I have a single day's experience in gliders.
Back in the mid 80's ('86 or '87) I went to a small field some miles east of Dallas. They had as I recall two single seat Grob G-102s, two twin seat Grob G-103s, and an I-26. On that hot Texas summer day, the 102s were kept very busy as people were waiting in line all day for them. An instructor was using one of the 103s, and the other sat on the grass idle. The I-26 for some reason stayed in the hangar. I wanted an instructor to take me up since I had no prior experience in gliders, but the only instructor at the field that day was busy with students in the first 103.
While I was trying to figure how to get up in one of the gliders, I met a retired dentist at the field who was waiting his turn in one of the 102s. We struck up a conversation and then we made a deal, he'd fly the idle 103 (he was fully licensed), and I'd pay for the airplane and tow.
So off we went. We flew twice that day, towed by a Pawnee each time. The dentist (I've long since forgotten his name) piloted in the front while I sat in the rear. Each flight lasted about 45-50 minutes, as we had no trouble finding thermals on that hot Texas day. We flew over the huge oil storage tanks nearby, over the interstate highway, farm fields, farm houses, trees, you name it. It seemed we could fly just about anywhere we wanted to (for a time), then we could easily find a thermal to climb back up again. We had a broken cloud base that we had to stay under, and I don't think we ever got over 4000 ft, but that was more than enough altitude for that day.
The dentist let me fly some and worked with me on handling the glider in the thermals. I remember we had to keep the turns pretty tight, and we had to fly close to the stall speed. I remember more than once (in that first flight) that he had to push the stick forward because I allowed the aircraft to get too close to the stall. I also remember having to use a lot of rudder, if fact this pilot told me that rudder was more important in the turns than the ailerons were. I don't know if that's really true, but it worked.
In one of the thermal climbs we had a large hawk join the circling pattern with us. He was just off of the right wingtip for about 2 full turns. During the encounter he was eyeing us (not too nervously) and we were eyeing him. We were circling left in formation with him for what seemed a good bit of time (again about 2 full turns), then finally he broke right.
I've heard that the G-103 is not an easy glider to land, since it tends to float a lot. But this pilot made 2 very nice landings right where he wanted to, on a very short and narrow asphalt cross runway. I remember he was very good at using the speed brakes (vertical moving lift dumpers) to control the descent.
All in all, it was a fun and very memorable day.
(edited for typos)
Last edited by Flight Safety; 26th Aug 2002 at 07:52.