Sailplane pilot who wandered across the Iron Curtain in the 1960's.

I wonder how many gliders flew from East Germany into West Berlin or
Germany...

On 1/22/2020 9:15 AM, Tango Whisky wrote:
West German gliders ending up in East Germany used to be a regular thing (like one every two or three years until 1989).
There was an ADIZ along the border on the West German side (about 30 km deep), and ingress without flight plan into the ADIZ was treated as a felony, but gliders used to be tolerated by allied forces to fly within the ADIZ (sometimes for stretches of 200 or 300 km).


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Dan, 5J

On Wednesday, January 22, 2020 at 2:11:08 PM UTC-5, Dan Marotta wrote:
I wonder how many gliders flew from East Germany into West Berlin or
Germany...

Dan, 5J

None.
If you wanted to pursue Soaring in East-Germany, you had to join the GST (Gesellschaft fuer Sport und Technik), essentially the Hitler-Youth with colors changed from brown to red.
I had a coworker (in the mid '90s, after the reunification) who was a GST glider flight instructor. He got grounded after some infractions and not being in line anymore with the system. Anyhow, for anyone wanting to fly XC, they had to file for some kind of a permit 12 months in advance with info like date, glider type, take-off and landing site, exact times, flight path, etc., etc., you know, just the basics. So in essence, there was no spontaneous XC.
The area my coworker flew at had frequently wave conditions. After the big-wigs became aware of the height they could achieve and they figured out how far they could glide from that height, it was also curtailed. Oh - the joy of living in the proletarian paradise ...

Uli
'AS'

Originally Posted by Dan Marotta

I wonder how many gliders flew from East Germany into West Berlin or
Germany...

On 1/22/2020 9:15 AM, Tango Whisky wrote:
West German gliders ending up in East Germany used to be a regular thing (like one every two or three years until 1989).
There was an ADIZ along the border on the West German side (about 30 km deep), and ingress without flight plan into the ADIZ was treated as a felony, but gliders used to be tolerated by allied forces to fly within the ADIZ (sometimes for stretches of 200 or 300 km).


--
Dan, 5J

Not a glider but a gutsy Ultra light escape .
https://www.readersdigest.ca/culture...-east-germany/