A quarter of an hour of pure pleasure...

[petermcleland]

An old friend from my gliding days posted this elsewhere and I thought you might like to see it here:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation ... 62J4fZNQjs

[Tako_Kichi]

Thanks for that Peter I really enjoyed it.

All my glider flights were thanks to the ATC's gliding program. In some ways I preferred gliding to flying in Chippies, probably because we went gliding more times per year as the nearest ATC glider field (RAF Ternhill) was only about 14 miles from our HQ. Chippie flights were usually from RAF Shawbury or during the annual camp at various RAF bases.

[petermcleland]

Hi Larry...Well I'm sure that you and I have never experienced such top end gliding as that video showed but my gliding experience is similar to your own. I was a gliding instructor at 617 Gliding School, first at Bovingdon and then at Manston. I've never even experienced Ridge Soaring but I can see that in that video, he is staying mostly in rapidly rising air from the wind blowing in from the sea and lifting over the cliffs...He is able to keep the nose down and, in effect, dive continuously, gaining high airspeed instead of altitude. In fact he is really going down but the air is going up so he flies level along the face of the cliffs for as long as the cliffs last. When there are no cliffs then he needs to turn that speed into altitude for the glide to the start of the next set of cliffs. I find the whole thing fascinating to watch

[Jetstreamsky]

Great route to fly, got to try that in FSX with CumulusX on, great fun!

[Nigel H-J]

Unfortunately IT block Youtube so will have to wait until next Monday to view that Peter.

Back in the seventies our gliding club went up to Sutton Bank for a weeks ridge flying during March and boy was it cold on some days but the flying was great, never before had I been airborne with around 9 other gliders in close proximity of each other flying up and down the ridge not to mention the Jet Provosts who were usually flying lower than us as we climbed to height, bit strange looking down at some of them as they flew past a mile or less away!

Also flew across to Scarborough and back in the Motor Faulke as well as practising field landing approaches when I could not commandeer a glider, flew low level once with one of our gliding club instructors when we got a bit bored just flying around looking at fields, he did the flying whilst I read the map!! and when I say low level it was right down to the deck through the hills, not something that you could get away with or even dare to do now!!

Kind regards
Nigel.

[Chris Sykes]

i miss the old VGS flying, was a Staff Cadet then started going to the Civie side but that ended short...
Got my Silver wings and Gold on the Vigilent then we converted to the Viking, much nicer aircraft than the Vigilant! Less to think about engine etc and more on looking outside flying! Got a good hour and half thermaling out of one once! Shame there isnt one for FSX! (Hint Hint)

[cstorey]

He's got more bottle than me ! And I feel there are a number of breaches of the ANO there . The land out options look very limited indeed

[Tako_Kichi]

The land out options look very limited indeed

Gliders need very little space to land and he could have put down in any of those fields if the need arose, although getting them down is sometimes more difficult than keeping them up (especially in the high performance types) as they just want to keep flying. That's why gliders are fitted with spoilers to kill the lift they generate and are essential when landing.

His biggest danger was getting below the cliff tops and then the only landing options are the beach or the sea, but, judging from the ridge lift he was getting the wind was coming off the Channel and hitting the cliffs so if he did drop below the lip all he would need to do would be to run parallel to the cliffs and close in and it would be like riding an elevator as he would rise on the wind currents and be above the cliffs again in seconds.