Yesterday was a rain day at the Seminole Gliderport (SGP), so John Mittell (BZ) and I spent some quality time touring possible landing fields in preparation for the upcoming 2014 Seniors contest. Although the SGP soaring area is pretty benign in general, the last few miles coming into SGP can be ‘interesting’ (especially from the west!) if you…
Mark Mocho who flies with the Albuquerque Soaring Club recently sent out a link to the introductory trailer for “CloudStreet: Soaring the American West”. About half a year ago Soaring Café had first introduced the ambitious project – a video documentary slated for release later this year on the American Public Broadcasting System (PBS). Mark…
As part of our post-convention coverage of SSA2014, the Café is pleased to present a short video interview with Tilo Holighaus. Tilo is co-owner and manager of Schempp-Hirth Flugzeugbau, one of the most successful glider manufacturers of all time. World class sailplanes with names like Cirrus, Ventus, Discus, Nimbus, Quintus, and most recently, Arcus, come…
Jim Payne and Gordon Boettger both embarked on wave flights out of Minden, NV today, March 6, 2014. Jackie Payne has been blogging updates on Jim’s flight and Walt Rogers has been reporting Gordo’s progress on his blog. Both pilots are doing zig-zag flights between Minden, Susanville, and Mojave.
During the Southern soaring season in 1988/89 Hans-Werner Grosse and his wife Karin shipped their ASH 25 to Australia to explore the fifth continent by glider. Remember, this was well before the private use of GPS, well before flying with sustainers and well before OLC documentation! However the Grosse’s had a camera and so were…
These were provided to us by Jim Foreman. We certainly agree with Jim that it is very important to preserve our Soaring history. — Thank you, Editors Moving Day At Black Forest 1-26 Soaring Contest Owl Canyon Gliderport The Last Day At Black Forest Gliderport (A funeral for the place we all loved)
The 2014 SSA Convention ended Sunday, March 2nd with the traditional SSA Awards Banquet. U.S. Team pilot Garrett Willat presided as Master of Ceremonies. Jim Payne delivered an exceptional and inspiring keynote address on “The Joys of Soaring,” accompanied by a beautiful slide show, in which he reminded us of the breadth and depth of…
Thank you to Francisco L. Galvão for sending us these beautiful photos. — Editors To those who like vintage gliders attached are the photos of two well preserved and flying ones: an Spalinger and a Laister Kauffman from the brasilian glider club “Aeroclube de Baurú“
March 2; the meteorological spring has started here and autumn down-under!!! What happened last week in “our” world? Most soaring activities are around this time of the year mainly in Australia, even when the meteorological autumn has started over there yesterday! The first week on the border of NSW and Victoria has still temperatures in…
This is a 16mm movie made at Black Forest Gliderport in 1972 and has been lost until I was sent a VHS copy. I digitalized and posted it on YouTube for historical purposes. Black Forest closed in 1985 and the original films disappeared along with the buildings. Little signs remain and the land is now…
