Any glider pilots here?

[kurt535]

Have been tempted to get into gliding as a way of curbing my PPL drug expenditure.

Question is, my gliding enthusiasm is not what it should be having done it as a teen in the ATC where loads of time was spent just hanging around doing nada.

So, generally, is gliding good to pursue or do wx limits, etcetc, make the flying windows even smaller to nail?

Ty

[AER]

Can't answer your question and I know gliding is awesome fun when you get air-time, but have you thought of PPGs?

I've been somewhat addicted to Tucker Gott's channel on YT which may whet the appetite...

[CrutyRammers]

Paraglider, but I guess that's not what you meant

[Slushbox]

I did a year of glidering before moving on to the new-fangled powered flight. Pro's are that there's nothing quite like it. Cons were that weather windows in the South-East were all too short, warm days and thermals mostly absent, and a day at the gliding club was mostly spent going up and then coming down after ten minutes.

There's other stuff to do in the interim, dragging gliders around, watching them skim the trees on approach, and manning the control 'tower' so it's all a bit clubby, but fun.

It's certainly worth exploring though, especially with a too-enthusiastic Winch bloke, who nearly tore the wings off on a couple of launches. Flying with buzzards is fun.

Most clubs offer trial flights. If you're not a newby to fast things with wings then often the club instructor will chuck in a few low level passes for thrillz.

A nice crowd (at Surrey Hills) but busy at the weekends. Take sandwiches and a white beanie hat.

http://www.surreyhillsgliding.co.uk/

Edited by Slushbox on Monday 15th May 08:40

[kurt535]

Ty all.

I get its an art form. I suppose if I used it alongside PPL that's not a bad thing.

Main drawback for me is not flying to other places against which airtime is far cheaper and therefore skills fade would be kept more in check!

[Brother D]

I have quite a few hours under my belt - great fun and you can do some awesome stuff:

https://youtu.be/mRn07rM46sk

Balleka did some great videos on his channel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fs666zqMw0s&t=...

Orders of magnitude cheaper than powered too. They all still count as hours under your belt, (but if you want to do your PPL you still need 40hrs min in powered regardless). However its a great cheap way to get a real sense of flying, albeit slightly different techniques and erm the 40:1 glide ratio vs 9:1 for a lowly cessna...

Get a couple of trial flights - london flying club was super friendly and they use(d) a which launch which pretty much beats any fairground ride : )

[kurt535]

Ty all,

Ill do the trial flights and see how I go. Instructors were saying they'd expect 10 hours to solo even with my PPL mainly on vintage tail draggers. Sounds a challenge.

[CrutyRammers]

Brother D said:

I have quite a few hours under my belt - great fun and you can do some awesome stuff:

https://youtu.be/mRn07rM46sk

WTF! Lots of speed and using ground effect I guess? By 'eck, not leaving any room for error though!

[keith333]

I have spent many years gliding, but have switched to sailing now as I couldn't fit the family in the glider. It's completely different from powered flying which I found utterly boring.

Anyone can master how to fly a glider. The challenge after that is then how to fly cross country, how to fly faster, how to stay in the air longer.

Initially you may find it frustrating due to weather, but don't give up. Once you go solo, then you'll be working on extending your flight time, improving your flying in thermals (columns of rising air) and then aiming on flying cross country. Flying in othe countries such as France or South Africa can be stunning too.

Good luck!

[kurt535]

Thanks to all