Schreder sailplane reunion......?

This may be a bit of the subject; however, it has been the subject of a
thread in the Yahoo hp-gliders news group.
(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hp-gliders). The hp-gliders group consists
of 300+ HP/RS sailplane builder/owners/enthusiasts.

Recently the owner of a HP-14T took his bird to Marfa, TX and had some great
flights. The presence of HP-14 precipitated Burt Compton's memories of
helping is father build a HP-11 (which is now owned by a club in Canada.)
Burt suggested the possibilities of holding a regatta of Schreder designed
sailplanes and suggested Marfa as the location.

This proposal had drawn a lot of interest. The choice of location has been
debated. Marfa is a long way for many. Living in Idaho it is only(?) 1400+
miles. However, for our friends from Eastern Canada, it is really a loooong
trip!

Many feel to get a good representation of the Schreder community will
require a couple of years lead time to schedule vacations, etc. (back to
the old time/money problem) One of the first thoughts that came across my
mind was; "wouldn't it be great to schedule this in conjunction with the SSA
convention." There are so many of you who have raced these birds in their
hay-day and could add so much to such a gathering. However, the thought of
dragging my HP-14 in its' trailer across the Rockies in the late
winter/early spring is not a pleasant thought.

If we are going to have such a gathering it will included a little
handicapped competition, technical forums, and stories from the past and
present.

There seems to be a lot of interest in HP/RS series and I am continually
amazed to see the superb quality of workmanship of birds that were once
raced and have been in storage for years. Many of these appear on the
market for below $10,000.

When I purchased my first HP there was very little information available on
the web. At the time I was working at Albertson College of Idaho and they
allowed me a little space on their website for personal use. Angie Schreder
sent me a packet of information that became the foundation of the site.
When the College's allotted space was filled everything was moved to
http://www.soaridaho.com/Schreder. Currently the site has archived almost
100 megs of HP/RS related information.

The traffic on the website and hp-gliders news group indicates that Soaring
is not dead. Could Schreder designs become another 1-26 type organization?
Dick sold over 700 kits.

Wayne
HP-14 N990 "6F"
http://www.soaridaho.com/photogallery/Mackay_2006