Soaring in my book is the second best flying, right behind helicopters. But when you figure in the fun per unit dollar soaring wins hands down.

-- IFMU

MM, if you decide on Shenington, hope to see you there! Like most gliding clubs that operate 7 days a week, during the week we have professional staff, Derek or Dick, and Kath who is the winch driver. Weekends you will find we all take turns on a rota, helping out. Paul the Farmer, who owns the airfield keeps a fatherly eye on us, he has a rare sense of humor.

We do the training, using a K21 or K13, mostly winch launching, but aerotows are available. There is a ridge quite near (the airfield was known during WWII as RAF Edgehill, and the Whittle Jet was test flown there.) One intrepid pilot flew his 5 hour silver endurance flight on our ridge in February! Brrrr!

Not much problem with airspace, a usual first cross country of 50k might be planned to Husbands Bosworth, or to Aston Down. Winch launch for a club member costs £7.

Mary

He must have been bored stiff as well as frozen stiff!! :eek:

No offense to your ridge, and I'm sure the scenery is breathtaking, but I've done some ridge-soaring at Camphill, and it gets mind-numbingly boring after an hour or so. 5 hours - I hope he interspersed it with something to keep the mind alive, like beating up the ridge at low-level! :E

FBW

He did!

I agree with you about ridge soaring. Not only boring, but dangerous.

When meeting another aircraft head on, both should turn right ----- except the one that can't, because he would hit the ridge!

At Dunstable, the ridge is shared with all sorts of flying tablecloths, not to mention models. We occasionally share with sensible hang-gliders and a model flying group. I was towing up a K-13 once, using the ridge lift to assist the climb, saw a glider coming toward us, realised suddenly that it was a LOT CLOSER THAN I THOUGHT because it was a model! The chap on the ground with his radio control suffered a certain anxiety as well, because he put his craft into some really exciting manoevers to gain our attention......

For Ridge Soaring par excellence, visit Talgarth, in Wales, the Black Mountains Gliding Club. An extraordinary site, with ridges that work well in nearly every wind direction, you can stay up for hours and when you have been truly checked out and know the dangers, you can travel all over the Brecon Beacons, as well as contacting wave, in which case, both height and distance beckon.

And then, of course, there is Aboyne.

Ridge soaring
 

And now there is Edensoaring, the new gliding club near Penrith, Cumbria. Their ridge is 50 kms long. If you get 'bored' with that you can hop over to the Lake District for a scenic tour, or get into the wave and go up to FL195 for an even better view - check out the igc logger traces on the BGA ladder. Here's one 2009-05-07 957XE0M1.igc]

Or come to Camphill this month for 'Vintage Week'. Very old gliders flown mainly by very old glider pilots. We once had 31 of them flying together on the ridge in a rather sporting westerly. I dont think any of them complained of being 'bored' with that!

ridge soaring
 

Mary, try running your local ridge from Lower Clopton ( nr Bidford) all the way to Bath Racecourse with a NW wind and then tell me its boring ! It only needs a 9 nm tow into wind from where you are, and you might get back too if there is even a weak thermal to drift down wind and homeward.
Lots of people do that ridge run when the wind is 290/15 and I have never heard of anyone being bored. Flight Details
If that does not get you going, try the Southdowns from Petersfield to Eastbourne not above 1,500' QNH. Neither boring nor dangerous.Why not drive to Parham when the wind is N or NE @ 15 kts and try it? Even the Chilterns can be fun if you cross the gaps and go to Dunstable and back from Booker (Shep used to do that in his K6e every month when he was young).
I agree with snapper1 Edensoaring is prety exciting too with a ridge 300km possible in beautiful countryside.

b b

ModelMan
 

So, you've had lots of people telling you how good it is, you've seen some 'my club is the best' and 'my ridge is better than your ridge' posts and you've found out how much a bit of gliding will cost you.

Would love to know if you going to have a go!