schober has volunteered to supervise the recovering of the fuselage at his place. We don't want to make this another 5 plus year project however. We need to either commit to getting this done quickly by having folks pitch in and help or the other options are:

1. pay for it to be done professionally
2. sell it as is and add to the proceeds to buy another

I believe we should do this ourselves for a number of reasons. M-ASA has owned this glider since new. We know exactly what we have and there are no travel and shipping costs involved. With 160 members we should be able to round up ample manpower to make the project work. If it stalls however, or we find major damage, I will recommend to the Board to stop work and ship it out. The current plan is to do the work at two locations. The wings can remain at Frederick and be stripped in the shop. The fuselage would then be transferred to Dave's to have the fabric removed, tubing cleaned and a new covering applied. Right now the plan is to do all the painting at Dave's but we are also looking at some other options.

In preparation of this I jumped ahead a little yesterday and removed the aircraft's interior and tail surfaces. Thanks to the help from Gene Wilburn, George Simms, Bill Whelan and Jim Furlong, the aircraft is disassembled and one wing is in the shop. I hope to experiment with some paint stripper next week. After 33 years, the old paint may come off easy or then again...

Let Dave Schober or me know about your availability to pitch in. There is enough work for each of us to dedicate a full day to the project so you need to get your name on the list early. Projects like this are what clubs are all about. Many of you benefited from this glider for many years, you learned to fly in it, performed your first solo in it and gave countless rides to friends and family. Now it is time to give a little back.

The year hasn't been great to us. This comes as no surprise since I think I have heard most grumbling about the small number of logbook entries we have all made. As of October 16 M-ASA has flown 1955 flights for the year. This is down a bit from past years and looks to be the lowest level of activity since we began tracking operations in detail. Of these 933 were flown by private gliders, the rest were club ships. The following table [converted from graphic - webmaster] breaks down the flight activity.

The three (2 1/2) 2-33s carry the majority of the club activity. The Ka7's return to service this spring has been a strong addition to the fleet. The usage of the single seat gliders however is dismal. Both the Ka8b and the SGS 1-36 flew 25 flights each. The Pilatus flew 56. The Grob utility is also quite down. This was caused mainly by the loss of the Twin II for most of the summer. It returned to service in August and the Twin II joined the fleet in September. Since then they have flown regularly when the weather permitted.

Let's all pitch in over the next couple of months and prepare for next year. With some luck, activity will be better and all of our fun quotients will increase. At the same time we can also improve the environment where many of us spend considerable time.

Because there are times, during the flying day at Fairfield, when nobody is in the clubhouse and no one is available to answer the phone, the possibility exists that a pilot, who has landed out, cannot get in touch with the club to arrange his retrieve.

To overcome this problem, after discussion with Rick Latoff, I decided to purchase a 1.4 gigahertz cordless telephone for the club. Rick helped me with the installation and with placing the transmitter part of the unit high up on the club window. The range to the gazebo is a bit marginal, but tests showed that it would ring with an incoming call and, although the transmission was a bit marginal, the message could be understood and the caller could hear the reply. The cordless telephone was hung on a nail attached to the gazebo just under the roof. At the end of the day's operation the phone had to be returned to the clubhouse and placed on the charging rack on the transmitter unit.

On September 28 I could not find the phone in the clubhouse. I later found it hanging on its hook in the gazebo, where it presumably had been since September 15, the last flying day. Not surprisingly, the unit was dead. I placed it back in its charger for 24 hours and rechecked it on September 29. It was still dead. Since there was a heavy rain on the 26 and 27, I assume the phone got soaked and probably shorted out.

Unless someone has technical knowledge and can fix it, I am afraid that we no longer have the use of a cordless telephone at Fairfield.

Send articles, news, soaring achievements, ratings or badge legs earned, other significant flights, classifieds, or other info the membership will find interesting.

Deadline: 20th of each month.

Submissions to: convector@m-asa.org (note hyphen!)

Next summer, a soaring extravaganza will occur in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the first glider flight by the Wright brothers. A cross-continent glider expedition will be made. Actually, the Wright brothers made their historic first flight in December, 1901 and later their first powered flight in 1903, but the commemorative cross-country trek will be done in more favorable weather conditions in June of 2003.

The cross-continent event is scheduled to begin near Los Angeles on June 17 and will end on July 4 at Kill Devil Hill/Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The tentative itinerary will be as follows: Cal City-Las Vegas-Phoenix-Las Cruses-Hobbs-Dallas-St. Louis-Indianapolis-Dayton-New Castle-Richmond-Manteo-Kitty Hawk. The legs average about 300 miles per day, although some of the western legs are too lengthy as they are now planned. The idea is to stop at as many glider clubs as possible, because they are equipped with accommodations, hospitality, tows, etc. The plan is to tackle one flight each day, arriving at the scheduled destination, hopefully by glider or by trailer or probably by both. The eastern legs are somewhat shorter, but there are a few places, such as West Virginia, where soaring may not be advisable and where ground transportation will be used. The next to last stop will be Manteo Airport in North Carolina, which is only six air miles from Kitty Hawk. On July 4 the fleet will be towed aloft, with virtual assurance of making the final six mile glide into the State Park at Kill Devil Hill, where the sailplanes will land on the exact spot where the Wright brothers' flight took place - or alternatively at the paved First Flight Airport, which is approximately one quarter mile away. The park officials at Kitty Hawk are most enthusiastic about this event, and after flying activities are finished, they will close off the park for a party. In fact, the sailplane armada will be the highlight of the July 4 celebrations at Kitty Hawk.

The organizers of the Race to Kitty Hawk are John Murray in the east and Jim Payne in the west. They already have commitments from about twenty soaring pilots and they expect a total of around fifty gliders to participate from all across the country. The pilots are encouraged to make the entire cross-country trek, but if that is not possible, anyone can join for any of the proposed legs. We have a couple of firm commitments from M-ASA members, and any others who are interested should contact me at 717-642-9886 or John Murray at 513-897-5667. Several of us are planning a leisurely trip to the West Coast in early June, to be on hand for the official start. The event will not be a race in actually, but rather a cross-country adventure with experienced pilots helping those who are less experienced.

The M-ASA Board of Directors is considering the use of one of our towplanes for all or part of the venture. Jim Chick has volunteered for tow pilot duties. The adventure will be fun and exciting and will receive widespread publicity all across the country, and will certainly generate some much needed interest and enthusiasm for our sport.

The battle is on! Jonathan Gere (34) remains in first place this month with 11,980 points, but Val Brain (13), only 52 points behind him, has really put the heat on him at 11,928 points. Michael Higgins (X6), winning two tasks this month rounds out the top three with 10,562 points.

Other regulars are Bill Savory (9), Baude Litt (LBL) and Howard Banks (1XX). John Hearn (T1) and Chris O'Callaghan (OC) each fly a task with us this month and CL joins us as Cathy Williams for two tasks. Also this month, Peter Zawadzki (ZP) returns after a long break to get his landing gear fixed. Stay tuned next month as the exciting ridge season begins.

Notes/Photos Due:

The following are completing their provisional years with M-ASA and should send a photo and a note requesting permanent membership:

• Karanja Patterson
• Richard Wallis

• Harry Bates

• Ed Breau - Silver Altitude

Despite his best efforts, your new editor tripped and stumbled a little bit as he left the starting gate.

The caption on the back cover picture of the October issue is in error. It is a picture of our new Grob Twin Astir. The glider that was damaged recently was the Grob 103 Twin II.

In the December issue there will be enclosed a preference form. Each year this form is to be submitted to the scheduler to give the member an opportunity to select field preferences, duty preferences, and dates that should be blocked from assignments. The database that has been used for several years has not been completely updated. For the new year, the database will be purged and data from the preference form will be used. If any exemption is to be requested it should be submitted as part of the preference form.

M-ASA Duty Notes: Members assigned to operations duty must be on site in enough time to start operations by 10:00AM and stay at the field until operations are concluded. Each person listed on the duty roster is responsible for that day's assignment. In the case of "no-shows," the person acting as OD should indicate this fact on the flight sheet. "No-shows" will be fined $100.00. M-ASA's training process requires all new members to serve as Apprentice OD (AOD) at both M-ASA operating locations. This is to familiarize new members with the operating practices at each field. Any member who joined the previous year and who was not scheduled for AOD duty at each field, will be scheduled for AOD duty at each field in the current year. Note that AOD scheduling is done independently of duty preference information submitted on the member's duty preference form. After the AOD cycles have been completed every effort will be made to accommodate the new member's stated duty preference whenever possible. M-ASA Scheduler: Ray Watson