Roger Ruch - Final Glide

Roger Ruch took his final glide on 29 Sept. 2005. A retired airline
pilot with 32 years with American, he was also an active and a
well-known sailplane pilot during the 1960's and 70's. He made some
unique and impressive cross-country flights in his beloved and then new
Schweizer 2-32 sailplane. His 2-32 was exceedingly well equipped for
both night and instrument flight conditions. He made several
cross-country distance record attempts in that sailplane. At least one
of those distance record attempts started from high in a southern
California Sierra wave during night conditions. He then navigated
downwind across Arizona and/or Nevada, talking to airliners on the way.

When illness finally overtook him during 1996, he generously donated
his fine 2-32 sailplane to the Texas Soaring Association, where it is
still a fine addition to their club glider training fleet.
He will be remembered by the many pilots and friends who knew him.
Dick Johnson - Dallas, TX

I don't claim to represent the entire rec.aviation.soaring readership,
but my 2 cents follows as regards what appears to be the majority
opinion based on the feedback posted on this topic awhile back. The
soaring community is populated by a relatively small group of
enthusiasts; perhaps even declining in numbers. I don't think we can
afford to make the few vendors in this sport shy about communicating
their products to this site. Personally, I'd rather know about the
availability about new products, reviews, commercial soaring
operations, resources and "unbiased" opinions from our soaring-related
businesses than be in the blind. After-all many of us use this
usergroup to sell our personal gliders and gadgets, so whay is that any
different? It's not as though the commercial guys have the option of
advertizing in the Sunday paper, and are they really getting rich off
us anyways? As with anything flying across as e-mails, we can chose to
ignore at will. I say let's support them as much as possible and help
ourselves and our sports at the same time.

Mike

Sorry about the mis-posting to this final glide announcement. Very
embarassing.