The Bluenose Astir .... why one club sees survival in a high performance club ship... by George Graham Whilst meditating on the data that indicated that the Austria group had not done nearly as much soaring in our Club machine as the other little mobs had done in theirs, I was struck by the perception that the Austria owners are wont to find themselves tucked away into the back seat of those gliders that have back seats. ‘Why so?’ asked I, loudly enough to cause the student to reply “Eh wot?” and stand the 2-22 on its tail at 10 feet altitude admidst a landing mode. Happily, the wind gradient was inverted and sharp that day resulting in a peachy keen two-point landing (no mean feat in the Yellow Bird). “Peachy keen”, quoth I, whereupon the student leaned back in the seat, folded his legs over the transom (thankfully opening the can- opy first), and proceeded to attend to the manicuring of fingernails. Yellow Bird, enjoying the thrill of freedom, headed straight for the idlers by the flight-line table (I surmised from this —logic is a forte or two of mine — that my companion’s hand was probably not on the stick). This caused the hammock loungers and gin- and-iced tea drinkers to exit the area, albeit with a minimum of decorum. Some of the new female members were wearing the bare min- imum as they dashed off into the safety of the woods, followed by some of the older male members, presumably to add an extra measure of safety. “What did you think of that one, min- ions?” asked the student, as he inspected his designer sun glasses. “Is it not that ye mighty should look upon my works and despair?” spake the expert of two-point landings in a 2-22, as he stepped down onto the picnic table. This caused the glider to bounce down on its tail, and the instructor (me) to bounce up off the iron framework. Another perception hove into view: namely, the high cost of “little-mob” ownership was caus- ing the owners to ensconse themselves into their machines early and often, Early, so that they wouldn’t have to duck out of the way of oncoming students; and often, so that they could get their money’s worth from their expen- sive machinery. Besides, it was fun to fly off to adventurous distances leaving the iced-tea- and-gin set to man the winches. Now this is too good a secret not to get out, others will want to have their escape machines. What then? I surmised that the ground crew would thin down to the point that the Winch Driver would winch all day, the Instructor would instruct all day, the Retrieve Driver retrieve all day, and everyone else would fly away. Of course the crew would have the 2-22 occa- sionally, if it weren’t for the lntros. But we need new members, right? That will help keep the diminishing corps of instructors busy next year. Well, the 30% of the members that do 900/0 of the work will keep giving all they got ‘til it ain’t no fun no more. When they quit, it’ll be 10 knot sink from then on for the high-flying escape machines; with their support cut off at it’s source, they will come tumbling out of the sky, causing panic to the disciples of Chicken Little. The student was sitting on the picnic table, inspecting his sun glasses again whilst doing another instant replay of his landing, his face wearing that small tight smile of accomplish- ment, The gin etc. crew had apparently found something to do that was a lot more funner. This gave me thinking time — I tend to need a lot. “Hopewell!!” I exclaimed. “I’ve got the answer!” (It might be worthwhile at this point to inform the unlearned that Hopewell, Nova Sco- tia, is located two miles south of Eureka, Nova Scotia), What we need is a fast flying glider that we ALL can escape in (for a reasonable length of time), a glider that will satisfy the need of all club pilots for high performance; a club-owned glider, so that no pilot has to tie up a fortune. .................... Semi-hidden away in the above frivolity are the forces that led the Bluenose Soaring Club to buy a sparkling new Grob G 102 Astir. It had become obvious to the hard working core of the Club that if the Club did not provide additional single-seat glider capacity, then the Club members would do so for themselves as soon as they gained the experience. However, it is these newly-experienced members that are needed to help in the skilled areas of club operations, instruction, winching, field man- agement, etc. Past experience has shown that whenever a club member had become a pri- vate owner, his time available for club work diminished sharply. It did not take a Biblical prophet’s vision to see that if this trend con- tinued, then the Club would degenerate to a knot of old cronies having things their way; whilst being looked after by a passel of valets (students). Since the modern student tends to be a pretty sophisticated person, he would soon see through the façade of “free instruc- tion” as being a sink of servitude. Club stagna- tion and disintegration would surely follow. The ever-ready answer was to buy another second-hand glider to join the 1<8. But some of us had been around gliders and gliding long enough to know that such a move always meant a long winter’s work (or more) refurbish- ing. And again, our experience with winter pro- jects had been that the work was done by a few for the benefit of many. And the private owner (such as this scribe) was too busy with his own sailplane to help out in any meaningful way. The not-so-ready alternative was to buy new. Little or no maintenance, and everybody gets involved via the extra cost. Sounded simple enough at the time, but our Club had never bought new before, and had never paid over $8000 for a sailplane. Nevertheless, the logic seemed sound, so we began to set up some specifications as follows: 1. Certified for winch launch, 2. Docile handling, especially in the stall regime, 3. Fixed gear, 4. Ability to fit pilots from 52” to 65” in height and from 110 pounds to 230 pounds in weight, 5. Modern design and construction— good investment value, 6. Available for flying duties at the start of the 1982 season, 7. As reasonable a price as possible, 8. Sound repair and spare part service, continued on page 20 Oddly enough it was item 3 that was most limit- ing in the selection process. Luckily, “Grob” had just started to advertise their G 102 series, and had their Club Ill available. The c/g hook of the Club Ill was considered a plus for winch launching. Having got myself engaged mentally, I felt that it was time for action. After suitable contact by telephone, I visited the Grob facility in Spring Valley, New York. I was impressed by the pro- fessionalism of the staff members, Marsha Coopersmith and Rudi Seeboeck, as well as with the generous delivery arrangements. Obviously this operation was properly financed — a situation which made me feel at ease. I next visited Connecticut Soaring and flew the G 103 Twin Astir demonstrator, having been told that it gave a reasonable representation of the O 102’s flying behaviour. I spent most of the flight investigating the low speed behaviour and found it unusually benign. Other than being almost overly reluctant to drop its nose in a stall, its behaviour was suitable. The price of the sailplane (at DM 33,350), plus the shipping and instrument package costs were very favourable. Nevertheless, by the time esti- mated costs of taxes, travel, exchange, etc. were added, the price would be in the $21 000- 22,000 range — pretty heady figures for our Club. Upon returning from New York, I detailed my findings to the Club executive and, at a special Club meeting, in November 1981, the following presentation was made: 1. There are not enough soaring aircraft avail- able to Club members resulting in the follow- .7 ing unsatisfactory situations: • Overly short flight allotments — 30 minutes, • Insufficient flight time to develop soaring skills; • Not all pilots that come to the field can -~ get a flight during soaring conditions. 2. The most expensive element we spend in our gliding is our personal time. 3. The solution is to buy a new single-seat sailplane: • “New” means that everyone participates in the maintenance costs since “new” means little maintenance; “Single-seat” because the flight sheets and the field managers concur that such an aircraft is the most needed; “New” automatically means modern or “high performance”. Seemingly, the most amenable sailplane readily availa- ble of the present generation is the Grob G 102 Club Astir. This met the desired specifications except that curl 10 pound pilot would have to carry a 10 pound ballast cushion. Since readers might be interested in the charges contained in the budget, I will briefly relate them here: • Club dues of $350, include SAC dues, insu- rance, and cost of flying Club gliders: • Launch fees of $3 per launch before 1100 hours: $3.50 after: • A onetime only $200 Astir fee (payable over six months, if preferred). Despite the fact that this purchase constituted a heavy financial commitment on the part of our Club (27 members, at the time), and despite strong opposition from some of the “old guard” members, the motion to purchase was passed. In the spirit of a healthy Club, the opposing voices raised reasonable points and cautions, but once the motion was passed, they were quick to offer their help. For instance, Doug Girard, although he voted against the motion, immediately offered the use of his trailer for transporting the new glider to Stanley. Work started straight-away on the Type Appro- val procedure, with Jim Henry, and later George Adams, serving as SAC’s ambassa- dors to MOT’s court. The Type Approval came through (with Jim Leach doing some timely expediting) on April 22, 1 982. The Bluenose Soaring Club are most thankful for the work of these SAC volunteers and officers. The trip down to pickup the glider was a story in itself, but we got it home, and it was finally test-flown at Stanley four days behind our schedule on May 28,1982. Our membership has since grown to 36 members, and 14 of these have been checked out in the sailplane. The last person to do so was Alan Smith, who started out as an ab-inito student with us in May 1982, The sailplane has flown over one hundred hours in approximately 250 flights. The pilots who have never before flown a sailplane of its performance are amazed at the way the landscape rolls under the wings. Now that we have had the experience of own- ing the Astir for a season, we feel that every club should have machinery of this capability available to its membership. Actually, with the Astir, we originally had the audacity to seriously consider buying two! They were DM33,350 then and are DM41 980 now — we should have! In all seriousness, if you are a small club of 30 to 40 members or so, then you can easily afford Astir performance and class, It is just a matter of shifting gears away from 1950-1960