Al Santilli R.I.P.

Al Santilli is dead. Long live the legend.

For a good portion of his life Al made his home here in the
Albuquerque area and was a along term member of the Albuquerque
Soaring Club.

Al's huge contribution to soaring will not be remembered by his
contest performance, nor by his development of new gliders. Al will be
remembered for his lifelong love of the sport and those who are in it.
He was also an SSA Hall Of Fame member.

His participation in the sport goes back to the mid-19 30s, where he
was a fixture at national soaring contests held at Elmira, New York.
His involvement in the aircraft instrument repair and development,
prior to World War II is less well known, but equally interesting.
Wartime service to the nation was directed toward understanding of our
enemy's scientific and technological progress. This theme of
understanding technology, science and nature was a lifelong passion
for Al, and those of us who knew him well benefited greatly from this
passion.

The more you learned about Al, the more impressed you were of his
incredible talents, his wide range of interests, his love of soaring,
and his deep and abiding love of his fellow mankind. Al was always
there to help explain some obscure or even basic concept of our sport,
correct a hazardous procedure or help a glider student understand an
advanced mathematical concept that had no bearing on the student's
flying. This dedication to the Albuquerque Soaring Club was total,
hardly any aspect of the clubs operation escaped his ever watchful
eyes.

Al was known to monitor the performance of glider pilots in the
pattern while he orbiting the field several thousand feet above. If
displeased he would radio to the pilot telling them to stand by till
he landed so he could critique their performance. Building up tow
ropes and making creative modifications to equipment to correct minor
problems, were his forte. Al flew his beloved open Libelle all over
this area for over 30 years and his Utu before that and was invariably
the last pilot to come down after a long day of flying. He was
actively flying until less than year ago and took his glider out of
the hangar, pulled it down to the launch area flew it and put it away
all by himself at the age of 91. We should all hope to live to be so
active at such an advanced age.

Almost every member of the Albuquerque soaring club, who had even a
brief acquaintance with Al has a story about how he helped, harassed,
critiqued, but always cared. These stories will keep Al's memory alive
for as long as pilots sit around and tell stories. I think that will
be for a very, very long time. And so even those who never knew Al
will hear of this legend of our sport.

Rest in peace Al.