Cancelled Flights Turf Soaring School grounds gliders after 39 years by Jennifer Krahe NORTH VALLEY – Turf Soaring School, 8700 W. Carefree Highway in Peoria, has stopped flying after 39 years of serving the soaring community.              “We’re still open, just not flying,” said Roy Coulliette, owner of Turf Soaring School (TSS) and manager of the Pleasant Valley Airport used by the school. “We have a lot of dual things that go on around here.” Coulliette is also a mayoral candidate in Peoria. He attributes the cessation of flights at the school to the extremely high cost of insurance. Although the school is still scheduling pilots to fly in the future, the airport, a state‑owned facility, is not available to TSS right now.

“The state has said that our lease is supposed to be renewed February 1, 2007, for another ten years,” Coulliette related. “And the state has basically said that they are planning on doing that.”   

The Arizona Soaring Association (ASA), whose home base was at Turf Soaring, has moved its operations to a facility in the Estrella Mountains in the southern part of Maricopa County.

“In order to be able to fly right now, some people have gone down there to fly,” related Paul Cordell, president of ASA. “Without the soaring school operating, we haven’t pulled out as much as we have been prevented from participating. Soaring, by its nature, needs a way to get into the air,  i.e. tow planes.”

Tow planes are integral to glider flight, pulling or towing the motorless aircraft up into the sky and then releasing them. Because of an inability to use the airport, TSS does not now have tow planes available for glider pilots.

“There are, I hope, plans to reopen the soaring school sometime in the near future,” Cordell said.

“April 1 we chose to quit flying because our insurance company just got to be too ridiculously expensive,” Coulliette asserted. He noted that he had the option to continue to pay the “exorbitant rates” the insurance company demanded but, “I chose not to.”

Coulliette added, “It got to the point where I got tired of working for insurance companies.”

ASA’s Cordell told The Desert Advocate, “The insurance companies have had some claims, and certainly the last major accident (a fatality) is one of the accidents they base their future quotes on. However, that accident had no bearing on safe operation procedures or any of the training. They (TSS) have a very good safety record.” 

Coulliette’s other option was to find new owners and new managers to oversee the school.

“The insurance wants new management, and they want a new owner, he explained. “And that’s fine, because I’ve been doing it for 39 years. We think we have somebody, and hopefully he’ll be opening up the flying part of it in the near future.

Most of my staff will still be around–some have been here for over 20 years.”

Coulliette summed up his bottom line by saying, “Basically, I want to see these flyers back in the air.”                     

Turf Soaring School did see fellow glider pilots back in the air recently when it hosted the Region 9 competition May 29. Thirty gliders representing Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Nevada and southern California participated. “We had the best of the best,” Coulliette said. “Our local guys had some serious competition.” 

He went on to say, “This is the fourth time we’ve hosted the regional competition, and the guys had a lot of fun. But my dream is to have a national‑level competition.

Reach the reporter at jennifer@thedesertadvocate.com.