On Sat, 06 Dec 2008 22:08:21 -0800, wby0nder wrote:

Anyone here know if there is any soaring activity in the United Arab
Emirates or Dubai? A local friend thinks I should go over there and
start a soaring school. He's a real nice guy but I take his ideas with
a grain of salt. That said, he does know a lot of folks there and
thinks they would not only dig soaring but be able to afford it as well.
I'm only slightly less skeptical of this idea than of the perpetual
motion zeppelin glider thing.

This is second hand, but:

A long-time friend was working in Quatar, just up the gulf from the UAE
on the 80s. As he's a keen model flier and figured that thermals had to
be great with all that sun on the floor, he took an RC soarer out there.
No luck at all: he tried valiantly but couldn't find any thermals. He
eventually realised that all the sand, and the lowish sandy hills heat up
equally, so there are few temperature differences to kick the thermals
off.

Certainly a glance at a list of UAE birds shows many more shore birds and
non-soaring species than raptors, vultures etc. Many of the raptors are
marked as rare/endangered.

I've worked there (Abu Dhabi) and must say I didn't see many soaring
birds - not at all like India - but OTOH I wasn't looking all that hard.

HTH


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