WARNIMG: Longish, U.S.-centric post below!!! OK - It's winter (again, sigh) in my neck of the woods and some recent RAS posts touching upon contests and the (over-)reporting thereof in "Soaring" magazine, plus a kinda-sorta related post from "Soaring's" newish-editor, move me to muse a bit,...

Other than having been - and remaining - thoroughly enamored with soaring (and all its varied aspects) since bumbling into it in the early '70s, I have no dog in the "racing vs. competition (aka US rules vs. FAI rules) tempest," but since no one else has mentioned a few thoughts that have...

In the spirit of the season - northern hemisphere winter, I mean, of course! - another RAS thread raised the question of how Joe Glider Pilot might go about assessing how much more field will be necessary if his chosen field has an obstruction along/near its downwind border. (They all do, of...

Light and bushel barrel stuff??? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRqhBF4PXcw BTDT? Dead Horse Point State Park... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrUk8tpL7tQ d boB ---

The seniors contest is right around the corner and things could be heating up for the weather and soaring conditions. Florida has been very wet during the winter months, usually our dry period. Now that the winds are increasing we seem to be drying out even the swamp areas are now being burned off...

What a surprise, just today my son brought me a great gift to fight off the flaming liberals at the gliderport. It is a Bulgarian AK47 with 2000 rounds of ammunition. Thank god that I raised this kid correctly, educated him and he achieved the status of a Structural Engineer, PE. He advised me to...

Interesting situation that we are all faced with the last few weeks, things are more serious than we ever expected. I was having a great discussion last evening with my family member who is an Infectious Disease MD, the discussion was eye opening! This is a game changer, and China has much to blame...

Since the start of our club three years ago we have been looking at the possibility of buying a new club ship. We are looking at the ASK21 and the DG1001. Funding has always been difficult, in this small start up environment it is almost impossible to obtain the amount of monies necessary to pull...

Treasure Coast Soaring Club continues to grow and doing well. As compared to last June our revenue for the same period in 2020 was up 65%. New members continue to bring excitement and activity to club, helping out with daily activities and special projects. Just yesterday we had a youth member do...

Recent tragedies will certainly bring insurance rates and coverage into the spotlight once again. IMHO things will change not only in cost but coverage as well. Underwriters cannot continue to pay out high amounts for such a small population of their overall policies. I foresee changes coming to...

I recently thought that I had seen it all until someone informed me that a guy was taking his dog for a glider ride. Now please understand I love dogs, have a wonderful Yellow Lab and treat her like our kid. Really never thought dogs and planes went well together, but what in the world would any...

I will be departing with my beloved Yellow Gorilla Pawnee towplane in the near future. The new Towplane is named Towpecker and is another Pawnee, but a bit more HP. The Gorilla is a real beauty, extremely low time 180 HP Pawnee that is absolutely gorgeous. I really love this bird, it is a wonderful...

Our club is in need of LS-3A fuselage control parts. We have a damaged LS-3A fuselage for a rebuild project that was damaged in a hurricane. Sad news is that several fuselage parts were removed and lost. If there is a LS-3A fuselage out there please let me know. Bob, Treasure Coast Soaring Club

The FAA has made it possible for glider plots with very limited time to acquire a CFIG rating with only 15 hours of total glider time. This is truly an accident waiting to happen, what could a glider pilot actually know with such limited time? What do you think?

Our club recently was gifted a late production Phoebus for our youth program to assist it rebuilding. The ship is like no Phoebus that you have ever seen! Without further detail all I will say is WOW! World class painter was commissioned to do the artwork on the tail. What we need is some...

I have a radio that needs a wiring harness, Becker AR3201 can anyone help. Thanks, Bob

As we all look at the weather it is difficult to not see all the attention presented by Dorian, the big monster headed our way. Most of the last two days were spent preparing our club here in Vero Beach for what could be a devastating blow. All gliders were boxed and stored, I moved Eileen's ASW24...

I took a look at OLC last evening and noticed that the top two scores were from two guys flying the ridge in PA. They were each flying a 1-26, way to go,nice flights guys!

Recent activity with heavy equipment such as wheel loaders and bulldozers is making huge improvements to Treasure Coast Soaring in Vero Beach. Looks like we could be making available about 50 RV pads for seasonal fliers. I will keep you posted.

As we get closer to August the tropics are showing those typical late summer cyclone development possibilities. There is one on the horizon for early Sunday, so I guess it is time to put the gliders in the box and store on a secure location. Our club will be securing all gliders and I will take the...