Originally Posted by
Gertrude the Wombat
My one experience of gliding was hanging around the gliding club for an entire (long summer) evening out of which I got five minutes in the air, which was as I expected.
What I hadn't twigged in advance was that those five minutes weren't actually any cheaper than five minutes in a powered aircraft would have been.
It's a shame you got that experience, that's a common, now false stereotype of Gliding thankfully that's confined to the past unless you're at a really backwards club. Though you can't really expect long flights in the evening can you? If you want to experience Gliding you come during the day, trial lesson evenings are a poor introduction.
But to put it into perspective, I did a 6 hour flight from Hampshire to Lincolnshire and back off a winch launch in July, dinner was the most expensive thing that day! Certainly cheaper than the £15 landing fee plus flying fees to do a 5 minute circuit in a beaten up old cessna at the local airfield down the road, letalone the cost of a 6 hour flight!