Last weekend (Feb 5th and Feb 6th 2011) we had the strongest mountain
wave ever experienced in the Rhine valley. Altitudes reached were FL240 – not too shabby for mountains that are
only 1.500 ft high in average, isn’t it?
Other News
Soaring Immersion: Another View from the SSA Conference in Philadelphia
by Bill Elliott •
When you have a large family and want to go somewhere for three days in a row, you have to make it into a family outing. As the time gets closer, for the first time in your life, you thank God your children are teenagers and have pressing social agendas. To them, Philadelphia, which sounded…
Cloud Formations: the Morning Glory of the Gulf of Carpentaria in Northern Australia
by SC Admin •
Spectacular, rare, and awesomely powerful, the Morning Glory is a magnet for growing numbers of soaring pilots and scientists. Unique in all the world and shrouded in mystery, the Morning Glory arrives regularly each spring. Click here to learn more about this amazing phenomenon. Gloriamatutina View more presentations from Glider Pilot. Below is a recent…
Old News Reel about Gliding from 1930
by SC Admin •
Francois Pin found the old news reel on YouTube and sent it around to some friends. Hope you find it as interesting as we did.
SSA Conference Blog – Saturday
by Rand Baldwin •
Saturday dawned bright and sunny, but chilly nonetheless. There’s a huge pile of snow just outside the hotel entrance. It’s been there since Wednesday and it’s not getting any smaller! I started the day with the Governors, Chapters, and Clubs breakfast. There was no formal program for the breakfast, but I enjoyed a pleasant visit…
SSA Conference Blog – Friday
by Rand Baldwin •
The first event on today’s personal agenda was the Competition Pilots’ breakfast, moderated by U.S. Contest Committee Chair Ken Sorenson. Ken presented a summary of last year’s U.S. regional and national contest participation by class as well as changes to the 2011 contest rules proposed to the SSA Board by the Rules Committee. Last year,…
US Contest Scoring Analysis
by SC Admin •
This analysis of U.S. contest scoring algorithms was motivated because I fly a lot of regional and national contests, and I often was in the position of not believing the scores posted on the day’s score sheet. However, each time I tried to do a simple calculation to check the scores, I quickly got lost…
SSA Conference Blog – Thursday
by Rand Baldwin •
Friends, it’s been a looonnnnggg day for Bill and me. We left home this morning at 6:10 enroute to Philadelphia via Charlotte, NC. We were delayed four hours in Charlotte while ground crews in Philly worked furiously to remove the 15″ of snow that fell on the city Wednesday night. But it wasn’t all bad.…
Over 1,000 Visits Yesterday
by SC Admin •
The Soaring Cafe broke 1,000 visits for a single day yesterday. The site is more than exceeding our expectations and we want to thank everyone who has stopped by to take a look and read an article — “Thank you!” We hear from people every day telling us how much they like the site and encouraging…
Blogging the SSA Conference
by Rand Baldwin •
On Thursday, Bill and I are heading north for the winter! Well, three days of winter. We’ll be in Philadelphia attending the 2011 Soaring Society of America Conference. Unlike a typical SSA convention, there will be no exhibitors at the conference, but that’s about the only difference so far as I can tell from the published program. The conference organizers have lined up what looks like a great selection of speakers who will dissert on a wide variety of topics.
