On June 21, 2023, the LASS website moved from its old hosting service, bluehost.com, over to posthaven.com. LASS also took control of the domain name, louisvillesoaring.org. Luckily, there was a way to provide hosting, free of charge, but we'll have to take on the annual $25-ish cost for keeping the domain registered.
I will be contacting people, eventually, to see if you'd like to be added to a "contributor" list, which will allow you to create your own posts. Posterous is pretty darn easy to use but, like anything, you will become more used to it after clicking around for a bit. The posting interface is all driven by menus, but custom html is possible if you want to do something advanced.
There are also several themes available for giving the site a different "look & feel". This current one is called "Classic" but there are currently 4 others available as well. It's been my experience that you really can't judge a theme for a site until there is a decent amount of content to look at. The theme of my personal website, kengantz.com, which is also hosted here on Posterous, is called llun and I think it works well for displaying photographs, because of the dark background, but might not be the best where text is concerned.
Anyway, just wanted to alert anyone who might be surprised when they visit louisvillesoaring.org on, or after, June 21, 2023.
PS - If you have any suggestions for our link list of handy links, please pass them along. I figure the main purpose of this site is to attract new club members so I immediately got links up for our flying field location and the Academy of Model Aeronautics. You should see those somewhere on the upper left, and lower left, of your screen in this Classic theme version of the site.
The 2019 Louisville DerbySoar F5J is in the record books and everyone agreed the club had a successful event. Below are some of the more successful contestants receiving their trophies.
Marc congratulates Frank Burnowski – Second Place
Mark congratulates Jerry Shape – Third Place
Marc congratulates George Burgin – First Place Sportsman
The beautiful tumbler that the winners received.
Sunday, May 5, 2019
It was a pretty good day to maiden this Pulsar 3.2e after a flap linkage update and an updating the programming to use Mike Shellim’s E-Soar Plus, version 3.0 program for Horus. Final adjustments will have to wait for a day with less “bumpy” winds.
Ken Gantz and his Pulsar 3.2e – Photo Credit Marc Marcum
Wednesday, April 10, 2019
Marc and Ron visited Prosser Career Education Center in New Albany, Indiana today to introduce some of the students there to the wonders of thermal soaring. According to Marc the students were bright, motivated and seemed to enjoy themselves. With any luck, maybe we’ll see some of them out at the field as members someday…
Learning to soar!
Let’s start with what’s changed:
Not too much, we gained a few pilots and lost a few, membership of actual active soaring pilots stayed stable. Then came September, schools bussing kids in for cross country events in the evenings…. as in approx 200 cars parked on the flying field, grid lock for all who wanted to get into the park for any reason and in general some frustration. We have contacted the person in charge of permits and made our frustration known, apparently many park users have also called. He told us that parking on the field is not allowed and meetings will be held with the schools to change that part of their actions. We explained that in the past we have flown while the kids ran, since they run on the perimeter and we fly from the field not over it. But that single school use expanded to multi-same evening usage causing the parking problem. More to come on this topic.
RC Sailing!
Our Vice President Marc found a new pond in his area (Norton Commons) that is perfect for sailing the big rc sailboats, no weeds no fishing line and a great drop in place that has clearance for the boat’s deep keels. Well I had one but Marc wasn’t interested, then we sailed mine and he was hooked! Turns out that about 5 of us had sailboats but because there was nowhere to conveniently sail them, they had been collecting dust in garages and basements. Didn’t take long before we were on the pond on days when it was too windy or the park was too busy to fly! We don’t race but we do chase and occasionally play tag by gently smashing into each other!
What didn’t change:
We all had a lot of rc soaring on our field. Challenges were the grass cutting, heat, wind.
Pilot skills in general improved significantly, likely due to getting more flying time in due to electric launch models and interest in Task Soaring (contests). Our “Two Channel” club event took the biggest hit, but so did our club ALES event since most of the guys were gone to ALES events in Dayton or Columbus.
Big Club Contests Held in 2017:
DerbySoar 2107 was held at Hayes Kennedy but on a different field, it was a success weather-wise and attendance-wise, the formerly known as the BlueGrass Mid America Champs held in Lexington by the Bluegrass Soaring club was taken over by us since their club has disbanded due to lack of participation and their flying site was turned into a corn field :-(. We held it on our club field with the help of the Dayton club and again we had great weather and attendance so our treasury has grown, and maybe for the first time we carried a surplus over after usual club expenses/fees into 2018! So we are in good shape for this coming season.
Big Club Events for 2018!
We will be hosting the DerbySoar on our field (June 23 & 24) which is an Unlimited Mixed Launch Thermal Duration two day contest, same as last year….as well as the Mid Am Soaring Champs (September 15 & 16) to be held on our club field at Charlie Vettiner Park, Louisville (Also Unlimited Mixed Launch Thermal Duration)
(Unlimited Mixed Launch Thermal Duration is a combination of electric and winch launch models flown side by side. The E-launch models have a device which limits their launch height to 150m and they are urged to have their altitude reached prior to reaching the line created vertically by the winch turnaround pulleys, so E-launched models are not allowed to go driving around during their 30 second motor run to altitude.)
New Big Club Contest for 2018 - Chi/Lou F5J Event
For 2018 we will be hosting (in conjunction with some of the Chicago club members) an F5J USA Tour Event May 19 & 20th. (F5J is electric launched sailplanes, where launch altitude is penalized for a 10 minute flight task, a pilot loses 1 point per 2 meters from his hand to motor shut off. A recording display device in the model is read upon landing to indicate at which altitude the pilots motor was shut off, (read 10 seconds after actually). The device also shuts off the motor if 30 seconds of run time are exceeded, the idea is to see who can get a max flight of 10 minutes from the lowest starting altitude). This is a new-ish class and a test event for us. We are calling it the Chi/Lou F5J.
Club 2 Channel and Ales weekend events : At least 4 of us are again planning on attending monthly contests in Ohio etc, so likely our club contest activity is over unless conditions and schedules and weather cooperate. In any case we are planning to enjoy a lot of rc soaring this season (and RC Sailing!), mostly evenings and weekends.
Photo taken by Tom Rhodes (Iphone 4) in the evening this past summer while I was doing first hand toss flight tests on a Vladimir Models Maxa winch model (156″ span pure rc sailplane, no motor!). I managed to catch a small thermal and just as Tom snapped the photo, a hot air balloon lifting off in the distance, moved into the frame.
It was HOT, held at Hays Kennedy Park this past weekend of June 24,25,26. RES and ALES Friday then two days of Unlimited Mixed Launch TD. Awards included a Louisville Slugger engraved bat for the Over-all TD Champion and the famous and unique Louisville Slugger Home Plate award for the top landing two day scores.
Jerry Shape earned the Bat for the third year in a row
Tulsa visitor D.O. Darnell took the Home Plate home flying an E-launch ship.
Norm Potti took RES
I won ALES
The club members really stepped it up a notch to get the contest set up and run and packed up. Steve and Kathy Gammons really went above and beyond learning the scoring program, setting up the scoring tent, etc and doing all the work, plus creating the winners’ trophies!
Their son kept the event going by organizing the line retrieval system, then drove the cart and trained Wisdom, our other helper.
John took an amazing amount of great photos and worked his tail off from start to finish. Click on DerbySoar2016 to reach the link to all his photos.
Ron Allen had cataract surgery but came out to do what he could almost straight from the hospital!
Shaun stopped by to see if he was needed both days.
AJ from Bluegrass Soaring came through to help as needed as well as supplying a turnaround.
Will we do it again next year? YES!
Gordy
President
Photo from our first club fly, February (I’m the one taking the photo!) L to R - Ken, Marc, he who must be un-named, Steve, Ron, Tom
Club contest CD’s Steve Gammons (2Ch) and Marc Marcum (ALES) stepped up and got things going as planned!
Steve kicked off with an ambitious 2ch start on March 13th but weather cancelled us.
But he brought home a home run for April with 5 pilots, 4 rounds and really good weather.
Marc started his season on April 2, and again good weather and 5 rounds!
Steve is in-it-to-win-it again this season, putting in lots of practice for both events and his scores so far show it.
(he dominated last season too!)
We will attempt 5 rounds per contest if possible.
2 Channels-you-can’t-use (spoilers or flaps) Series
Setup 9:00 am – Pilots’ Meetings 10:00 am
CD Steve Gammon
LSF3847@aol.com
Sat 3/13 Cancelled due to bad weather
Sat 4/10 Big success! Good conditions, 5 pilots “Steve G dominates!”
Sat 5/15
Sat 8/7
Sat 9/11
Sat 10/9
Club ALES Series
Set up 9:30am – Pilots’ Meetings 10:00 AM
Sun 4/3 3 pilots, 5 rounds
Sat 5/7
Sat 6/4
Sat 7/9
Sat 8/6
Sat 9/17
Sat 10/8
GORDY
CD’s Steve Gammons (2 Channels-You-Can’t-Use) and Marc Marcum (ALES) were both happily surprised to see the turnout at their first events.
Steve’s first date was an ambitious March 13th, but the weather didn’t cooperate so it had to be cancelled. And his second choice date in April threatened to be windy and hot but turned out to be a really nice day, He had 5 pilots and we flew 4 rounds. Steve’s been working really hard to get his soaring skills back after a lot of years away from the hobby and club, and it showed last season and it looks like he’s going to dominate again this season as he won the series last season and took his season opener too.
Marc lucked out with a really good day all around but only 3 pilots came. No worries because the day turned out to be really good soaring and even though Marc was very weak due to very serious and recent surgery, he provided 5 rounds! He should have stayed home to recover but he wanted to insure you guys would have the events promised.
Steve was again the pilot most tuned up, but I managed to edge him out by making all my times.
That day there were a lot of ground thermals, so landings were a challenge, I was flying the new Calypso foam ship, out of a possible 250 landing points I only managed 60! Steve did well to hit 100 points and Marc the guy who has been religious about practicing the 20 second landing pattern till its become automatic, racked up 115 points!
Guys, our two CD’s give up all the family, house, etc plans to put activities for us, at minimum reply to upcoming event posts so that they can plan how many high starts/landing tapes to set up. Even if you can’t fly, we always need timers to help.
Take a look at the score sheets, I work hard to record and publish them. Analyze the flight times and landings. Better yet make sure that your scores on on the reports too!
GORDY
Wow!
It was my first full year as Club President and it's been a whirlwind season : 14 club contests, 6 Two Channel, 8 ALES contests, and the three day first ever Louisville Area Soaring Society “DerbySoar” 3-day event!
And for the first time in awhile 4 new member sailplane pilots! And sport soaring activity at the field was at a level that it was common to see at least one pilot up on most good weather days…even some not so good weather days!
Electric Launch has been a quiet success at our flying site which is noise sensitive. All of our members are now actively using Altitude Limit Switches in their E-launch Sailplanes and having a ball.
The pilot skill level is far beyond that of general members in the recent past years. Every single pilot can now land their models on a landing tape! Its a big deal because it takes skilled pilots. I am especially proud of all of our pilots who have traveled to participate in contests outside our club field. I believe all have brought home trophies!
I’ll be adding results and more detailed news/photos later.
The LASS 2016 Executives:
Gordy Stahl Pres
Marc Marcum VP
Ron Allen Treas.
Steve Gammons Safety/PR
Gordy