SSA 2005 Convention A brief report from Ontario Calif for the Region 6 team. Wednesday The great Software Show, See You, StraPla, and Win Pilot never turned into the great Software Battle. Over 250 pilots attended these sessions! For one not familiar with these three systems, it was a superior event, and one I hope is repeated at future conferences. The three systems are all very good at showing you where you flew and where you are at currently. I would have to say that WHO does the display or show is very influential as to which one you may like best. See You and Win Pilot both offer flight-planning, transfer of data to your data logger, download of data from your data logger and then a plot of what you did. My only comment on StraPla was that the background data seemed more complex then the other two systems.. Many presenters used the WinPilot or See You systems during their presentations to show how their aircraft performed during a particular flight. The See You people had a free upload and download program for your PDA to connect to your data logger that was very neat – of course you need their software to get it all together! Thursday Ribbon cutting took place at 0900 and then away we went! Over one half of the aircraft on the floor are motor gliders. Somewhat surprisingly, about half of these had nose mounted engines and the others the more conventional rear mounted and stowed systems. The star of the show was the JET! More below - Also notable were the very lightweight aircraft, Sparrow Hawk, Light Hawk, Silent all showed their wares. Most amazing was Light Hawk – trying to make the famous 60 ft/min sink rate. All the vendors were present, good stuff and plenty of ways to spend your money. The Floor photos are noted at the end of this article - but my favorite – if I had the money to spend – was the CARAT motor glider. This has Discus wings, and a forward folding prop! A single seater, it has dual gear, fits in a trailer, and has a very clever one man wing installation system. Presentations – great stuff from some real experts – Bob Lacovara is the head of the American Composite Manufacturers Association ran a great presentation on Evaluating Gelcoat finishes. He is setting up a process where the various types of Gel Coats can be evaluated in a scientific manner – and we can stop relying on rumor or less than factual information. But… in that vein, when I asked why the Libelle seemed to have great Gel Coat finishes so many years after their manufacturer, I was told ( not by Bob ) that it was due to the fact that their coatings were BRUSHED into the molds not sprayed. That was supposed to set up the long chain molecules in one direction. Bob’s final comment – given a choice between Gel Coat and Paint – choose paint! Bob Carlton had a packed house (300 +) as he described his adventures in mounting TWO large R/C airplane jet engines on the retracting pod on a Silent. This is really a neat solution! Take off is long, climb is fast, systems are simple and frankly it is sexy as can be and really neat. If the engines get stuck out – not a big deal, you wouldn’t loose too many L/D points. He does a full acro routine in the Silent. The video is very impressive. Not yet for sale, but engines are about $5000 each – actually not out of line for what you get. The engines are 50 lb thrust each – the new ones will be 70 Lb thrust each – and there is the possibility to get three engines on the retracting pod! If an engine needs to be fixed, you just put it in a pre paid shipping box, send it via FedEx and you get your replacement in about a week! Try that with ANY of the piston engines! The current in fuselage fuel lasts about eleven minutes, he does have wing tanks, but hasn’t connected them yet. During the setup he was firing the bird up in the parking lot! Got a lot of attention. Go to the website at http://www.silentwingsairshows.com/jet.html for more details. The Lighthawk project (http://www.glidersport.net) is equally impressive. This is a fully enclosed 15 M ship that weighs about 150 pounds ready to go. Pilots weight is up to 240 lb. The design objective is to get to a min sink of 60 fpm. If you can get to 60 fpm rate of sink, you can probably soar on almost any day, and stay up forever! Paul McReady’s presentation later on Elegant Soaring echoed that statement. For what it is worth, fog rises at 60 fpm, so you could soar on fog! The next effort on Lighthawk should reach the magic number. It is a very slick looking machine – some of the construction leaves a bit to be desired compared to an LS-6 or something like that, but the stories are amazing. The landing gear is very robust as well. Finally, check out the cockpit photo and see just how small your instrument panel could be if you really thought about it! Consider that in the design of your next ship. Bob Leve ran a very different session on Stress Free Soaring. He had some great ideas on how to make those never encountered dangerous events ( stall turn on base to final as the working example ) something that you can take action and survive- then get anxious after you are back on the ground. With some visualization techniques, you can take the worry out of some of those situations that might keep you from reaching that next cloud, or getting back safely. To try and summarize his session would not be fair – however try this example… You are about to turn to base from downwind and the inside wing stalls – over you go! What will you do?!? While your body want to panic – and hence freeze, if you had practiced in slow motion, eyes closed, sitting in your cockpit on the ground, several times the steps of stick forward and centered, rudder opposite the turn, pull out smoothly, then look for the landing point (not necessarily the runway!) your automatic reactions can overcome the panic and you will walk away! You had to be there to experience this session – so go to the next convention! Friday - I spent all day in the Clubs sessions as a speaker and so cannot tell the tales of the sessions – but all the folks I met at dinner seemed to really like everything from Crew Survival with Jim Payne , the On Line Contest by Reiner Rose, 120 mph all day by Kempton Izuno, Market Analysis of the different Data Loggers and Flight Computers, 900 hours in ETA, and getting sick n the sky were all very well attended and had lots of people talking afterwards. Of course Paul McReady’s session on elegant soaring was sold out. The only session on a new glider was Michael Greiner on the ASG-29. The general membership meeting had numerous awards presented - our own Nyal Williams won the Region 6 instructor of the year award for most ABC badges. Additionally, at the meeting one member challenges all of us present to a $2 for $1 match on any donations made to re-roofing fund that evening – total raised by end of day Friday was $10,000. (Don’t think the battle is over to pay for the building – total cost of repairs will be about $50K) By end of convention we had another 15,000 in the till to help re-build the building! Friday Night was the Ed and Charlie show – as always they put on a great story and comedy act – except it isn’t an act! As Ed Kilborne stated – he was forced to say some words he never in his wildest imagination would come out of his mouth , “ Charlie would you sign a copy of your book for me!” Charlie is now a schoolteacher – another amazing phase of his life – and told schoolteacher “jokes” that simply had every rolling! Saturday morning was spent in the Board of Directors meeting. Todd Herzog and I dealt with many issues of importance to the organization, and when this is all over, we will report out to you on things that impact pilots in region 6 and to members in general. [ More on this in a separate letter ] Saturday afternoon I took on the sessions for Penn State Soaring and Engineering program – they have really designed some very neat aircraft and even built the main fuselage of a racing class ship. Currently they are assembling an American Falcon. These kids get to sit around in a room with a highly motivated instructor (and one who can play guitar with the best of them at that) and think about the future of sailplane design, then actually go on the computers and do it! The results are very neat winglets already in use by several pilots and several yet to be built designs. They work with R/C aircraft then move on to the real thing. The briefing on winch launches was stunning! I will try to get a copy of this to bring back to our clubs. Bottom line, clubs in Europe can launch up to 60 ships in one hour from one winch – launches are normally to 1000 Meters and winches are computer controlled – at $10 per winch – with a cost of $2 per launch it is like printing money for the clubs. One club claims to buy a new glider every year from its winch profits! The key statement after watching one of these 4,000 foot launches ( in the USA ) was “ wasn’t that FUN! – when was the last time you said ‘Fun’ after a tow plane release?!” ( See this photo! http://groups.yahoo.com/group/winchdesign/ ) Key to the altitude is the new winch ropes – made of a new fiber – which are very light and have yet to fail on a launch. Supposedly a Grob 103 on a winch can be flown hands off from getting airborne to the top of the flight! Amazing stuff. The final evening banquet was spectacular. Complete with a volunteer ( SSA pilot ) amateur magician, the meal was very good, the company super and the speaker – out of this world! Really! It was Mike Melville – the pilot of SpaceShip One! He showed the videos of the training flights – “now this was the first landing and you can see I was a bit too high – whereupon the craft nearly runs out of runway as it rolls along a 100+ knots. This one was a bit low – where we see the landing gear pop out a full ½ second before touchdown. This one was just right! And so it went all evening” The view from the four video cameras in the cockpit was simply thrilling as the little craft went mach 3 and then entered a 29 rotation roll! We found out that the FAA worked hard to make sure no one other than the pilot was on board – Burt Rutan himself had tried to sneak aboard for the second flight. We applauded for about five minutes after the show was over – just more than one ask for from a speaker. [ Sure hope we can get him to come to Indy for an event!] Ok, on to the photo captions not covered in the above. All are labeled “SSA 05” and then subject: Registration – shows the opening day of registration Layout – the floor layout of gliders and booths Floor can be viewed as a sequence of the display floor just after opening – wanted to get a shot without too many people Baby Bowlus – this restored original was in the main hall, beautiful! Simulator – This is a neat machine! Front end of a G103 with a built in computer projector. The boards, rudders, elevator and ailerons all “work” and the screen can be configured for various types of gliders. Yes you work from takeoff to landing! Very good to get the procedures down. These are the shots during the Sailplane Experimental and Homebuilders association luncheon. Note the electric powered sailplane on one screen. Neat bunch of guys doing some very lightweight stuff! Steme, Duo, SISU nose, SISU, DG800M, Silent Prop, lecture on floor, CARAT McReady at Nose, - all show some of the planes from the show. Note that is Paul McReady at the nose of the CARAT motor glider. As always – we need your feedback via the Club Presidents, State Govs or direct as to what you need us to do to help Region 6. -Dave Newill

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