April Update

[Don Grillo]

Hello Sky Soaring Members,
As your Maintenance Committee Chairman I thought I would give you an update on whats been happening at the club.  First, I’m pretty sure (keeping fingers crossed) that we have sold the Cessna 182 tow plane.  The buyer will be here Tuesday night and will fly it out Wednesday morning. That will free up some needed space in the hangar.

Yesterday, about 7 of us met out at the hangar and did some much needed maintenance. First to arrive at the field was John DeRosa and Greg Palmer followed shortly by John Phelan who then proceeded to repair the broken mast on the big wind sock on the west end of the field. JP worked on the oil leak on the Hustler mower. It is now ready for the season.

The picture (attached) shows the rest of the crew that washed and assembled the SGS 1-34R.  Wearing masks and keeping our distance.  This will give us some much needed space in the hangar.  I took a bunch of pictures of the 1-34 and will post it for sale on a number of websites.  If anyone is looking for a good flying glider, speak up.

The C-182 was prepped for the buyer and our Chief Tow Pilot (John Scott) took it for a short flight just to make sure it is ready to go.

The Pawnee is up for an annual inspection this month.  Gary Palumbo and I will start work on that next Saturday.

Covid-19 and soaring.  The SSA has cancelled all soaring contests and camps through July.  Here at Sky Soaring, we will have to make some adjustments of our procedures to protect our members safety, some good and some not so good.  The Board is still finalizing the new procedures and will have something out to you by the end of the month. We will fly as soon as the governor lifts the stay at home restrictions!

The board is also planning on doing an online meeting this month. It will be held on zoom (zoom.com).  All members can attend using either a computer, smart phone, tablet or telephone. When you get a chance, download and install the zoom.com app so you are ready when the time comes. The CLGC meeting is tomorrow night (Monday)at 7:30 on zoom.  You should have received an email last week. Watch for a reminder Monday with the link.

Dues. We still have many members that have not paid any dues, active and inactive status.  The club finances are dependent on your dues. I’m not going to sugarcoat this. We have some very large bills that will be coming due and the club cannot meet those commitments at this time. If you haven’t paid your first quarter dues, you are delinquent and you can not fly club gliders. If you don’t pay your second quarter dues, you will be dropped from the membership. If you are a Patron member, you will lose that status.  If you don’t know how much you owe, please, contact Steve Synder, 224-628-2871 or email, smsrsnyder@comcast.net.  A big thank you for those that are up to date on club dues. 🙂

Relieving stress.  For me, a trip out to the gliderport is a great stress reliever. It’s peaceful and quite. Sometimes I go out to the east end of the field and just sit, listening, smelling and seeing nature. I look forward to jumping on the Hustler mower and giving our field a good mowed look.  If you are sitting at home and just want to get away, come out to the field.  You can always find something to do and if you are checked out on the mowing equipment, cut some grass.

Here’s a pic of yesterdays crew. Can you recognize them?
Stay safe.
Don Grillo, Mx Committee Ch.

[Don Grillo]

April 22,
The Cessna 1-182 is sold and it flew out today.

I want to thank John DeRosa, John Phelan, John Scott, Greg Tomczyk and Jim Hopkins for all their help today. We swept out the hangar, rearranged some of the aircraft, cleaned up the northeast corner of the hangar and John Phelan and John Scott mowed.

A picture says a thousand words.

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