The 2011 SOARING EXPO at the Museum of Flight

Doug Service

The 2011 Soaring Exposition was held at the Seattle Museum of Flight on March 5 and 6. Booths were set up and staffed by the following local organizations involved with soaring: Evergreen Soaring, Northwest Eagle Soaring, Pacific AeroSport, Seattle Area Soaring Society, International Aerobatic Club IAC 67, Seattle Glider Council, Overlake Civil Air Patrol, and Puget Sound Soaring Association. There were four gliders on the show floor; 304-CZ-17, DG-10005, L-33, Apis; provided by Alan Kirlin, Northwest Eagle Soaring, and Evergreen Soaring (ed. The museum had also mounted Steve Fosset’s DG-505 from the ceiling; this is the specially modified model, that Einar Enevoldson and Steve Fosset used to set the current altitude record of over 51,000 ft).  The Civil Air Patrol provided a nice addition as the cadets were able to promote soaring to younger museum visitors.

Six talks on various topics in soaring were presented each day. Stan Kasprzyk gave an excellent and very colorful introduction to soaring with some photographs that would certainly inspire one to get involved in soaring. Linda Chism gave a very well researched and interesting talk on the first glider pilots in Washington at Oroville: Cloyd and Audrey Artman. Fred Hermanspann gave a fascinating talk on flying across the Cascades. Noel Wade gave an excellent talk on competition soaring directed at a broad audience. Noel made a SeeYou presentation from one of the competitions in which he participated. He showed the flight tracks of all competitors in real-time and narrated the entire race. It was an excellent means to show non-competition pilots and even non-pilots the excitement and challenges of contest flying. David Beardsley gave a well-attended talk on competing in the World F3J Radio Controlled Soaring Championship. And, John Coffey gave an interesting talk on power and sailplane aerobatics that ended up becoming quite technical due to high concentration of the pilots in the audience.

Putting on the Soaring Exposition required the help of many members of all of the organizations involved. The Seattle Glider Council thanks all of the individuals who contributed to the success of the exposition.