CENTRAL INDIANA SOARING SOCIETY EST. 1960 MAY 1, 2014 CISS WINGTIPS THE MONTHLY VOICE OF INDIANA SOARING In This Issue! ........................................! Sailplane Parts - The Battery Care and Keeping of your! electrical source, pg. 6 Our Towplanes Background and history of these important club assets, page! 5 Badge and Cross Country Camp Get the low down on what to expect, page 10 CISS Hosts Smirnof Vegas, Phoenix, Las Cruces, Odessa, Dallas, Tulsa, St. Louis, Indianapolis, ! Sailplane Derby.... Akron, Pittsburgh, Frederick, MD Octave Chanute The first Forty years ago this month the and Washington, D.C. Contestants gliders in Indiana, page 3 CISS served as one of 11 cities hosting were Ross and Ken Briegleb, Bill contestants in the third annual Holbrook, Hannes Linke, Dan ! Smirno" Sailplane Derby. The event Pierson, Dick Schreder and Karl Plan Your Summer began on May 1, 1974 in Los Angeles Striedieck. ! Vacation Here! The National and moved consecutively to Las Smirnof cont., next page... Soaring! Museum, pg. 9 ! CAESAR CREEK PILOT BREAKS 28 YEAR OLD RECORD Pilot, John Lubon, and his ground crew showed up Bandfel field south of Pittsburg, PA. According at Alexandria airport on Saturday, April 5 for an to John, he never got above 2500 agl after assault on a record held by CISS member, Ron leaving Alex until he passed Dayton, OH. At Clarke for over a quarter of a century. John, who is 6 PM John called Ron to say that he had our Region 6 Director and a highly experienced landed safely and would be filing a claim, cross country flier took advantage of our snatching the coveted record. Ron o"ered Temporary Membership to get a tow in his ASG 29 John a hearty congratulations, but warned around midday. He had declared a goal of 293 miles to him that the challenge was now afoot!! ALEXANDRIA, IN IDENTIFIER I99 PAGE !1 CENTRAL INDIANA SOARING SOCIETY EST. 1960 MAY 1, 2014 The Good Smirnoff, continued From Ron Clarke’s compilation bases at takeoff were 3,000’. The The season got off to a great of CISS history we have the day, however, produced the best start last month with many great following comments from Dick single leg speeds of any Derby flights. The ground crews Hutchinson: “The weather in day ever flown. Karl Striedieck appeared to be in top shape Indianapolis (Terry Airport) was used the spectacular cloud streets from the get go and handled terrible. High winds. The grass was created by the strong westerlies to several very active flying days. Wednesday soaring began on a mess with all the rain. When full advantage. Cloud bases April 9 and it soon became Angus Thompson landed after eventually reached 6200’ and apparent that there is a strong each tow, club members helped Karl’s speed by the time he landed desire to do a ton of flying this guide the L-5 back to the takeoff in Akron was an incredible 85.4 year, even though Spring point. The runway was so soft that mph. The rest of the pilots also weather events dampened activity.! if he tried to use the brakes the tow achieving speeds close to Karl’s. plane would slide off one way or Remember the date, May 12, a That attitude was present on the other. Angus made a comment good time to fly east from Indy. New Year’s Day as well as no that ‘These bloody fools are Thanks to both Ron Clarke and one was about to let a little snow crazy!’” Dick Hutchinson for this report. on the taxiway spoil the fun. (see photo below) Yup, we flew that Remarkably the Indy to Akron ! day!! leg turned out to be one of their Editor note: best. The article in SOARING As a reminder, be sure to place a magazine covering the event Pilot Bill Holbrook went on to check mark next to your name on claimed that the winds at takeoff win the Smirnoff Derby in 1974. the board in the office every month you fly. Many pilots are time in Indy were 35 knots! Cloud already looking at four check marks, perhaps five by the time you read this. KEEP A LOOKOUT! A close encounter pretty busy with an A-10 last year airspace served as a reminder with to, as my instructor Marion, used to say, “keep your Muncie head on a swivel.” I, of and course, had a Anderson transponder and the all nearby. A-10 certainly had me Not to on his TCAS. He was mention just messing with me. other But our club gliders do gliders and traffic constantly and not have transponders tow planes. Keep be safe. and we fly in some scanning for other John Earlywine Named Master CFIG Emeritus We’ve long known that John was an extraordinary flight instructor. He is, after all a seven time Master CFI. Now he can add the term “Emeritus” to the designation as he has earned the honor “in recognition of his years of dedication, commitment to excellence, professional ! growth, service to the aviation community, and quality aviation instruction.” John, we are privileged to have you in our club and we express our hearty gratitude for your service. ALEXANDRIA, IN IDENTIFIER I99 PAGE !2 CENTRAL INDIANA SOARING SOCIETY EST. 1960 MAY 1, 2014 This Month’s Musical Indiana Soaring Pioneer Feature! Octave Chanute The birthplace for soaring in Indiana was in the sand dunes along the Reading your monthly issue of southern shores of Lake Michigan near Wingtips ought to be an a town called Miller Beach, just west of enjoyable experience. To help what was to become the city of Gary, stimulate your enjoyment we Indiana. Experiments also took place at like to include some interesting Dune Park, Indiana. The time was 1896 diversions every now and again. and 1897 and the man, who was too old Here is a great item: at the time to Ily his own aircraft, was Relax, and !retired engineer, Octave Chanute. enjoy……… Chanute had an illustrious career as an engineer. He had built the two largest Magic Lantern glass slide (ca. 1909) Sailplane pilots appreciate stock yards in the United States in depicting Octave Chanute’s first glider - Kansas City and Chicago and he had 1896 precision and craftsmanship designed and built the irst bridge to ! in addition to having a cross the Missouri River in Kansas City. The Wright brothers based their glider designs on the Chanute “double – good time. Because of that Chanute also established a procedure for pressure treating wooden railroad decker”. Other early Chanute ideas you may enjoy listening and ties with a preservative to increase the included the pivoting wing, which watching this clip which wood’s lifespan. would later be used in numerous designs of military aircraft, most features some very ! His real claim to fame, however, resulted notably the F-111 and the B-1. attractive ladies, skilled and from his Ilying experiments. Initially ! Chanute established a campsite at precise, having some fun! using a design from Otto Lilienthal, Chanute experimented with a multi- Dune Park, calling it Camp Chanute. Click wing design. Chanute introduced the From there he conducted numerous “strut-wire” braced wing structure that lights. Chanute is credited with the would be used in powered airplanes in signiIicant advancement of aircraft the future from a design based upon the design. See Chanute, next page Pratt truss, which was familiar to him !from his bridge designing days. L., Camp Chanute, Dune Park, Indiana - 1896. Above, At Kill Devil Hills, NC in 1902 ALEXANDRIA, IN IDENTIFIER I99 PAGE !3 CENTRAL INDIANA SOARING SOCIETY EST. 1960 MAY 1, 2014 114 Years Later, Watch This! Click Here Mid-Week Soaring! Chanute, Continued..... U-P-D-A-T-E! ! A good number of club To honor Chanute’s contributions to members turned out for the American aviation, Chanute Field was first two Wednesdays that were established during WW1 in 1917 near flyable in April this year and we Rantoul, Illinois as a training post for are o" to a very good start with military Ilight training, Ilying Curtiss the new " Wednesday Fly Days . In April both the 9th and the JN-4 “Jenny” bi-planes. The post was 23rd were good days with more later renamed Chanute Air Force Base than 8 flights by members on and served this country until 1993 each of those days .! when it was decommissioned and Come on out on the good converted to civilian use. weather Wednesdays if you can ! - usually we start at around Today the site includes a wonderful noon - our rationale is that if the weekend weather was less museum and is well worth the visit, so than good then the chance of if you feel like “shooting off to good weather mid week will be Chanute” to visit your soaring roots excellent .! you will be rewarded. ! ! So far it's working ! Thank you, Caroll Gray Without These.... Well, Let’s Not Go There... William Piper’s company started with the Cub and over the years developed a vast product line of aircraft. In 1976 the company produced its 100,000th airplane and fully one in ten of every airplane ever produced up to that time was a Piper. Many of the aircraft model designations were of Indian name or themed. Apache, Comanche, Aztec, Cherokee, Warrior, Dakota, Arrow, Papoose, Navaho, Chieftain, Cheyenne, Saratoga, Seneca, Tomahawk, Arapaho, Video if the Month Seminole and, of course, our We get a bit of wind beloved Pawnee, were all here in the flatlands of popular models. In the world Indiana, but usually of soaring, however, it is that nothing like the blow this Pawnee - first introduced in pilot faced upon landing 1959 as a crop duster (my after an excursion in uncle purchased one of the some mountain wave.