First Soaring Experience

Spins were a part of my training for a Commercial Glider Certificate add
on some years ago, and I wasn't telling anyone I wanted a CFIG.

wrote:

Tell the CFI you are studying for your CFI...
you can practice incipient spins...
a REAL hoot in a glider!

"Jack Allison" wrote

20 minutes later, she returned, googly eyed and talking a mile a minute.
What? Mary talking a mile minute? Nah, must have been someone else
Jay! :-)

Chuckle

Glad she got her mind away to a fun place for a while. Tell her my
condolences are with her, and you. I lost my father-in-law quickly, and
unexpectedly about a year ago, and sometimes it still doesn't seem like it
is possible.
--
Jim in NC

On 2005-08-31, Jay Honeck wrote:
A friend of ours has been after us to fly up to Ames, IA (home of "the
other" Iowa university, Iowa State) to go flying with the "Silent Knights"
soaring club for months.

You might want to see our Blanik L13, and what happens if you decide
that it's a great idea to floor one of the rudder pedals whilst stalling
:-)

http://www.alioth.net/Video/HatCam.mp4

(If you don't have what it takes to play MPEG-4 files, get VLC from
http://www.videolan.org - VLC plays just about anything)

On 2005-09-01, wrote:
Tell the CFI you are studying for your CFI...
you can practice incipient spins...
a REAL hoot in a glider!

No need - everywhere where I've done any flying with a glider instructor
in a Blanik, spins have been on the agenda. They are fun. If I need to
lose height in the club's Blanik becacuse my time's run out, spinning is
the most fun way to do it. (Our club encourages pilots to remain
familiar with spins when flying solo, it's an occupational hazard when
soaring in the rather weak conditions we have here, trying to core very
tight and scratchy thermals)

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

There's a 'Commercial Glider Certificate'? How does one earn a living
with this endoursement?

To Jay,

Great write up, If you ever get caught up in the air without power,
now you'll have a little more confidence.

Sorry of your and Mary's loss.

Bryan "The Monk" Chaisone

Hope you do it at least one more time when you can actually 'soar', that
is, catch a thermal and go up.

Gliding is fun, Soaring is exhilarating!

Glad she got her mind away to a fun place for a while. Tell her my
condolences are with her, and you. I lost my father-in-law quickly, and
unexpectedly about a year ago, and sometimes it still doesn't seem like it
is possible.

It never seems possible.

Thankfully, the human mind can ignore many realities...
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

On 2005-09-01, Flyingmonk wrote:
There's a 'Commercial Glider Certificate'? How does one earn a living
with this endoursement?

Just like someone with a CP-ASEL makes a living!

The commercial certificate is needed if you're offering glider rides to
the public. It's also needed to get the CFI-G.

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

You might want to see our Blanik L13, and what happens if you decide
that it's a great idea to floor one of the rudder pedals whilst stalling
:-)

http://www.alioth.net/Video/HatCam.mp4

Awesome! That's *exactly* what it looked like!

Would you (or anyone) mind if I added this video to our Aviation Video
webpage? (See it at http://alexisparkinn.com/aviation_videos.htm )

(And, dude -- you guys really need to invest in some "Round-Up" spray-on
weed killer before your runway returns to dirt! :-)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jay Honeck wrote:

I was suddenly aware that we were SOARING

Glad you enjoyed it, but you weren't SOARING. You did what we call a
sled ride: Tow up and glide down. A nice experience, but not soaring.
Soaring means staying up.

I don't really have any interest in getting my glider rating -- there
doesn't seem to be any utility in it -- but, man, I sure do understand you
guys that have been raving about it.

No, you don't, otherwise you would have that interest. ;-) Soaring is
not about utility, it's just about the joy of flying.

If you liked that ride as much as you say, then do yourself a favour,
drive to some glider Operation and ask for a cross country SOARING
flight. You'll discover a whole new world: Air isn't just quiet or
bumpy, those bumps actually do mean something (as do the rudder pedals).
The pure joy of flight is just one aspect of soaring, the really
intersting part of it is to watch and understand the air and to take
advantage from that. As I like to say: To fly with the help of the
weather instead despite of it.

But be cautious: Once you've discovered the joy of flying a couple of
hundred miles without an engine, chances are you'll find motorized
flying dull, sell your spam can and buy a glider insted. You wouldn't be
the first to whom that happened.

Stefan