GGC End of Season Banquet - 15 November 2014 (update 2)

The Closing Banquet was held at the Orleans Legion last Saturday night, arranged by the Vice-President, Martin Lacasse (let's hear it for Martin!).

A slideshow of 160 pictures from a variety of photographers showed work around the club, flying, post-flying, retrieves, parties, more parties, Lake Placid, ceramic work...  a great summary of what makes Gatineau Gliding Club so special to us all.

Photos in this post were taken by Rob Williams (people at the Banquet) and Dan Daly (trophies, Team M7, Lake Placid clouds, and Karl), except for the last picture, which was taken by the owner, the bird picture, which was googled, and the A Badge, which came from the SSA.

We were greeted by Roger, our President:

We laughed, we cried... it became a part of us....

Then, dinner...  yum, best turkey/beef/trimmings I've had for a long time - really. We have to go back there...  Our roving photographer, Rob Williams, got table photos which are at the bottom of this post.

The club has 8 awards and trophies which are presented annually, in most cases.  The exception is the President's Trophy, which is only awarded for truly exceptional reasons.

The Norman B Tucker Award is presented for contributions to the club of a non-flying nature.

The Award goes to:

Jacques Asselin - for leading the ceramic tile project

The Wayne Dunn Memorial Trophy is awarded to recognize outstanding contribution by a tow pilot.

The award goes to:

Jean Marc Chadourne (not exactly as illustrated) - JM, see Martin for the trophy

The Glen Lockhard Award recognizes the best OLC cross-country flight from Pendleton in a club-owned aircraft.

Rob Williams - Aug 8 in M7; 237 km at 61 kph in 4 hours

The Louis Bisson Trophy is awarded to the Student of the Year.

 

Awarded to Norman Wong by Wolfgang Weichert (CFI). Norman joined May 7, soloed Aug 4, has passed licence checks!

The CFI's Trophy is awarded for outstanding contribution by an instructor.

Awarded to Doug Laurie-Lean, who ran mid-week instruction and Freedom's Wings. He made a funny...

The Doug Tetu Memorial Award recognizes the pilot who has shown the most progression in cross-country skills.

Awarded to John Wyman, who came 2nd in OLC, and flies a Ka-7 in search of a 300... a lot.

The Gatineau Gliding Club Trophy is awarded to the highest ranked GGC pilot in the Canadian Online Contest.

Awarded to Nick Bonniere with 1656.8 points - 40th overall.

Honourable mention - John Wyman, with 1565, 44th!

The President's Trophy is awarded by exception; to a person who has contributed a rare-high amount over a period of years, in various activities.  It is the highest award that GGC gives.

By unanimous vote of the Board of Directors, the President's Trophy is awarded to Derek Brewin.

Other significant accomplishments:

Karl Boutin - Silver Badge #1086
Sandrine Gressard - "C" Badge #3033.

Flying solo is a rare accomplishment; we had 7 students meet this milestone and thus qualify for the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) "A" Badge. Informally, it looks something like this:

 




















But the silver-plated pin looks like this:

CF is the country code for Canada (Czechs are C)

The following students qualified to wear the "A" Badge"

Kalen Bucknell

Philip Kerrigan

Norman Wong

Also qualifying but not present to receive the mighty A Badge are:

Derek Casselman
Samuel Michaud
Claude Poulin
John Schmidt
These will be awarded at a later time by the FAI Senior Official Observer.  Or CFI. Or President... whenever there is a camera around to record the event for posterity. Some qualified for their B Badges as well (30 minute soaring flight):

Canadian FAI "B" Badge

The trophy for the Soaring Association of Canada Eastern Ontario Zone Championship was awarded to "Team M7" - Rob Williams and Paul Goyette, for coming 3rd in GGC MayFly 2014.

Half of Team M7 (Paul, you'll have to arm-wrestle him for it)

 

Team M7 - Paul and Rob

KB lands out... a lot.  This is known, in French, as "Aller aux vaches" (Going to visit the cows). Karl distinguished himself by landing out a couple of hours north (N of the Ottawa River) and having his trailer brought to him.

"Just bring the trailer; it's all set" Karl - out standing in his field

But, .. the trailer arrived without a fuselage dolly... So, the dolly was brought back the next day... a two-day retrieve.  Martin participated, and found a suitable stuffed animal ("Dolly the cow") with a belly dolly attached (actually, with two quarters as wheels - so you can call in from wherever you are). Karl took it with great humour (really, he had no choice).

"Dolly the cow" - Karl says he'll be making a retrieve trophy from it... note the belly dolly.

Other accomplishments:

Four Students passed Department of Transport Licence checks:

Jeff Schneider
Norman Wong
Pascal Lepage
Philip Kerrigan

Roger Hildesheim came 3rd of 14 in Club Class at the Canadian National Soaring Championship at SOSA.

Dan Daly was "King of the Hill" at Lake Placid, New York Wave Camp, with a flight to 18,077' Above Sea Level, with an altitude gain of 13, 278'. 

Beautiful leaves, rotor, lennies... from 9,000 and climbing.

For those who were unable to attend, here are pictures of 48 of your club-mates having a real blast.  Try to make the next one, it was a hoot.

Finally, there will be a Special General Meeting at the clubhouse on December 7, at 10:30 am, to consider the purchase of an SZD-51-1 Junior, to replace one of the L-33 Solos, which has returned from repair (Roger has sent the 21-day notice as required by our ByLaws through the Yahoo Group).  We need a quorum to proceed, so if you want to fly a swoopy new (to us) single, either plan to attend, or give your proxy to someone who is, with instructions on how you want to vote. An information package will be sent with enough notice for you to absorb and make an informed decision.

SZD-51-1 Junior

Wood cutting

With the two fireplaces, we go through a lot of wood.   I always say, the only people who don't have to help are those who either never benefit from it, or are medically unable to help (and even those with bad backs do help).

Here are some of the many who buckled down and helped lay in a bunch of wood on hangar packing day (a snapshot in time):

Thanks for the help!

Friday at Lake Placid and at Pendleton

Lake Placid - low cloud and rain.  New oxygen cylinders - 300 cu ft at above 2200 psi - were delivered Thursday, and a lot of pilots availed themselves of the opportunity to refill their cylinders. I decided to call it a week, and 2D is back at Pendleton. 

Pendleton, from Douglas Laurie-Lean:

 

GGC Members:

 

Today was cold and bleak but turned out to be another good training day. The sun came over the horizon through my bedroom window brightly at 0600 hrs, under a blue sky. However by the time I was driving to the airfield it was overcast and cold, and the initial ceiling was at about 2,000 ft, rising up to 3,000 ft., by the afternoon. We had 17 training flights. Nine in IFX and eight in the 'Bluebird'.

Robert Pelley and Nathan Leung, each had two training flights in IFX, and John Schmidt had two solo flights in it. Jeff Schneider had a couple of solo flights and then I gave him his Glider Pilot Licence Flight Test, which he passed with 'flying colours'. He just needs to have Wolfgang, as CFI, complete the form and paperwork and he is a licenced glider pilot  -  WELL DONE JEFF.

Nathan, although very softly spoken did two very good flights without much need of instructional input. Phil Kerrigan did about six solo flights in the 'Bluebird', with one instructional check flight.

Thanks again for Simon Dufour as our trusty TOW PILOT.

 

Regards,

 

Douglas

Lake Placid Wed and Thu

Rain and low ceilings on Wednesday were problems; however, we did the 50 hr lube plan on the Puchacz, and reloaded the display software on the PowerFLARM as well, and tested it with one of the other glider's flarms. A new configuration file is in it too.

Thursday's morning forecast looked promising (for wave), and we got an early start.  A stiff crosswind was challenging, and the clouds came and went. There were two tows, for the MSC Duo Discus and the Champlain SZD-55, both around 2 hours, before landing.  Periodically, the low fast-moving clouds would open, and strong lennies were visible, but with the moisture, it was too dangerous to risk getting caught on top.  The diamond climb on Monday had the OO paperwork done, and only the requirement to calibrate the ClearNav barograph stands between the pilot and his Altitude Diamond - a 5209 metre climb easily meets the 5000 m requirement. Great flight!

We're also poring over computers, comparing traces, and seeing what worked best, and those things that didn't work well at all.

If the rain and cloud hadn't arrived around noon, we think that significant wave flights were possible:

1000 AM Satellite shows wave through NY, VT, ME, and southern QC...

The weather from wunderground.com looks promising for the weekend, though Monday is questionable - but the forecast can easily change by then (probably a wave day tomorrow):

I am leaving for home tomorrow; probably this is my last post on the camp. I'm very happy with the flight just over 18,000' (gain of 13278' - FAI Gold (3,000 m) climb - but I already have that one) in wonderfully bumpy weather, and learned a lot - that's why I come to the camp!

Lake Placid Day 4 - Tuesday 7 Oct

The forecast was not encouraging, so we had a slow start; it rained for most of the morning. We did some maintenance. We organized new 300 cu ft containers of Aviator's Breathing Oxygen (the old bottles were from 2006 and 7) to be delivered Thursday.  The Powerflarm in JCZ had a display problem (they didn't work) although the transmit/receive was ok; after some extensive troubleshooting using a known good flarm and display, the problem was traced to both displays dumping their programs... very odd.  In any case, current software was installed and is working.  The master display (changes ranges etc) is in the back, and the one in the front is slave.  We also pulled the file and did a range analysis, which turned out to be quite good (5.3 km average):

Puchacz PowerFLARM performance

The Pawnee got some TLC as well; a new tube was installed on the left main gear, by the always handy Martin.  Andre Pepin from MSC also leant a hand:

No rest for the wicked!

Dan Duclos sent some pics from Sunday's flying (nice to be the second in a two-seater and have the time to do this):

Town of Lake Placid

Airport - you can see the tiedown area to the east

You have to believe in something....

We like the Puchacz - JCZ

Just after takeoff

The leaves are at peak.  Lake Placid

Oh yes - the weather broke in the early afternoon, some golfed, some hiked, and we met for pizza at the main st pizza place (recommended), although they're not licenced (gasp).  Tomorrow's weather is looking rainy, but breaking around noon, with pretty well identical winds to Monday - so we expect to assemble and fly immediately after the rain stops in the hope that the wave is up.  Here are the climb traces for Monday's wave flying (click the pic to enlarge).  Pity the low clouds came in in the early afternoon; had it been blue, we would have had a lot of 5000 metre climbs.  Really, why aren't you here?

Altitude vs time for Monday's flights - one 5000m climb - Diamond claim!

It is currently raining (5 AM).

Dan