MAA Mie-prefecture Aeronautical Association

　rev.3.0　(2008/10/31）

1. Introduction

Welcome to the MAA web-site ! MAA : Mie-prefecture Aeronautical Association is a gliding club in Japan.

MAA had been established as a private flying club in 1962, and was re-organized as a public service corporation in 1973. Now, we operate three gliders, one motor glider and one tug plane. Our home base, AKENO AIR FIELD is located at the center part of Japan. Essentially, AKENO AIR FIELD is a Japan Ground Self-Defense Force base, but we can operate there as a gliding field only in holidays . AKENO is surrounded by rice fields, and faces ISEWAN-bay, then such an environment gives us not only beautiful scenes, but also some unique gliding conditions, that is, local thermal, sea breeze front and cloud street.

2. Aircrafts

We have three pure gliders and one motor glider, these are ASK-13, ASK-21, PW-5 and SF-25E. Two ASK gliders are basically used for basic training because they are two seater gliders. PW-5, the single seater, is flown by solo-pilots for their local flights. We adopt air tow operation, and have BELLANCA CITABRIA as a tug plane. It is difficult to do cross country flight in our district because of weather condition, restriction of airspace and lack of out landing area. But, SF-25 allows us cross country flights because it has a power plant.

３．Flight　area

AKENO air field is located on N34 32.0 E136 40.3, the elevation is 20 ft. It has two runways, that is, RWY 13-31 and RWY 04-22. The RWY 13-31 is a paved runway and its length is 500 m with 100 m run off area on each sides. MAA's flights use the RWY 13-31 for take off, and the glass area along the RWY 13-31 for landing.

MAA's local flights have been held within AKENO CONTROL ZONE (CTZ). AKENO CTZ is restricted its upper limit up to 2,500 ft. except for south west region where is restricted up to 4,000 ft. because of CENTRAIR INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT that is located on 15 nm. NNE, from AKENO air field.

You can watch the landsacpe of our flying area with clicking this one : [Landscape around RJOE] . But, sorry it is described in Japanese only, and use the browser's <- button to retrun previous page.

４．Seasons and Circumstance

AKENO AIR FIELD is surrounded by the rice fields, and the circumstance is good to generate thermals from autumn to early spring because the rice fields are filled with water in summer. Daibutuyama-hill, which is located near by, is a good trigger to make thermals. AKENO, ISE district faces the coastline, where we can sometimes enjoy the lift of sea breeze front. In winter season, wave clouds comes very often with dry monsoon, and it gives us an express way in the sky.

　 　　

　　　　　　　　The rice paddy fields in winter with rainbow　　　　　　　　　Daibutuyama-hill covered with red leaves in autum

５．Members and activities

MAA consist of about 50 members, 5 instructors and 5 tug pilots. The members are not only Mie prefecture residents, but also the other residents, that is, Kyoto, Osaka, Koube and Ngoya. Major activities of MAA are member's private flights and training flights. Especially, MAA is an authorized organization to have a license course, then many members got their licenses through the license course. Anｄ we are doing various activities as a public service corporation.