SSA Convention

On Jan 30, 8:24*pm, Deadstickdon wrote:
On Jan 30, 1:29*am, delboy wrote:

On 30 Jan, 05:19, Frank Whiteley wrote:

Many inbound and departing flights were canceled today due to the ice
storm. *

Global Warming?

Derek Copeland

Nope. Climate Change.

It cracks me up every time!

On Fri, 29 Jan 2010 22:29:42 -0800, delboy wrote:

On 30 Jan, 05:19, Frank Whiteley wrote:

Many inbound and departing flights were canceled today due to the ice
storm.

Global Warming?

No. Weather.

Remember: climate is what you expect but weather is what you get.

Definitions
===========
climate: the prevailing or average weather conditions of a place,
as determined by the temperature and meteorological changes
over a period of years

weather: the general condition of the atmosphere at a particular
time and place, with regard to the temperature, moisture,
cloudiness, etc.

Note: climate != weather


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

And how is attendance?

The attendance appeared to be pretty low. The ice storm was pretty bad
and
the roads were terrible. There were a few people that I was really
wanting
to see, but they were not able to fly in because the LIT airport was
closed.
The convention hall was very large and the only time there was a crowd
was when a ticket was raffled off at the Craggy Aero display.

Randy

http://talihinasoaring.com/

On Sat, 30 Jan 2010 17:10:41 -0800 (PST), Randy
wrote:


And how is attendance?

The attendance appeared to be pretty low. The ice storm was pretty bad
and
the roads were terrible. There were a few people that I was really
wanting
to see, but they were not able to fly in because the LIT airport was
closed.
The convention hall was very large and the only time there was a crowd
was when a ticket was raffled off at the Craggy Aero display.

I asked because an editorial in Soaring said the SSA they will decide to
go back to yearly conventions based on the attendance this year. And
it's low.

Perhaps they will take the weather into account when the make the
decision, or perhaps they took a financial hit that will make it
impossible.

What is the excuse for not having the convention in the Northeast
again?

Climate, weather?
How about the top USA OLC club hosts it?
May the Schwartz be with you,
Jim

On Jan 30, 6:34*pm, "
wrote:
What is the excuse for not having the convention in the Northeast
again?

On Jan 30, 7:34*pm, "
wrote:
What is the excuse for not having the convention in the Northeast
again?

I just got back to Phoenix from the convention. Handily, my flight
was this afternoon, as airport was closed / totally iced in
yesterday. FULL flight today. A good number of VERY good talks. The
only problem was that, as at most conventions, there were 3
presentations at the same time all day, and sometimes there would be 2
you wanted to be attend at the same time. Ah, choices in life.

Really enjoyed seeing old / good friends. The Taurus 41:1 2 place
side by side electric self launcher really caught my eye... for way
less than half cost of Antares, but less glide, too. Gonna get a test
flight with Roger Mudd next month in that one. Some orders for
various gliders, and a winch, were taken, and I'm sure lots of
instruments, etc... so for some folks at least, the event was a
sucess. I often watched money being exchanged for goodies at the SSA
booth. I heard from several folks that the ARCUS that was there was
sold, and several others were seriously considering purchasing one. $$
$$$ Bob Carlton and Mark Mocho displayed a pretty neat jet powered
twin self launcher for a pretty reasonable price.

Global warming / climate change has been expected to, and is,
producing weather extremes. Very basic physics makes it easy to
understand. We got to see that in Little Rock. While at the same
time down under is roasting / dessicating.

There is an on-going discussion within SSA about future conventions.
Spent an hour with Bill Daniels this morning talking about the many
possibilities / pros / cons / options. No question that the weather,
current financial climate, and I'm sure other things, affected the
attendance some this year.

the editor. He attended, and is working at improving the
magazine, as has been seen in recent issues, with more to come. One
must remember, he's the editor, not an author. Hopefully someone in
our community will submit an article on the event. Perhaps several of
us might collaborate on an article and some photos.

19

On 1/30/2010 8:44 PM, Jack Hamilton wrote:
On Sat, 30 Jan 2010 17:10:41 -0800 (PST),
wrote:


And how is attendance?

The attendance appeared to be pretty low. The ice storm was pretty bad
and
the roads were terrible. There were a few people that I was really
wanting
to see, but they were not able to fly in because the LIT airport was
closed.
The convention hall was very large and the only time there was a crowd
was when a ticket was raffled off at the Craggy Aero display.

I asked because an editorial in Soaring said the SSA they will decide to
go back to yearly conventions based on the attendance this year. And
it's low.

Perhaps they will take the weather into account when the make the
decision, or perhaps they took a financial hit that will make it
impossible.

Does low attendance imply that the convention should be held every year,
or that a radical rethink is in order on where and when it is held?

If you want to get more attendance from glider pilots who are not "hard
core", then it might be useful to think about co-locating the event with
some other venue or attraction that would entice more people to attend.

--
Mike Schumann

Reno 2012, sounds promising. But of course there can be nasty weather
in the Sierras too! Most locations are a gamble in winter.
Perhaps there will be a wave camp before and after the Reno
convention? And there's always skiing/boarding.
The posts about winch launching seem to indicate people would spend
extra time on that, if a site would support it. Perhaps the 2011
symposium can be somewhere warm and close to the gliderport. It only
takes a hotel with a banquet room to host such an event, or motels
close to an airport with hangars...
Jim

On Jan 31, 6:14*am, Mike Schumann
wrote:

If you want to get more attendance from glider pilots who are not "hard
core", then it might be useful to think about co-locating the event with
some other venue or attraction that would entice more people to attend.

On Jan 28, 8:39*pm, Greg Arnold wrote:
Any reports from the Convention? *Jet sailplane on display? *NK vario?
Interesting talks? *Etc.

Many fine, interesting talks. For me, if I had to choose ones that
caught my fancy the most, I'd have to start with Bill Collum's "The
Future of Soaring" (some AWESOME things / possibilities coming in the
future!) and several talks that Mark Maughmer was involved in. Uri
Schwenk's presentation on the Grand Prix in Chile showed how awesome
and pleasant an international meet can be. Numerous other talks
reinforced what we already know / should know. Had to miss a few I
really wanted to see, but were scheduled at the same time as another I
wanted to see... so I can't comment on them. Life is full of
choices. Only a very few duds in the entire 3 days. A well done,
very worthwhile 3 days. Thanks to the hard workers at SSA and
everyone involved in putting on the event! The weather was really no
big deal. The event was inside, and getting about outside was no big
deal. Its just winter. And attending the event, and seeing everyone,
made things much warmer. Summer IS coming.