Sailplane Homebuilders Association workshop "report"

I spent several days in Tehachapi, mainly to attend the workshop, but
also to do some flying. I did miss some good talks on Sunday
afternoon, when the best flying day of the week occurred. Like last
year, the talks demonstrated that the SHA has really outgrown it's
name, and has morphed into something more akin to an experimental
motorless aircraft (full size and model) organization.

Saturday:

My favorite talks of the ten on Saturday were by Mike Sandlin and Doug
Fronius, but also quite interesting to me was the progress report on
the self-launch Carbon Dragon and the instrumented R/C sailplane model
used to get dynamic soaring data.

Mike described the advances in his "Bug" biplane and similar sized
monoplane. These look a bit like primary gliders, but perform on par
with hang gliders, and it's usually hang glider sites that he flies
these at. Cheap, easy to build and fly. It looked like fun, even
though the cross country ability is very limited.

Doug talked about the Global Hawk spy plane (he works for the company
that builds it). A fascinating piece of technology, with better
performance than the U2 but at much less cost. It features autonomous
operation (it flies itself from takeoff to landing), high aspect ratio
composite wings, and sensors with incredible resolution (optical,
radar, and others).

Sunday:

I only got to the morning talks because I flew in the afternoon. I
particularly liked Bob Gaines' talk on fabric covering to museum
standards versus normal techniques. If you are really _restoring_
something, you have to resist the urge to use modern materials and
techniques, even though it would make a better aircraft, because it
won't be like the original.

Bob was followed by his son, Paul, who talked about improving the
sealing and other aspects of your glider. I got some good ideas from
it.

The afternoon talks were very tempting, so I was sorry I missed them.
They covered micro lift soaring, Kuykendall's HP-24 project, the
SparrowHawk progress (SN 5 completed and delivered, I believe, with SN
6 almost out of the molds; and an exotic 15 meter racer design
described), and a couple others.

The SHA website is

www.sailplanehomebuilders.com
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Eric Greenwell
Richland, WA (USA)