Beautiful, Beautiful May Rain and wind, but also sunshine and great days to fly. Oh my! Oh my! I'll tell you about May, if I may. NEW MEMBERS Please reach out to these new CISS members. Daniel Gillies – Daniel is a Student Member. He is an Aeronautical Engineering major at Purdue. He spends most of his weekend time at Muncie, so CISS is in a convenient location for Daniel to pursue a Private rating and learn to soar. 765-418-4108, dgillies@purdue.edu Michael Schmitt – is a Rolls Royce retiree and comes to us through his friendship with Terry Wools. Mike holds Instructor ratings in single and multi-engine airplanes and is a CFII. He looks forward to turning his attention to soaring as he works toward his Glider Rating. 765-643-4768 Richard Schafer - Richard is retired from the Kaiser Foundation in Hawaii. He winters there and stays out of trouble by working as a commercial Glider Pilot at both Dillingham Field and at Pearl Harbor. He also holds SEL and SES ratings and has recently also started towing. We are lucky to be close to Richards summer digs, where he raises beef cattle near Winchester, IN. 765-584-8343 Andru Ross – Andru is a student at Tipton High School. He has had some prior glider instruction at Clermont FL. He and his dad, Jack have been fairly regular at the field. 765-675-4977, slimbocher90@aol.com Phillip Gordon - Phil has applied for a Family Membership. Phil's son Andrew, 13, is also listed on the application. Phil holds a Commercial SEL Certificate with Instrument and CFII ratings. He once owned a Champ and has 2,040 total hours. Phil has not had a glider flight since 1980 or a PIC flight since 1986. He would like to start working on his GLI rating. Welcome to all! Jeff Melin ANOTHER PW-5 ENDORSEMENT Gerry Simpson continued advancing his gliding skills and on May 21st he successfully flew our beloved "Papa Whisky" for the first time. He had a full hour of fun in his first flight, was called down to let someone else fly, and flew it again for more than an hour. He landed only because he ran out of day. So, in his first day in a single seater, Gerry logged more than 2 hours. Congratulations Gerry!

MAY 5th. SUPER THURSDAY! According to Ron Clarke, these were the best soaring conditions he has ever seen in Indiana. Several pilots climbing to 9000' MSL altitudes, and Pete Detore reaching as high as 9100ft in the Grob. This year's highest flight so far. Nyal Williams and Mike Nichols had a leisurely flight to Lebanon and back, and Ron Clarke broke the existing Indiana 300km triangle Open Class speed record. Read an article from Mike Nichols about his flight on page 2.

05/05/05 5 HOURS IN THE PW5! After two unsuccessful attempts to attain the silver duration, I was finally able to fly the uninterrupted 5+ hours. That was my best "Cinco de Mayo" ever. Look at the beautiful barogram, and read an article I wrote about it on page 3.

INSTRUCTOR'S CORNER An entirely new written test is now in effect for the Bronze Badge. In consists of 50 questions and is a good sampling of questions that a person needs to be able to answer before beginning cross-country flight in a glider. The best news about this is that there are more than 150 questions on the Soaring Safety Foundation website that are geared for study for passing this test. It also includes recommended sources for finding the answers to these questions, they have just told me. Students and Instructors should review this site and these questions. They would probably be a good review for experienced pilots just for brushing up. Nyal Williams Chief Instructor

LEE BOTTOM Several members of our club spent the weekend of May 7th and 8th in Southern Indiana, visiting the Lee Bottom airport. There, they flew, ate, slept and broke a bunch of Kentucky soaring records. The Kentucky origins of the records were achieved by the tactic of starting a record task over Kentucky, just across the river, and re-entering Indiana to fly the task. Visit our BLOG and read all about it.

WHAT IS THIS? The inside of the ribcage of some gigantic fish? Some ultra-modern railroad tunnel? A well-lighted mine shaft? Click on the picture.

CAREFUL WHERE YOU STEP This is a picture taken 20 yards in front of the glider's hangar. In this case, pebble camouflage for these eggs is a hazard rather than protection. Keep you eyes open for other nests around the airport.

VISITORS FORMATION On May 21st, six troublesome warbirds flew in formation around our Alexandria airport. They were making a lot of noise and obstructing our gliding operations, breaking out the thermals, sticking out their tongues and trying to steal our lunch. This left Mike Hutchison no other option than scare them away with the tow plane.

SUMMER SEMINARS Our Director of Operations wants you to read his proposal about schooling in the Summer, specially for the new members. Read his proposal on page 4.

I WANT YOU to write an article for this Newsletter. Please send them to me before June 15th.

The month of May had great days for soaring ... when it was soarable. Which reminds us that our sport is very dependent on the weather. Some days the weather looked better than it was, and other days it was better than it looked. If you want to fly, rack up your hours, practice, progress etc. you have to be there and you have to be patient. Believe me, your love of soaring WILL be rewarded. You just don't know exactly when. CU at the field! –Mario Lazaga

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