Gliding
 

The worst experience -so far.

Wanting desperately to fly. Push the glider some 2 miles down the taxiway, the momnet we arrived at the beginning of the runway the wind changes direction and flight is simply cancelled because local regulations prohibit taking off on a southern direction for reasons of noise! Yes it was a Piper Cab towing.

The best thing is the unbelivably low noise levels - no engine eh!

Additionally it is pure flying!:) :)

Most fun ever was my first flight on the H30, more a toy than a glider and therefor JUST FUN !
It has less than 200 kg MTOW, 13 m wingspan, a non removable small V-Tail (I´ve seen much larger modell plane wings) and looks like a little toy plane. Build of balsa wood and glass fibre by the famous Eugen & Ursula Hähnle (who later founded Glasflügel) in their living room. Verry narrow cockpit, but lots of space for the ellbows in the wing root, Spitfire-style canopy (turn around and see your V-tail), no forces on stick and pedals (so you just think it around the corner), retractable landing gear and reasonable performance. Getting towed by a Robin feels a little like a leaf in the wind, must be like getting towed by a 747 in a normal glider.
There´s just one existing, but if you should ever get an offer ...
Just say YES :D

Go try it you'll never fly straight and level again.
The main challenge is soaring, followed by going places. On a good day duration is limited by daylight or your bladder and dsitance by your courage.
The following sites will give you more info, they are for my home club at Aboyne and the British Gliding Association respectively.
http://www.gliding.co.ukhttp://www.deeside.glidingclub.co.uk

you cant beat soring flight. I started as a kid & still enjoying it 20 plus years later! Some of my best moments are Completing a 512km flight taking 8 hours to complete. Competing with 50 other pilots racing around a task, just reading the sky whos going to get round the fastest? whos going to end up in field? Completing a task with an average speed of 112kph!! & only came 6th that day. Getting away from a low point 300ft & really working hard to climb away. ( had picked a field ) When a student tells you that they had really learnt something on that flight. Soaring with birds of pray. Enjoy:)

A few years ago, TV's National Geographic Channel produced a wonderful film in their "Quest" series - "Wind Born: Journey into Flight".

First part is the introduction to her gliding first-solo for sixteen-year-old Lucy, young member of the Philip Wills dynasty, by her father, in New Zealand.

Second part follows an extraordinary flight by Lucy and her father, in a high-performance sailplane, accompanied by another, along the length of the Southern Alps, past Mount Cook, to Milford Sound.

Magical filming. Find it if you can.

WS

Windborne
 

I have a copy of this video and indeed it is worth seeing; the scenery in Milford Sound is great. :)

The Soaring Society of America sells copies for US$38: see www.ssa.org/catalog/ (mine is a 'bootleg' copy that my wife picked up for much less).

"Running on Empty" is another video available from the SSA, and is also worth watching. It's about the Hitachi "Masters of Soaring" international competition at Estrella Sailport in Arizona.

I was walking on the clag-laden South Downs above Storrington on Bank Holiday Monday (freezing in Shorts and T-Shirt!). The strong wind out of the North East provided ideal slope-soaring conditions for the gliders from Parham, some of whom were doing so with gusto!

Some excellent close-up "on a level" views of them once or twice - wish I'd had a camera with me! And a K-13 several hundred feet above the hillside, nose into wind, looked to be as near as dammit hovering! If any of you guys are reading this, thanks for the entertainment!

Lovely stuff, I really must get back down there next summer and take it up again and this time stick at it!

Enjoy it BRL!

So, BRL, what happened? May we hear how your flight(s) went?

Hi Big Red

Take it you have not been yet.

Am sure you will enjoy it. Yup you can have to wait for hours to have a go, get cold etc.

But that is only a very small price to pay. If all goes well you will have the experience of a lifetime.

A good winch launch gives you the same acceleration as a F1 car.

Someone has already mentioned that flying and gliding are really 2 different things altogether. They are different challenges and can both be very satisfying.

If you want to go from A2B gliders are pretty useless and a powered machine is the way to go. However if you want to have a nice day 'relaxing' in the air or compete with mates I think you will have to go a long way to find something which is half a challenging as gliding.

Have fun.

Frank Voeten

Gliding is something all PPLs should do - in fact it should be part of the PPL Syllabus!!:)

I've only ever been gliding 2 or 3 times but I'm hooked - thanks guy at Borders Gliding.

Gliding teaches you to fly in balance using the rudders, it teaches you to fly using the merest pressure on the stick and you get lots of practice at Forced Landings too!. Its wonderfuly quiet and smooth, I remember that the tug was rocking all over the place in the turbulance but once we cast off the glider was really stable.

So try it - you won't regret it.

Thanks chaps. Excellent stuff. I am looking at doing next wed/thursday. Been a tad busy here and am definitely going to do it next week. (Weather permiting of course) :)

Hi there!

I can only advice every pilot and wannabe to try this out. I started gliding in 1992, when my aim was to get in a 747-cockpit. What happened? I figured out that gliding is much better than bus-driving ;) and started a career in Air Traffic Control. That gives me more time to spent in a glider cockpit.

Since June 2002 i own a ASW 19b, one-seat fibreglass glider, and i tell you: It 's great!

I wish you finest weather with great thermals to enjoy!!!

C U under the clouds!

A typical day?
 

In some ways, Saturday 31st August was fairly typical - soarable, but not classic in East Anglia:

Enjoyed a 2hr 41 minute flight over Suffolk: Ridgewell to Wratting
Common (took ages going upwind in a poor performance glider - every
thermal saw me drifting back over where I had been already!), then back
nearly to Ridgewell, then to Newmarket, Mildenhall (rows of grey
military stuiff parked), up to Isleworth,, and back to Ridgewell. Got
rather cold in cloud at 6000 feet, but most of the time stayed between
3500 (once I had climbed there from a 1200 foot tow) and 5000, which was
cloudbase. A very modest distance, but a pleasant flight in "bimble"
mode.

Not as adventurous as some glider pilots in Scotland: quote: "Saturday
31st August 2002 - what a day!!! First launch
was at 09.07am with a declared 500Km. Second launch
was at 09.15am with a declared 1000Km.

The day turned out well - 20-30Kts NW with wave climbs
up to 21,000 but continuing on from there.

What a day of claims - we had the following successful
flights:

Steve Thompson completed his 500km to claim Diamond
Goal and Diamond Distance having done his first 300Km
two days ago!

Dave Smith completed his Gold Distance, Diamond Goal
and Gold Height with his new glider.

At long last a Diamond Height for Lyn Ferguson-Dalling.

Andrew Eddie can now enter tomorrow's UK Mountain Soaring
Championships having completed his Silver Distance
for full Silver and Part 1 of his 100Km diploma. He
missed his part 2 by less than 4kph.

Jack Stephens completed 793Kms of his 1000Km attempt.
He is presently 'engine out' heading up the country
from somewhere south of Newcastle...." Unquote.

(The "engine out" refers to a glider with a fold-out engine to get home
when the thermals or wave lift fail to last long enough. Apparently
this pilot landed in Northumbria having flown there in pure gliding mode
via various turning points, and then took off again with his engine out
to fly back to Aboyne, in the Dee Valley beween Balmoral and Aberdeen.)

All right for some!

Treadigraph, Glad to see someone enjoys the show, I've spent several enjoyable hours skimming along the South Downs...

BRL, Given you're in Brighton, I assume you are either going to Parham, or Ringmer. I'm a member of Southdown GC, at Parham and they fly Wednesdays, Fridays and weekends. Fridays are set aside mainly for trial lessons so that may be your best bet. That said turn up any of the days before 9am and ask for the duty instructor, and you should be airborne fairly quickly (i.e. before lunch, gliding involves absurd amounts of hanging around)

As for memorable flights, I don't have a huge number as I've only been flying for just over two years, but so far there is flying along a sea breeze front at 5000ft at the end of a 5 hour flight, thermalling with buzzards, scraping away from the ridge in a weak thermal to cloudbase, floating in a gentle wave system at 3000ft kicked off by the downs, soaring for an hour in weak evening thermals (never worked so hard...)

Have fun,

John