2008 SSA Convention Details ???

Thanks Renny and Darryl and Mike. Very good writeups of things and
issues at the convention. Almost made me feel I was there - except no
great NM green chile dinners!

On Feb 20, 9:16*pm, Darryl Ramm wrote:
I wrote up a brief summary of what interested me, available hehttp://www.mindensoaringclub.com

Flarm in the USA is just a matter of time, they basically announced
their intent to enter the USA market and are talking to potential
dealers, etc.

Darryl

On Feb 20, 5:54 pm, Tim wrote:



Come on now, what where some of the highlights from this year's
convention for those of us stuck at home for various reasons. With no
convention next year, there should have been a lot of "new" stuff.
Usually RAS is full of post-convention

Some information I would love to hear about would be....

How'd the Flarm/ADS-B forum go?
Extreme Performance/Sinha De-turbulator update?
Duckhawk update?
Anything else of interest?

Really, anythign will do...

EY (sitting here with Baby...)- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

On Feb 20, 11:40*pm, Darryl Ramm wrote:

What would be interesting is a combined Zaon PCAS + Flarm unit.
People were asking about the possibility of this at the convention.



Actually, the Flarm presenter said he was going to meet up with the
ZAON people at the convention and discuss it.

On Feb 20, 7:54*pm, Tim wrote:
Come on now, what where some of the highlights from this year's
convention...


From my perspective... I only attended 2 presentations; The Perlin
Project, which was unreal in a sense. The flying discussed was
amazing as was the hardware. Surfing the polar vortex? Incredible.
Also strange that one of the participants was not present and has
recently been declared dead. Big surprise was how far they've come in
putting together the phase 2 pressurized sailplane. Looking for
sponsors now that Steve is gone.

The other presentation I attended was Wanders "good bad and ugly" or
whatever it was called. 2 important points from this. 1. the
"optimist dingy" sailboat class as a model for what soaring could do
to get new young people involved. Personally I have a big axe to
grind on this subject as I think sailplanes are too damn expensive.
The Soaring into the Future thread last month on this forum began to
address this and many of those posters met informally at the
convention on this topic. I had no idea Wander was thinking along
these lines and I was glad to hear it. I suspect that most at Wanders
presention thought it was cute but already have sailplanes so don't
really get it.
2. Wander has suggested that the SSA is doing fine at Hobbs without an
executive director and DOESN'T NEED ONE! Instead, occasional experts
can be hired as needed to solve problems. One person I talked with
after the presentation thought it was Wanders self serving plan to
provide himself with choice employment opportunities down the road but
anyone who knows Bob would think that laughable. His only interest
lately seems to be hanging about on sailboats! He IS very protective
of the staff at Hobbs and is sick of seeing them get beat up by
directors.

One very impressive display was the almost completed remanufactured
new antique Schleicher #50. Someone should post photos!

The rest of the time I spent meeting people, getting re-acquainted,
introducing people, including my 3, twenty-something pals from Iowa
who had a GREAT time and were great company. (you guys make me look
good), telling and hearing stories... It was a groovy time and to
each of you I was lucky to spend a few minutes with, Thanks!
Matt Michael

Yes Matt, the SSA Convention was great. I had a blast visiting with
everybody. Manning the SSF booth again this year gave us the great
opportunity to meet and greet with glider pilots from all over. Our
trip back was pretty notable, and thankfully Chris has gotten the
pictures and the story all put together. RAS folks will certainly
enjoy it, here it is:

http://www.public.iastate.edu/~cuhl/...atriphome.html

wrote:
On Feb 20, 7:54�pm, Tim wrote:
Come on now, what where some of the highlights from this year's
convention...


From my perspective... I only attended 2 presentations; The Perlin
Project, which was unreal in a sense. The flying discussed was
amazing as was the hardware. Surfing the polar vortex? Incredible.
Also strange that one of the participants was not present and has
recently been declared dead. Big surprise was how far they've come in
putting together the phase 2 pressurized sailplane. Looking for
sponsors now that Steve is gone.

The other presentation I attended was Wanders "good bad and ugly" or
whatever it was called. 2 important points from this. 1. the
"optimist dingy" sailboat class as a model for what soaring could do
to get new young people involved. Personally I have a big axe to
grind on this subject as I think sailplanes are too damn expensive.
The Soaring into the Future thread last month on this forum began to
address this and many of those posters met informally at the
convention on this topic. I had no idea Wander was thinking along
these lines and I was glad to hear it. I suspect that most at Wanders
presention thought it was cute but already have sailplanes so don't
really get it.
2. Wander has suggested that the SSA is doing fine at Hobbs without an
executive director and DOESN'T NEED ONE! Instead, occasional experts
can be hired as needed to solve problems. One person I talked with
after the presentation thought it was Wanders self serving plan to
provide himself with choice employment opportunities down the road but
anyone who knows Bob would think that laughable. His only interest
lately seems to be hanging about on sailboats! He IS very protective
of the staff at Hobbs and is sick of seeing them get beat up by
directors.

One very impressive display was the almost completed remanufactured
new antique Schleicher #50. Someone should post photos!

The rest of the time I spent meeting people, getting re-acquainted,
introducing people, including my 3, twenty-something pals from Iowa
who had a GREAT time and were great company. (you guys make me look
good), telling and hearing stories... It was a groovy time and to
each of you I was lucky to spend a few minutes with, Thanks!
Matt Michael

Thanks from this Soaring Safety Foundation (SSF) Trustee to Matt
Michael and Tony Condon (The "Cherokee Kid") for staffing the SSF
booth at the SSA Convention. Both guys are valuable resources as SSF
Advisors to the SSF Trustees, and congrats to Tony for coming aboard
as our newest SSF Advisor. We couldn't accomplish the SSF Training
and Safety programs without you! For info on the SSF programs go to
www.soaringsafety.org

It was our annual reunion, as always. Kathie, Cozy Dog and I enjoyed
meeting and greeting old friends from around the world, making new
ones, especially the enthusiast lads from Utah and Iowa that made the
nonstop drive with their soaring mentors, Matt and Tony.

The future of soaring was at the SSA Convention - - did you meet them?
You could also chat with the enthusiastic "winch heads" and the
ultralight glider folks, the self-launch gents and the Women Soaring
Pilots, among the soaring tribes represented.

The history of soaring in America was also there, including our
National Soaring Museum and the Vintage Sailplane Association. Our
mentors past and present were accessible to talk with including Dick
Johnson, Bob Wander, "Big John" Brittingham, Jim Short, Walt Cannon,
Bernald Smith, George Applebay, and so many more.

All of the SSA Staff, carefully managed by our Executive - whatever
her title is / give her a promotion - Denise Layton, were terrific.
New kid on the SSA Staff Kathy Pope stepped in during the recent
months to manage the Convention details, and fixed things or held her
ground on some minor complaints. The Albuquerque local soaring club
folks were there in support.

So your 26 SSA Directors have voted (over a year ago) that we will not
have another full SSA Convention until 2010, date and place currently
unknown, but bids are being considered. SSA Director Cindy Brickner
assures me we may have some sort of "symposium" supported by a region
or a club, but not necessarily by the SSA, with no sailplanes, no
vendors, per the SSA Directors. Sounds a bit dry, but we'll make the
best of it, and I bet Cindy will beat the drum to get started on
organizing our future gatherings. Contact your SSA Regional Director
to learn more, or volunteer to organize some gatherings,seminars, even
a convention.

In the meantime we'll continue to make our own fun down in the
mountains of southwest Texas between now and 2010, including our
upcoming spring Wave Camp / Dedication of the NSM National Landmark of
Soaring and our "Follow the Sun / Endless Summer" soaring safari's.

Finally, besides the personalities and the seminars at ABQ, I had some
wonderful sailplanes to look at, and took a rather large one home to
Marfa. It flies great.
My "last sailplane".

Thanks to all my friends for your encouragement. See you in 2010, if
not much sooner!

Burt
Marfa, west Texas: Where yesterday's "USA Today" arrives tomorrow.

Did anybody record anything?

Audio?
Video?
CDs?
Podcasts?
Tapes?

On Feb 23, 2:43*am, Pat Russell wrote:
Did anybody record anything?

Audio?
Video?
CDs?
Podcasts?
Tapes?

Even just some pictures would keep me happy. Did anyone just wander
around with a camera snapping interesting stuff, and now wants to put
the results on flickr.com?


Dan

On Feb 24, 5:47*am, Dan G wrote:
On Feb 23, 2:43*am, Pat Russell wrote:
Even just some pictures would keep me happy...

I took a bunch of design detail photos, probably not what you're
looking for:

http://www.hpaircraft.com/hp-24/update_19_feb_08.htm

Thanks, Bob K.

On 24 Feb, 15:06, Bob Kuykendall wrote:
On Feb 24, 5:47*am, Dan G wrote:

On Feb 23, 2:43*am, Pat Russell wrote:
Even just some pictures would keep me happy...

I took a bunch of design detail photos, probably not what you're
looking for:

http://www.hpaircraft.com/hp-24/update_19_feb_08.htm

Thanks, Bob K.

Thanks, that was quite interesting and better than nothing.

On a wider note, it's quite possible to make conferences accessible
for more than just those who can go. Presentations can be put on the
web as ppt or pdfs, and audio of the presentation can be recorded and
distributed as a podcast (much more can be done -- live streaming,
video podcasts etc. but that's all trickier to execute and not really
needed).

It's a shame more conferences don't provide "remote coverage" in this
way. Yes, much of what a conference is about is the face-to-face chats
and networking, but saving the presentations in this way would be of
benefit to people who attended and want to look up details afterwards
too, I bet.

Ah well, I can dream...


Dan

On Feb 25, 5:53 am, Dan G wrote:
On 24 Feb, 15:06, Bob Kuykendall wrote:

On Feb 24, 5:47 am, Dan G wrote:

On Feb 23, 2:43 am, Pat Russell wrote:
Even just some pictures would keep me happy...

I took a bunch of design detail photos, probably not what you're
looking for:

http://www.hpaircraft.com/hp-24/update_19_feb_08.htm

Thanks, Bob K.

Thanks, that was quite interesting and better than nothing.

On a wider note, it's quite possible to make conferences accessible
for more than just those who can go. Presentations can be put on the
web as ppt or pdfs, and audio of the presentation can be recorded and
distributed as a podcast (much more can be done -- live streaming,
video podcasts etc. but that's all trickier to execute and not really
needed).

It's a shame more conferences don't provide "remote coverage" in this
way. Yes, much of what a conference is about is the face-to-face chats
and networking, but saving the presentations in this way would be of
benefit to people who attended and want to look up details afterwards
too, I bet.

Ah well, I can dream...

Dan

I agree we should be sure the 2010 convention has recorded sessions,
and we may have a budget. Ping Promotion & Development Committee.

There are some images of the winches in the winchdesign yahoo group
for those interested in winching.

Frank Whiteley