New Members

Mario Zambrano – Welcome Mario! Mario is a Marketing Manager at Dow Agrosciences. He has no prior flying experience but is looking forward to beginning his flight training in August. Mario has indicated a preference for Sunday crew - good news for a Sunday crew! Mario and his wife, Patrica live in Carmel. Ken Harry lives nearby and will be Mario's Mentor. Mario's phone number is 317-873-6305 and email mezr@aol.com.

Proper Postivie Control Checks

While flying at Marfa, TX after a 1450 mi. trail, I experienced a disconnect of the left aileron during a PCC. This was a fortunate thing, as full control deflections were common on tow and in the rough lower portions of the strong thermals encountered there. Here is what happened: On day 1, I assembled, intending to fly but was cut off by dust storms kicked off by large Cu Nims spawned in the nearby mountains. I had a new crew and was training as we went. The PCC did not reveal any irregularity as it had been a tug-of-war between me and the crew. On day 2, preflight preparations were repeated, following a little talk on the PCC process, how to do it and why, another PCC was done. When making a full deflection of the ailerons, a scraping noise was heard in the ship. When a full deflection was made in the opposite direction, the noise resumed until the disconnect of the left aileron at less than full deflection. After removal of the O2 bottle to allow access to the control hook-ups, I discovered the monofilament line attaching the fender clip to the end of the left aileron control rod extension had been flipped twice around the loop of rope which suspends the rod and prevents it from falling and jamming the controls in the fuselage. During the PCC, the line had insufficient length and pulled tight, short of full deflection. The movement pulled the pin free of the H'otellier connector as the serrated release latch scraped against the fuselage and opened. Lessons learned: 1) Train everyone who helps with a PCC to allow full control deflections maintaining backpressure throughout the full range of travel in both directions at all stations. 2) Listen and feel for rubbing, scraping, and binding. 3) Never fly an aircraft that exhibits any of the above simptoms.

– Jeff Melin

The Road to Marfa

Sound like an old Bob Hope movie? Well it was not, but "the road" was 40% of the time I had to go there to soar. My trip started with an effort to put together a gathering of Standard Cirrus gliders and pilots at Marfa this summer. That included a meeting at the SSA Convention in Dayton that I had arranged, but missed along with the entire convention due to Sandy's just broken leg. The convention tie-in was Burt Compton, SSA drumbeater, Master CFIG, owner of Marfa Gliders, and both an Open and Standard Class Cirri. Of course, the convention was also the only place where any representative group of Cirrus owners might ever be in the same place at the same time. Concurrently, interest grew at CISS for a similar trip while the Cirri group never reached critical mass.

As our plan moved ahead, dates were agreed upon and RTKH came along right at the same time. I was torn between the two, but in the end decided on the Marfa trip. There was a lot of preparation to be done. Burt sent out a long list of projects to ready both oneself and sailplane for both the long journey and flying in the rugged conditions offered in the area. Oxygen is mandatory as flying at just under 12,500 MSL is normal on an average day. Field elevation is 4,850 MSL. We also had a preparation meeting held in the upstairs area at Montgomery Aviation. Thanks to both Ron Clarke for lending the benefit of his wealth of experience and Don Taylor who had downloaded waypoint data and prepared some sample tasks for 300 and 500kM flights. Our meeting was just the tip of the iceberg in becoming adequately oriented to this beautiful but inhospitable geography we were about to fly in.

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