We recently converted from 3/16 7x9 cable to 3/16 plasma rope on our winch. "Plasma", made from Honeywell "Spectra" fiber, seems to have some real advantages over wire or cable. Some benifits include light weight, 11.48lbs per thousand, (that's not much even converted to metric!!), hollow braid (no...

http://sailplane-racing.org/ Ken Kochanski SRA Secretary

After performing a leak check on my TE system, my SN10 now sounds a continuous tone after power up. (On the ground, haven’t tried in the air) It is not in speed to fly mode but is in vario mode. Prior to this it was always “silent� after start up. Have I possibly damaged an internal sensor...

Rod Morris, a PW-6 private owner operating out of Invemere in the British Columbia Rocky Mountains, just messaged --- "With both kids now flying, the plane gets a great deal of use. Plus I have been allowing some junior club memebers and other pilots to get checked out on it so they can...

I do not think that soaring community to trash current World Class. There are some gliders out there at least and there are competitions. And PW-5 seems to be a perfect glider for beginning pilots in clubs. But I still believe that although the idea of the monoclass is very good, the problem is...

Those crafty Germans in their ginger bread, garden gnome workshops are building model sailplanes that blur the distinction between the real thing and RC models. Check this out: http://www.manfred-schadl.de/ASW15b%20gr%20a.jpg I was thinking of getting one of these for my 2 year old and...

Does anyone out there in this world make glider launch winches or are there plans available?? THANKS!! Ted

Single seater in Finalnd or Sweden for 2-3 weeks time frame mid July- mid August. 18/open. Ash 25 isok 2 or/and 2-seater in ALPS (Duo, 25, Arcus, 4DM) Late July- End of august for 10 days

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wR4aBVyVW0&feature=youtube_gdata_player Please endure the music and watch this video, paying particular attention to 2:00 to 2:25 into the short video. As was often argued with other PNA bases systems recently...why would these well known soaring manufactures offer...

We all know what the manufacturer's polars look like, but what about our individual planes. Has anyone done any work to develop a program that would look at some flight logs and determine what a particular glider's actual polar is? At one point Ball was making a vario system that would determine...

Single seater in Finland or Sweden for 2-3 weeks time frame mid July- mid August. 18/open. Ventus 2, ASW27, ASG29, JS1, Nimbus 4, ASH 25, Lak 17, etc. Paying 2k€ or/and 2-seater in ALPS (Duo, 25, Arcus, 4DM) Late July- End of august for 10 days

Bill Schweizer, the last of the three brothers who founded Schweizer Aircraft Corporation, has passed away. Here is a link to his obituary: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/star-gazette/obituary.aspx?n=william-schweizer&pid=177226098&fhid=13269

Hi group, Just a note to remind owners of older Becker AR3201 radios to check your internal nicad button cell batteries. These tend to leak after a few years, and if left too long will destroy your PC board ending the useful life of a pretty good radio! I found this green-crystal crud beginning...

Seems to me that it's been a while since we had a good brouhaha over pretakeoff checklists. Most of use use either ABBCCCDDE (or is it AABBCCDDE? Or ABBBCCCCDDEEFG?) or CBSIFTCB or some other variant. I'm curious what you use and WHY? What have you added or subtracted to the "base" checklist to...

I want to install a Winter 4FGH 40 altimeter with an EASA Form 1 certificate in my S-LSA motorglider with the Becker TSO'd transponder. My avionics shop says that the altimeter must be TSO'd as well. Can anyone cite FAA regulations about this issue? Any information would be welcome.

Hi all, I'm here to report that I cheated death and survived a flight in a glider with the dreaded "Landing Flaps and V-Tails of Death". Jim Harper graciously allowed me to fly his beautiful HP-16. What's an HP-16 you say? Well, looks to be just like the HP-18 (or I should say the HP-18 is just...

I am going to be in Portugal from September 2 until September 17. It would be great to be able to visit a soaring site and even better to be able to fly. I speak Spanish and understand Portuguese some time... Any information would be most welcome. Peter Kelemen

Task for all classes: TAT Grand Coulee Dam 15 m radius Kramer Ranch 20 m radius Hansen Silos 15 m radius 2:30 hrs min time So basically up north, to the east, back to the west and home. During Noel Wades weather briefing he put up a satellite loop that showed a thick stream of cirrus flowing over...

Dreadful news coming from the UK today. Matt Wright (Balleka on YouTube) was tragically killed in a mid-air whilst flying his glider this weekend. I believe he collided with a power plane. I'm sure we have all watched some of Matt's videos on YouTube over and over. He will be sorely missed. RIP...

The "new web site" is live, and it is very slow to load, and I can't find anything... Where did the state records go? And when I tried to login it made me spend much time training Google's AI via a "Captcha" - I hate those things with a white-hot passion! And then it rejected my password. (I...