Club Glider Hangar?

On Jan 9, 10:17*pm, "Mike Schumann" mike-nos...@traditions-
nospam.com wrote:
My personal feeling is that ease of access is a huge issue. *Our club has a
K8 and K7 that is hung in a large hanger. *Because people consider these
gliders to be a hassle to get down (about a 5 - 10 minute job), they are
rarely flown.


Mike Schumann


And I cannot explain the Junior...it sits on the floor of a hangar
collecting dust all season. I'd be surprised if it logged 10 hrs TTA.

Only once last year did we have all five ships on the line, and that
was a crappy day. The reason: the club president was acting flight
operations officer that day and pushed hard to get everything in the
air.

/Adam

On Jan 10, 5:09*pm, Adam wrote:
On Jan 9, 10:17*pm, "Mike Schumann" mike-nos...@traditions-

nospam.com wrote:
My personal feeling is that ease of access is a huge issue. *Our club has a
K8 and K7 that is hung in a large hanger. *Because people consider these
gliders to be a hassle to get down (about a 5 - 10 minute job), they are
rarely flown.

Mike Schumann

And I cannot explain the Junior...it sits on the floor of a hangar
collecting dust all season. I'd be surprised if it logged 10 hrs TTA.

Rigged? Amazing if it is. But do several other gliders have to be
pulled out to get at it? And is it very different to fly to anything
else that you have e.g. does it need a period of adjustment?


Only once last year did we have all five ships on the line, and that
was a crappy day. The reason: the club president was acting flight
operations officer that day and pushed hard to get everything in the
air.

/Adam

Our clib gliders live rigged in a hanger, getting another one in the
air is easy and we do it all the time if there is a queue to fly - and
that's a queue to fly Juniors!

As to rigging one's own glider, I'm looking forward to being able to
keep mine, rigged, in a hanger as I'm going to do my back in if I keep
rigging to fly. Plus, I can fly when I only have time to DI & fly,
rather than rig, DI, fly & derig. Finally it always feels to me like
rigging & derigging are times when a glider can be damaged, and I'm
keen to avoid that.

Not only can you do damage to the glider when rigging and derigging, but
there have been numerous accidents resulting from rigging errors, quite a
few of which were fatal.

If you have the luxury of hangers, you end up with an inherently safer
operation. Not to mention the obvious advantages of time and effort that
become more important as we age.

It would be really helpful if we could get one of the companies marketing
steel hangers to come up with a standard glider hanger design so that
interested clubs would be able to order economical hanger kits that they can
either self build, or have erected by a local contractor.

Mike Schumann

"Cats" wrote in message
...
On Jan 10, 5:09 pm, Adam wrote:
On Jan 9, 10:17 pm, "Mike Schumann" mike-nos...@traditions-

nospam.com wrote:
My personal feeling is that ease of access is a huge issue. Our club has
a
K8 and K7 that is hung in a large hanger. Because people consider these
gliders to be a hassle to get down (about a 5 - 10 minute job), they are
rarely flown.

Mike Schumann

And I cannot explain the Junior...it sits on the floor of a hangar
collecting dust all season. I'd be surprised if it logged 10 hrs TTA.

Rigged? Amazing if it is. But do several other gliders have to be
pulled out to get at it? And is it very different to fly to anything
else that you have e.g. does it need a period of adjustment?


Only once last year did we have all five ships on the line, and that
was a crappy day. The reason: the club president was acting flight
operations officer that day and pushed hard to get everything in the
air.

/Adam

Our clib gliders live rigged in a hanger, getting another one in the
air is easy and we do it all the time if there is a queue to fly - and
that's a queue to fly Juniors!

As to rigging one's own glider, I'm looking forward to being able to
keep mine, rigged, in a hanger as I'm going to do my back in if I keep
rigging to fly. Plus, I can fly when I only have time to DI & fly,
rather than rig, DI, fly & derig. Finally it always feels to me like
rigging & derigging are times when a glider can be damaged, and I'm
keen to avoid that.



--
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On Jan 10, 11:36*am, "Mike Schumann" mike-nos...@traditions-
nospam.com wrote:
It would be really helpful if we could get one of the companies marketing
steel hangers to come up with a standard glider hanger design so that
interested clubs would be able to order economical hanger kits that they can
either self build, or have erected by a local contractor.


Mike -

The "Ensign" hangar and the "Sidewiser" hangar are standard designs
that are available as affordable kits. However, they're really only
good for 1 - 2 gliders. An economical solution for 5 - 20 gliders
(such as the design of the hangars at the Scottish Glider Centre) is
what we could use (and I suspect what a few other clubs could use as
well).

John -

Its funny you mention the time limit. That's really the ONLY reason I
went out and bought my Russia. Our club's Apis is being used so
seldom that I could have had a lot of fun in it - but I want to fly XC
and around here that means 3 - 5 hours. Our club limits the use of
club gliders to 1 hour (or 2 hours if you make radio contact after the
first hour and no one is in line for it). Some members claim that
there's an "exception clause" that allows the Apis to be flown all day
if you're the first person to rig it - but I have not found that rule
written into our club's bylaws and refuse to "cheat" the system that
way.

I have no "hard evidence" to back it up - but I personally feel that
it is a big discouragement to limit the flying time like that.
ESPECIALLY if people have to go through the trouble of rigging and de-
rigging the glider just to fly it for 1 or 2 hours!

...As far as training goes: I like the idea of kicking people out of
the 2-seaters at some point. I don't know if we can do it _right_
after solo - but certainly at some point afterwards. We are trying to
slim down our fleet some and people have objected to reducing our
Blanik count from 4 to 3, because they're used "so heavily". If we
only allowed instructional flights and demo rides in the Blaniks, I
think we could get away with only having 3 with no problem.

We get a lot of interested students who come out and sign up (and the
XC pilots in our club are really driving a lot of the interest and
enthusiasm around here); but then the new members leave the club
because they don't feel that they are getting timely instruction or
guidance. Some of that is their fault (showing up mid-day and
complaining about not getting more than 1 flight) - but some of it is
a lack of organization and operational rigidity. Instructors aren't
paired with students on a regular basis, you just come grab whatever
CFIG is available that day and he hops in the cockpit with you and
goes. Definitely less than ideal, IMHO.

It also doesn't help that our current club uses a clunky 1-36 as its
"transition trainer" to single-seaters. No one likes the aircraft, so
there's not a lot of enthusiasm to get students into it. Also, the
club that merged with us had a flight rule that _required_ students to
land a 1-26 out in a field, disassemble it, and trailer it back to the
airport. They had to do this before they could ever go cross-country
in club equipment.

These are all known issues that we're working to correct.

Information from other clubs on similar issues and how you've
conquered them are always appreciated!

Take care,

--Noel

Adam wrote:
And I cannot explain the Junior...it sits on the floor of a hangar
collecting dust all season. I'd be surprised if it logged 10 hrs TTA.

How is it used? My club has two Juniors and which get well used. I'd put
that down to the following:

- all new solo pilots get booted out of the two seaters after 5 flights
and a couple of check rides and are converted to the Juniors. That
said, at first they'll be expected to take a check ride each day
before flying a Junior and the instructors will decide if the weather
is suitable. Once they're judged competent in them, the Junior pilots
are expected to fly within their capabilities on much the same basis
as any other solo pilot.

- we are a strong XC club, so Junior pilots are expected to work on
getting their Bronze and Silver badges. A lot of us did all three
Silver legs in a Junior. I did height and duration while working on
Bronze and got distance as soon as I had my Bronze XC endorsement.

For non-UK readers, the Bronze endorsement includes field selection,
field landing and navigation exercises.

- the club culture assumes that solo pilots will become XC pilots and
will work up the qualification ladder, first to their 100 km diploma
and then on to Gold and Diamond badges, so there's a clear path to
increasing skills and achievements for new pilots to follow.

- we also have a Pegase 90 and two Discii. These are run like a
syndicate with about 12 members. Single Seat Scheme members get a cost
discount in return for buying pre-paid blocks of air time and can book
the gliders for a day at a time with the expectation that they will go
XC in them. Other pilots can use them if they haven't been claimed by
Scheme members.

Maybe some variation of our approach would improve the Junior utilization?

I should add that I enjoy flying Juniors. They're nice handling gliders
that thermal well and spin nicely. I normally fly them during the winter
to maintain proficiency while my Libelle stays tucked up in its trailer.


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

At 19:42 10 January 2008, Mike Schumann wrote:
Not only can you do damage to the glider when rigging
and derigging, but
there have been numerous accidents resulting from rigging
errors, quite a
few of which were fatal.

If you have the luxury of hangers, you end up with
an inherently safer
operation. Not to mention the obvious advantages of
time and effort that
become more important as we age.

It would be really helpful if we could get one of the
companies marketing
steel hangers to come up with a standard glider hanger
design so that
interested clubs would be able to order economical
hanger kits that they can
either self build, or have erected by a local contractor.

Mike Schumann




I could put interested parties in touch with the designer
of the Scottish Gliding Union hangar and you could
adopt a proven design. It would be hard to come up
with a more space and material efficient design. There
is another one being constructed at an English club
and a second one is being planned for Portmoak making
3 in total. The second Portmoak hangar will probably
have minor changes to the roof height and pitch to
cater for high dihedral wingletted gliders like the
V 2cxT and D2cT. There will also be a gravel floor
rather then the mix in the original hangar and also
detail changes to the door runners.

The design is based around bays suitable for 18m gliders
although, because the two rows of gliders are necessarily
offset, there is one smaller 15m bay and one larger
bay (for Duos) etc at each end of the hangar.

The second SGU hangar will be entirely financed by
individual and syndicate private glider owners but
owned by the club. (All the club gliders are already
housed in the first hangar) The investors will get
16 years free hangarage and trailer parking before
having to pay for their hangar bay. Within that period
they will have the right sell the residual time in
that bay at whatever price they can get for it. A
similar financial model might interest other clubs.

John Galloway

Any idea what the cost of these hangers was?

Mike Schumann

"John Galloway" wrote in message
...
At 19:42 10 January 2008, Mike Schumann wrote:
Not only can you do damage to the glider when rigging
and derigging, but
there have been numerous accidents resulting from rigging
errors, quite a
few of which were fatal.

If you have the luxury of hangers, you end up with
an inherently safer
operation. Not to mention the obvious advantages of
time and effort that
become more important as we age.

It would be really helpful if we could get one of the
companies marketing
steel hangers to come up with a standard glider hanger
design so that
interested clubs would be able to order economical
hanger kits that they can
either self build, or have erected by a local contractor.

Mike Schumann




I could put interested parties in touch with the designer
of the Scottish Gliding Union hangar and you could
adopt a proven design. It would be hard to come up
with a more space and material efficient design. There
is another one being constructed at an English club
and a second one is being planned for Portmoak making
3 in total. The second Portmoak hangar will probably
have minor changes to the roof height and pitch to
cater for high dihedral wingletted gliders like the
V 2cxT and D2cT. There will also be a gravel floor
rather then the mix in the original hangar and also
detail changes to the door runners.

The design is based around bays suitable for 18m gliders
although, because the two rows of gliders are necessarily
offset, there is one smaller 15m bay and one larger
bay (for Duos) etc at each end of the hangar.

The second SGU hangar will be entirely financed by
individual and syndicate private glider owners but
owned by the club. (All the club gliders are already
housed in the first hangar) The investors will get
16 years free hangarage and trailer parking before
having to pay for their hangar bay. Within that period
they will have the right sell the residual time in
that bay at whatever price they can get for it. A
similar financial model might interest other clubs.

John Galloway









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Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

Mike,

Provisional estimate for the planned second hangar
is around £9-£10,000 sterling per glider bay depending
on the amount of voluntary work for non-skilled tasks.

John


At 21:30 11 January 2008, Mike Schumann wrote:
Any idea what the cost of these hangers was?

Mike Schumann

'John Galloway' wrote in message
...
At 19:42 10 January 2008, Mike Schumann wrote:
Not only can you do damage to the glider when rigging
and derigging, but
there have been numerous accidents resulting from rigging
errors, quite a
few of which were fatal.

If you have the luxury of hangers, you end up with
an inherently safer
operation. Not to mention the obvious advantages of
time and effort that
become more important as we age.

It would be really helpful if we could get one of the
companies marketing
steel hangers to come up with a standard glider hanger
design so that
interested clubs would be able to order economical
hanger kits that they can
either self build, or have erected by a local contractor.

Mike Schumann




I could put interested parties in touch with the designer
of the Scottish Gliding Union hangar and you could
adopt a proven design. It would be hard to come up
with a more space and material efficient design.
There
is another one being constructed at an English club
and a second one is being planned for Portmoak making
3 in total. The second Portmoak hangar will probably
have minor changes to the roof height and pitch to
cater for high dihedral wingletted gliders like the
V 2cxT and D2cT. There will also be a gravel floor
rather then the mix in the original hangar and also
detail changes to the door runners.

The design is based around bays suitable for 18m gliders
although, because the two rows of gliders are necessarily
offset, there is one smaller 15m bay and one larger
bay (for Duos) etc at each end of the hangar.

The second SGU hangar will be entirely financed by
individual and syndicate private glider owners but
owned by the club. (All the club gliders are already
housed in the first hangar) The investors will get
16 years free hangarage and trailer parking before
having to pay for their hangar bay. Within that period
they will have the right sell the residual time in
that bay at whatever price they can get for it. A
similar financial model might interest other clubs.

John Galloway









--
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