A couple of weekends ago, we had a great time at the Burgers and Beer social after the day’s flying.
Burgers and Beer social
Photos from the Memorial Day Soaring Event
We hosted a soaring event over Memorial Day weekend, 2019. We had a great time with pilots from all over Texas.
Many of these photos are by Osvaldo Bins Ely.
GHSA now has a Mach 0.1/Condor 2 soaring simulator!
We now have a soaring simulator! Come check it out!
Jason Bridger, Todd Hahn, Alex Hahn and Michael Hunter put the Mach 0.1 soaring cockpit together on Friday night. Todd and Alex had previously built the computer and setup the Condor 2 soaring software. Because of the on-and-off weather on Saturday, some of our students used the simulator already! This will be a great addition to our set of instructional tools.
Check out the photos below:
Annual Banquet
We had 28 people at our annual banquet last night. Everyone attending had a good time. Lou almost burned the place down with his 12 pound brie.
Here are the awards:
Total Glider Flights (non-intro, non-instructional): Dak Davis - 130 flights
Total Glider Flight Hours (non-intro, non-instructional): Dak Davis - 68:39
Average of Longest Five Flights (From GHSA, non-contest): Steve Nichols: 4:05
Tow Pilot of the Year: Adam Harris, 111 tows
Intro Pilot of the Year: Dak Davis, 45 flights
Iron Man of the Year: Uwe Prigge 103 flights (73 instruction, 2 intro, 33 tows)
Flight Safety Crew Person of the Year: Jason Bridger, 117.3 hours
Dispatcher of the Year: Beth Aslaksen: 118.8 hours
Maintenance Crew Person of the Year: Travis LaGrone, 136.6 hours
Volunteer of the Year (total volunteer hours, exclusive of board time): Craig Shoemaker, 336 hours
Thank you to ALL of our volunteers. You make this organization possible!
Click on the right side of the photo to scroll through the photos.
Instructor Refresher Course Hosted at GHSA
This past weekend, we hosted a two-day Flight Instructor Refresher Course (FIRC) that instructors must take every two years at our aviation center. Thanks to Rich Carlson, Tom Johnson, Russ Howard, and the Soaring Safety Foundation who put on the class and to Jamie Shore of SCOH for organizing. We had instructors and non-instructors from GHSA and from several other glider clubs attending. Lots of good discussion and learning!
We also had operations this weekend, and had 16 flights, including two introductory flights.
Work Day at the Field - Thanks for all the help!
Wow, another great day, even though the field was too wet to fly (sound familiar? argh!)
We had a work day today at the airfield. By my count, at least 24 people were here helping out, including a few new members who jumped right in. We pressure washed the deck and the hangar doors, cleaned out the hangar, worked on hangar door maintenance, painted door number lines, replaced light fixtures in the AV center, repaired the pump house, washed windows, and worked on lots of other miscellaneous fixes and improvements.
Gary and Uwe cooked breakfast and lunch for the hungry volunteers.
Thanks to everyone who came out today! It was great! And thanks much to Jason and Ken who organized the effort and did a lot of planning and prep work to make this a successful event.
Thanks to Uwe for the photos.
Skew-T Ground School. Painting doors
Wow, what a great day, even though the field was too wet to fly.
First, I (Todd) gave a ground school lesson on Skew-T/Log-P plots and how I use them for forecasting the soaring day.
After the lesson, we took advantage of the beautiful weather and sanded and repainted the doors on the Aviation Center. Pam, Adam, Dak, David B, Dak, and Jason helped all day long and we completed each door (eight of them!). Thanks everyone!
Dak obtains CFI-G rating!
Dak Davis (on the right in the photo), all of 20 years old and a member of the Greater Houston Soaring Association in Walls Texas, is now an FAA Certified Flight Instructor - Glider! He passed his CFI-G practical test today with Designated Pilot Examiner Gregg Squires (left) at Fault Line Flyers in Bertram, Texas. Dak now holds a commercial glider rating, an advanced ground instructor rating and a CFI-G rating. Congratulations to Dak on this huge accomplishment.
This brings Greater Houston Soaring Association's instructor corps to 11 instructors!
Patrick Heer (R) soloed for the first time on Saturday with CFI-G Michael Hunter providing the instruction and sign-off. Looking on was Patrick’s father, Philippe, and also his grandfather. Congratulations Patrick!
The sound of a sailplane
Have you ever heard the sound a sailplane makes as it flies overhead? One of the best sounds.
GHSA member and towpilot Adam Harris took these photos of a Blanik L-23 glider landing at our field today.
