From today's FAA Prelims; note the reporting delay (i.e. Feb. 22 crunch date). Note also FAA registration data identifies the plane as a G-103A Twin II Acro (as distinct from the preliminary data description). Registered to a corporation. Let's hope the injury data is accurate... Begin...

Per the FAA preliminary accident/incident reports, during practice there was a minor mid-air (if there can be such a thing for the pilots involved!) between a JS-1A and a Ventus-2c. Happened July 31; reported August 2. Both gliders returned to Uvalde; damage to both listed as minor; no...

Watching this gave me the willies... Today RC; tommorow DuckHawk VNX? :-) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfoxjNg-eg0&feature Chip G.; doin' anything this winter?!? Bob - playing on the freeway seems about as safe - W.

Not a good past 2 weeks per FAA prelims...midair (no reported injuries, thank heaven!) apparently yesterday, & a takeoff groundloop a week ago Monday. Three "substantially damaged" gliders. IDENTIFICATION Regis#: 101LV Make/Model: CEN Description: CENTRAIR 101 Date: 06/07/2012...

Another weekend, another two glider "incidents"... Check out http://southtahoenow.com/story/02/05/2012/report-glider-crash-heavenly-mountain-resort-calstar-helicopter-its-way So, OK, no injuries (apparently), and no aircraft damage, but done on a flight review?! And sure, wavish days out west...

What with it being mid-winter in the northern hemisphere, wouldn't it be wonderful if the 2012 U.S. soaring-activity-year got off to a nice, safe start? Especially with the SSA Convention coming up and in light of the statistically dismal last two years... Not gonna happen, folks. Per today's...

A newsgroup may well be one of the worst imaginable venues for 'selling safety' (other than Twitter, of course...) but the recent threads focusing on it set me to musing. Don't look for any pithy snippets of panacea wisdom in what follows, but if some of it gets a reader or two to cogitating on...

(Apologies for the truncated earlier post...the 'draft' and 'send' buttons are adjacent...) Most U.S. glider pilots know of Tom Knauff, creator and long-time proprietor of the well-known Ridge Soaring Gliderport in Pennsylvania. Probably fewer are aware he has an intermittent electronic...

Check out... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXwy7dsLndM ....for a nice/useful/short video of two flapped landings in an HP-14, owned/flown/filmed by Wayne Paul (and posted here with his permission). Curious reader-pilots may find the following information helpful, should they attempt to...

About the only 'good' thing associated with having recent/multiple sailplane-based fatalities involving premature releases from tow *might* be that it tends to: 1) focus one's thought process(es), and 2) might also *possibly* serve as a mental door opener to 'learning something new,' or...

So OK, naysayers, doom mongers and skeptics may disagree, but (to me) good news is good news. As measured by the FAA's Preliminary Accident & Incident Notices - specifically the absence therein of any glider reports for the month of January - 2013 is off to a distinctly better start than 2012...

I would like to download and install the KLM files into Google Earth but don’t know how to do that. I want to use them for flying Microsoft FSX. Can someone help me. Thank You Bob Ski

I recently heard, from a usually reliable source, that after a recent launch incident, the FAA investigators wanted to see the operation's "certification" for their tow rope. Is this certification a legal requirement? If so, how do you go about getting one? Thanks, Bob McKellar

An alternative exists for now at: http://boblepp.com/smf Not affiliated with any organization or club, wide open.

North Americans! or anyone renting a car in Germany, business is done differently there. I just had the most terrible experience at Munich Airport. I took my wife back to Germany for the first time since she emigrated in 1954. I treated us to a 16 day Dollar Rent A Car reservation for "an Audi A4...

Are there useful things an app on your iPhone could do to enhance your soaring day? Not task flying and flight logging, there are enough of those. I was thinking about the many lookups, tasks, notes, lists and "stuff" we gather by computer in the life of a soaring pilot. Would it be useful to be...

Sorry, eh? I am sorry to interrupt your normally highly productive use of the internet. But your glider is at risk. It is only time separating you from the obvious damage coming to your aircraft soon. When I bought my first glass ship, the competition letters had been applied with EXTENSIVE use of...

CNN just announced Sully Sullenberger is a glider instructor. Assuming this is true, may I congratulate him, US Air and perhaps the SSA for helping produce an incredible landing on the Hudson and no major injuries. Seems gliding experience can be of use on occasion to airline pilots, as Canada's...

Mystery solved: The light just went on when helping a fellow Snowbird figure out why he was having date inquiry issues for USA flights 'yesterday'.... He luckily stated that he always went to ssa.org and used their OLC link.... THIS IS AN OLD, NOW INCORRECT, LINK! Do not use the SSA page link...

The good thing about the 'new' OLC rules for the USA contest, that being Canadians now claim to the USA contest for USA flights (in prior years we could claim USA flights within our own OLC contest, treating North America as one space).... is that we now regularly check the USA contest to see how...