My good friend and a soaring legend in his own right, Danny Pierson, just informed me about the passing of 2 big names in the soaring world. I'm posting this assuming at least some of the HBA members have heard of these people.
George Moffat, three-time world soaring champion and author of "Winning on the Wind" (the textbook on contest soaring) has passed away. Moffat's exploits and adventures during the Golden Age of soaring are legend, and rightfully so. I only met him once in passing; myself and a close friend had loaned out our gliders to world champion pilots as part of the Hitachi Masters of Soaring event, something like 1985-86, I loaned my glider to world champion Stig Oye from Denmark, and my friend loaned his glider to Moffat.
Fred Jiran, the earliest or one of the earliest highly trained composite aircraft repairmen in the US has passed away at 84. Freddy was based at Mojave, CA in the early 1970's as a repair and race modification shop for the new generation of gliders made out of a miracle material called Fiberglass. He taught a whole lot of people how to work on composite structures, teach the techniques and materials, and contour the flying surfaces for minimum drag. One of the many people he trained to understand and properly use fiberglass composites was some unknown young engineer named Burt Rutan. I met him a couple of times, mid 1980's, he had by then earned a reputation that if you got there after 1PM you'd get a crotchety old guy with a quick temper, and there would be four or five empty beer cans in the immediate vicinity. But Freddy was a genius with composites. Last I'd heard of him he was almost finished with a huge self-designed, scratch-built catamaran yacht on which he planned to sail the world. I hope he made it before he passed.
George Moffat, three-time world soaring champion and author of "Winning on the Wind" (the textbook on contest soaring) has passed away. Moffat's exploits and adventures during the Golden Age of soaring are legend, and rightfully so. I only met him once in passing; myself and a close friend had loaned out our gliders to world champion pilots as part of the Hitachi Masters of Soaring event, something like 1985-86, I loaned my glider to world champion Stig Oye from Denmark, and my friend loaned his glider to Moffat.
Fred Jiran, the earliest or one of the earliest highly trained composite aircraft repairmen in the US has passed away at 84. Freddy was based at Mojave, CA in the early 1970's as a repair and race modification shop for the new generation of gliders made out of a miracle material called Fiberglass. He taught a whole lot of people how to work on composite structures, teach the techniques and materials, and contour the flying surfaces for minimum drag. One of the many people he trained to understand and properly use fiberglass composites was some unknown young engineer named Burt Rutan. I met him a couple of times, mid 1980's, he had by then earned a reputation that if you got there after 1PM you'd get a crotchety old guy with a quick temper, and there would be four or five empty beer cans in the immediate vicinity. But Freddy was a genius with composites. Last I'd heard of him he was almost finished with a huge self-designed, scratch-built catamaran yacht on which he planned to sail the world. I hope he made it before he passed.
