We are excited to be covering the 2012 SSA Convention in Reno. This page will serve as the single source for all reports, interviews, and presentations from the speaker sessions plus all the photos and videos. The slideshow below highlights the best of our photos. Below, you will find several photo galleries grouping photos by Faces we’ve seen, the Exhibit Hall, and Gatherings. Below the photo galleries is a listing of all convention reports in reverse chronological order.
We hope you enjoy the coverage and will comment on what you like.
Click on the image below to view a panorama of the Exhibit Hall created by Robin Clark.
Click to Go to Panorama
Click on one of the thumbnails below to view a photo gallery.
Convention Faces
Exhibit Hall
Gatherings
Convention Reports
The Café thanks Tilo Holighaus and Bernd Weber of Schempp-Hirth sailplanes for providing Tilo’s SSA 2012 presentation for publication in the Café.
The Café also published a short video of Tilo introducing the Arcus in the SSA 2012 exhibit hall.
Northern Utah provides a unique opportunity in the USA to truly fly “in” the mountains. Logan has often been compared to Rieti, Italy, Saint-Auban, France and Omarama, New Zealand for the true mountain and ridge flying experiences. The skills and techniques required as well as the potential for long cross-country flights will be explored.
The February 4th SSA Awards Banquet concluded with an address by Capt. Barry Schiff. Barry is a retired TWA airline captain, journalist, and author, who has compiled an extraordinary record of accomplishment in general and sport aviation.
The February 4, 2012 SSA Awards Banquet was well-attended. According to the SSA staff, 327 convention attendees registered for the banquet. SSA Chairman Al Tyler welcomed the crowd and Master of Ceremonies Bob Wander introduced the head table. Following the meal, Chairman Al presented the SSA Awards, with help from Awards Committee Chairman Jay Campbell, Ralph Kolstad, and OLC’s Reiner Rose.
We are delighted to provide the following images from Maria Szemplinska. She creates truly beautiful photographs with a unique perspective. Let us know if you would like a copy and we can put you in touch with her. We hope you enjoy them as much as we have. — Bill and Rand Photos by Maria Szemplinska All rights reserved neetka@rogers.com www.neetka.ca
Windward Performance, a U. S. sailplane design and manufacturing company based in Bend, Oregon, had a prototype of the DuckHawk, their new 15 meter sailplane on display in the SSA convention exhibit hall.
Few pilots in the world are as experienced as Jim in flying the Sierra mountain wave. In his presentation, Jim describes the hazards of long wave flights, the equipment needed to make these flights safely, and how to adequately prepare for and plan long flights in the Sierra wave. He also recounts several of his many successful flights.
Gordon Boettger has made some remarkable—and record-setting—flights in the Sierra wave, at first with his Kestrel and more recently with Hugh Bennett in Hugh’s Duo Discus. Gordon lives about five minutes from the Minden airport, which is an ideal launching point for long distance wave flights in the Sierra and Great Basin.
Uys Jonker, co-founder of Jonker Sailplanes, makers of the 18
meter JS-1 Revelation, gave a very well-attended talk at the 2012 SSA convention in Reno on how refinements in glide aerodynamic design can add up to significant gains in performance over the current generation of 18 meter sailplanes.
Recently there’s been a lot of talk about electric power for aircraft, and a few electric-powered gliders are now being manufactured (there are even four electric powered Antares 20E in the USA). What are the advantages and disadvantages of electric power ? How do these compare to gas-powered machines? Dave and Robert will talk about the basics, and the particulars of a few examples.
We hope you enjoy this presentation from the 2012 SSA convention in Reno by Prof. Emeritus Dr. Edward (Ward) Hindman of the Earth and Atmospheric Science Dept., The City College of New York, NY USA.
As always, the exhibit hall was filled with gadgets galore, but a new product from LX Navigation caught my eye, so I asked one of the developers, Andrej Vrecer, to give us a demo.
SSA Chairman Al Tyler chaired the 2012 membership meeting, which featured the announcement of SSA’s new “Let’s Go Gliding!” campaign to recruit new blood into the sport and the presentation of SSA awards.
Here’s a message about an exciting new program for growing our sport from SSA Chairman Al Tyler and a How-We-Can-Do-It presentation by Bill Daniels.
One of the most inspiring moments during the 2012 SSA convention was the presentation of the 2011 Kolstad Youth Scholarship Grant by Ralph Kolstad to Ms. Rachel Conklin at the SSA Awards Banquet..
Sailplane racing is an intricate and challenging blend of soaring skill, mental toughness, and strategic planning. Anyone seriously interested in improving their competitive performance needs to sharpen all aspects of their soaring skill set. The book, “Competing in Gliders” by Leo and Ricky Brigliadori, provides a valuable resource to help pilots of all levels perform better.
When designing the ASH 26 with 18m wingspan, there was the question whether this glider will be close to the Open Class perfomance of those days. The ASH 31 as a successor clearly shows this ability.
At the SSA Awards Banquet that concluded the 2012 SSA convention on Saturday, February 4th, SSA Chairman Al Tyler announced that Jim and Simine Short are the 2012 recipients of the Warren E. Eaton Trophy and presented them with a plaque representing the trophy, which resides at the National Soaring Museum in Elmira, New York.
The Online Contest had a presence at the SSA Convention to match its growing popularity as a way to share the cross country gliding experience. OLC founder Reiner Rose conducted a breakout presentation on Friday followed by an OLC luncheon and presented awards at the Saturday night banquet.
Photos from the various gatherings to include speaker sessions, breakfast and lunch meetings, and the dinners and banquet. Click on one of the thumbnails to begin a slide viewer that you can click forward and back to view all of the images.
Click on one of the thumbnails to begin a slide viewer that you can click forward and back to view all of the images.
Here some faces from around the convention. Click on one of the thumbnails to begin a slide viewer that you can click forward and back to view all of the images.
We hope you had a great time If you are planning on writing up something for your club newsletters or developing a presentation for your club monthly meeting, please consider sending something along to the Cafe to share with the rest of the soaring community. Bill Elliott
Rand and I have had a great convention attending many of the speakers sessions, breakfast and dinners, and spending so much time on the exhibit hall floor looking at all of the new products and talking with friends. It was our intention to provide more reporting in real-time; however, we definitely under estimated the effort to simply attend everything and gather information–in short, we were slammed! Please be patient and come back often to the Cafe as we will be creating posts about the experience and adding video interviews and photos for the next couple of weeks as we work to get caught up. Bill and Rand
This panorama of the Exhibit Hall was created by Robin Clark (RF). Now higher resolution enabling more zoom quality. Note: this will take a few moments to load.
