Any of you qualified Glider/Sailplane Pilots/License Holders?

Was just thinking of taking stock of the number of glider/sailplane pilots on ATS.
I was also hoping that the same people could share their accounts/experience with us.
Longest,highest sorties, a/c flown, aerobatics executed, memorable experiences, close calls, type of launch (winch/aerotow etc..) and so forth is the type of information I'm interested in.
Any personal accounts of 'joyrides' are also welcome

Has anybody flown the L23 Super Blanik?

Nobody??!
Somebody?
Anybody?!

C'mon!!!

hahaha me and zaphod were talking about this the other night in chat.

I first started gliding in air cadets many moons ago, and as an adult carried it on till 4 years ago when i got married and needed money for a home ect ect ect..(married lifes expensive...lol)

My three favorite memories are these.

1) Winch launched off a field in cornwall, whos edge was a sheer cliff face! that was awesome...as you climbed out, you got a perfect sea view...and the uplift insane!
2) Wales. Took an air launch off a club in central wales...great people, nice shiny kit! Now from 7 K the view is beyond belief...south wales, north wales...it all stretches out beneath you its beautiful.
3) Running the thermal from a power station and nearly killing myself in the process. Came out of a loop the wrong way, pulled a right instead of left, and wham!! Instant 2 K and rising...the wings near folded upwards, and the tail flexed like you never want to see....but for the sheer terror of it, i look back now and laugh like an idiot....Its funny in retrospect!

sounds like you had fun riding the plane. so tell you what.the sky at the time you were talking abot was it peaceful or shatterd???

Originally posted by D4rk Kn1ght
hahaha me and zaphod were talking about this the other night in chat.

I first started gliding in air cadets many moons ago, and as an adult carried it on till 4 years ago when i got married and needed money for a home ect ect ect..(married lifes expensive...lol)

My three favorite memories are these.

1) Winch launched off a field in cornwall, whos edge was a sheer cliff face! that was awesome...as you climbed out, you got a perfect sea view...and the uplift insane!
2) Wales. Took an air launch off a club in central wales...great people, nice shiny kit! Now from 7 K the view is beyond belief...south wales, north wales...it all stretches out beneath you its beautiful.
3) Running the thermal from a power station and nearly killing myself in the process. Came out of a loop the wrong way, pulled a right instead of left, and wham!! Instant 2 K and rising...the wings near folded upwards, and the tail flexed like you never want to see....but for the sheer terror of it, i look back now and laugh like an idiot....Its funny in retrospect!

Great! A reply finally!!
So you (and Zaphod) licensed pilots?
What a/c have you flown?
The reason I'm asking is I'm going to start flying soon and the likely plane is the L23 Super Blanik.

The L-23 is a great learner two seat glider, with a good temperment and a nice aerobatic capability - Theres a club here in the south (UK) that has two as trainer a/c for new learners before they unleash them on the newer gliders (Bit more sturdy for those bumps and scrapes on landing!!)

Wow dude - all I can say is get ready for a life changing experience - gliding in a thermal - no sound bar air through the vents and radio chatter is an awesome awesome way to fly - hehehehe just dont expect a smooth ride through a cloud.

Best of luck dude and i hope you stick with it.


DK

My favorite and first above all gliders though is the motorised Grob Vigilant. Thats the plane I love with every spare ounce of heart fibre.... If ever I won the lottery here in the UK i'd by two and the hanger space, and you'd only see me at morning and evening meals...

Indeed!!
Thanks for the post!
Will know who to get in touch with in case I have any thing to ask..

no worries at all - Just remember one thing whilst in the air above all things - A glider is not a fighter jet! lol the amount of times ive seen people take a LOMG (LOOK! Oh My God!!)fall after too much bank for too long... Like an elevator in a tower block with no cables...

apart from that - enjoy it as their is nothing in the world like it - When your instructor first says "You have controls" and you reply "I have controls".... and your the man in the hot seat....


Oh God now I have Glider envy.....

Concrete ie towns = good thermals, large bodies of water = bad thermals....

Yo Daedalus, excuse me for my curiousity. Strangely, I did asked DK here before about his own icon on left bar. I just wonder what is that icon that you have on your own bar? Is that from cartoon tv or movie show? I've seen Macross Plus, Yukikaze and some others and I'm not fimilar with that what you're having on your bar. It seem awesome. Can you give me that info? Thanks! Excuse for my little off-point on this post.

dark knight,

You've got me even more excited about the whole thing now!!
To the extent that I've bought myself a joystick, FS2004 and am flying all kinds of sailplane sims.
Unfortunately I can't start till Early-Mid October because these blasted monsoons!!
( Plus some 'critical' air force exercises are in session which involve flying offensive missions in open airspace and everyone including the airlines are a bit jumpy!)

One Myrmidon,
The Avaatar is that of Max Sterling from The Original Macross saga(Robotech)

good luck with your flying but till that day every minute is going to be a century for you.if your waiting that anxiously

I can't say that I'm a licensed pilot of gliders - or even a pilot at all - but I think they are probably the best aircraft out there. I remember one day a long time ago when all I did was go up in the back seat. It was so amazingly quiet. Just whistling and creaking.

I also remember sitting in the back of the tow-plane, and the crazy JOLT as the cable was released, and the plane would swing from side to side. Ohh, good times . . .

so you flew in the back seat of the plane huh not a bad experience was it

Haven't tried it youself

Yeah, not the worst experience ever. What do you do, fly international?

no.im not even flying a plane but on my way to fly boeings a few years from now.

Thanks, appreciate it!

[edit on 24-9-2006 by OneMyrmidon]

Some how I missed this thread !!!!!
I went through cadets up here in Central Canada and did back to back years. First with the gliders up in Mountain View, On and the next at Lindsay, ON for my private pilots.

Stories? Well it would take a bit to write them but one that stands out from glider was one of the students and their instuctor crashing of the end of the runway.

After they had trouble with downdrafts and bad control on the side of the student putting the glider which was on tow in a very low and left to the tow. The instructor pulled the release yanked the glider in its side and lined up for a very tight squeze between some tall trees since they didn't have the alt to do an emergency turn back and land with tail to the wind.

Well they ended up wraped around a tree with the left wing and a broken (snapped off) empange and rippled right wing. They walked away from it though with only some good scrapes and bruizes and a trip to the Hospitail to make sure they were ok.

I could post more later and would love to here other peoples stories but want to see if this threa will revive at all.

Sure it will!!
Flag it!! Flag it!!
Wuahahaha

Ah the good ole days of soaring. *sigh* Thanks for making me nostalgic.

Most fun: Whip stalls. We were soaring along the ridge, and my instructor says "You want to see something awesome?" So of course I say "Sure!" He hauls back on the stick and points us up into the vertical. I'm looking up at the ridge, and he says "This isn't radical." Next thing I know, I'm looking straight down, hanging in my straps with waiting for my stomach to catch up to us. My instructor chuckles and says "THAT is radical."

We also used to ride in the tow plane sometimes, in the back seat. After release, the pilot would stand it up on the wing, and drop the nose just about straight down to make sure the rope cleared the sailplane.

One year we were flying, and there was a huge fire right off the end of the runway. Talk about interesting landings. We had to either cut our approach WAY short and dive for the runway or we had to fly over the fire and ride out the thermals and then dive for the runway.

I learned to fly Schweizer 2-32 and 2-33s. God it was fun and I miss it some days.