2010 West Coast Touring Motorglider Fly-In [Heads-Up!]

[Horst31]

I will not be able to join the group this year.

Horst Stratmann
N96SX

[Webmaster]

Assuming my bird makes it out of annual on schedule I will be there for both Minden and Parowan. If not, I will fly up Commercial to Minden.

[Webmaster]

I flew my Cirrus down to Minden with my brother as my Ximango was in the shop for its annual and waiting for parts. So here is the initial report:

3 Ximangos came:

• Ron Snedecor (currently keeps his Ximango in Minden)
• Tom Muller (flew in from Thomasville, GA)
• John Lawton (flew in from TN)

We also had (about) 2 Taifuns, 3 Grobs, 3 Lambadas, and 2 Carats. In all, about 25 people came.

We had a dinner at JT's Bar and Basque restaurant on Friday night and barbecue hosted by Soaring NV on Saturday night. Presentations included soaring brief each morning, safety brief, maintenance hints for motorgliders, battery maintenance hints, and a description of a world record distance flight about about 2500 km in New Zealand (across multiple islands).

The group's initial plan was spend 3 days in Minden and then several days in Cedar City UT, but the weather may change the plan.

[Webmaster]

On Sunday 2 Ximangos and 1 Cirrus departed for Bridgeport NV to get lunch and get closer to the Whites for soaring. Ron had to turn back due to a maintenance issue. I landed the Cirrus first and was followed by John and Tom. My brother, Dave, flew with Tom.

We had terrific fish tacos and shakes. My brother and flew home to White Salmon, WA from there in the Cirrus. Tom and John continued down the Whites to Bishop and returned back to Minden.

Here is a link to some pictures that John posted in the gallery. He uses a tail mounted camera to get great pictures.

Picture 1 with caption: link

Picture 2 with caption: link

[Webmaster]

2010 Motor Glider Fly-In: Minden, NV

The 2010 Touring Motor Glider Fly-In, held again at Minden Nevada, was an unqualified success. Sixteen different touring motor gliders, including seven different manufacturers, arrived June 25 and departed June 28. Between pilots, friends, and spectators, the gathering totaled twenty-five MG enthusiasts. Shown above are five of the types of aircraft and their enthusiastic owners. On hand were aircraft representing: Grob, Ximango, Taifun, Lambada, Samba, Carat, and Pipistral.

The winner of the award for the pilot flying the longest distance to the event went to Steven Chase, who over a three-week flying odyssey from his home base in South Carolina covered a total of 6,593 miles over 62 hours (including side trips). Steven was flying his newly purchased Lambada, and reported that it performed flawlessly. Another participant (Tom Muller, Ximango) flew in from Georgia via Texas; other pilots came from California, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington.

The on-site host again this year was SoaringNV, who once more opened up their hangar, operations, staff, and hearts to the group. THANK YOU, Laurie Harden, Fred LaSor, and your great team. Laurie and Fred are the driving force behind SoaringNV and if you ever want to learn the REALLY fine points of glider flying, go fly with their team. World-class experience in a phenomenal setting!

After flying in on Friday night we all went to a Basque restaurant for one of their gut-busting, family-oriented dinners. Great fun. Saturday morning we had group introductions, weather and safety briefings (Fred LaSor), and an aircraft maintenance discussion by Michael Haisten of Auburn Aircraft Works about all those pesky FAA regulations, plus maintenance tips. The afternoon was devoted to area flying, in generally good conditions. SoaringNV put on a chicken and tri-tip BBQ that night, washed down with lots of cold libations.

Sunday morning was another excellent weather briefing, some general lying about how far and high we flew the previous day, and staging of the aircraft for the photo above (thank you Laurie for climbing up on the motor home to get the shot.). Many of us departed after lunch, some for home and some to Parowan to link up with the Auxiliary Sailplane Association’s contest and fly-in.

If you missed this year’s event, start planning now for next year. We’ll be posting pictures on the site. If you have any photo’s, please send them in. Members of the special aircraft groups (Grob, Ximango, Taifun, Lambada, and Pipistral) please feel free to join the Touring motor glider group (Touring_Motor_Glider_Fly-In@yahoogroups). If anyone wants to organize an East Coast, etc. fly-in, please feel free to use the site to explore that potential, or contact Ray Buhr or myself (Richard Pearl) for advice.

[John Lawton]

other pilots came from California, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington.



Hey Steve,

Don't forget the Tennessee contingent! My trip was just over 5000 miles in 13 days. 61.4 hours TT, flying over 10 states, stopping in 8 and soaring in 3.

Any chance I could get a copy of that group picture?

BTW, I'm working on a summary of my trip. I'll post it in the forum category about touring trips in the next few days. Still going through the 5000+ pictures I took on this trip. I've posted a few to my gallery if anyone is interested. The soaring was nothing short of spectacular. For the most part the weather cooperated except for a brief diversion on the way out in northeast New Mexico and on the trip home in Texas and Arkansas where I had to do a little "scud running" around T-storms. There was also one day at Parowan where we decided to not fly due to wind. Otherwise, we could not have had much better weather. I was calling this "the trip of a lifetime" but I know I'll be going back, hopefully next time with my co-pilot, Susan.

Enjoyed meeting you and Dave. Thanks for all your hospitality and for carting my arse around in Minden.

Cheers!

John Lawton
Whitwell, TN (TN89)
Ximango #135

[tumuller]

Hey Steve,
Finally joined your site. Very nice.
Thanks for the calander and hope your bird gets airborne soon.
Enjoyed flying with yall -your brothers a good stick and hope to fly together again soon.
Cheers
Tom

[Webmaster]

Hi Tom

Thanks for getting my brother in the air. He talks about soaring a lot now. If I could just get my motorglider out of maintenance I could probably get him soaring again.

They finally found the problem with the engine. I had a broken part in the gearbox. Factory (Rotax) was shocked as it had never had that failure mode before. Parts are on the way (under warranty) and should be flying soon. Of course, I didn't know anything was wrong ... it was just uncovered in the annual process.

Looking forward to rendezvousing for next year's sojourn west.

Steve