My first flight was this Saturday. A beautiful calm day that topped out around 80 degrees. I arrived around 11, but my instructor was still busy with another student. They took to the air soon after I arrived. There was a consistent line of gliders in the staging area and the tow plane was kept busy all day.

The staging area is the end of the runway where three gliders can line up to wait for the tow plane. You use a golf cart to pull your glider over and then when a glider takes...

So I suppose I should follow up my last blog with what occurred last Saturday. It was wet and cold most of the time, but the weather was changing every few minutes. There were 20+ members there and my main contact George said there were about 80-100 in the club each year. (There are annual dues.)

All in all we put together about a dozen gliders. Some belong to the club and some were owned by some members. I learned quite a bit about gliders and was satisfied with the quality control...

Tomorrow I will be going out to the "gliderport" to assist with glider assembly. The cool thing is the gliderport is only 15 minutes away. So getting there is not a big deal. Here is a google maps satellite pic of the gliderport:


(click for larger image)

You can see the gliders parked mostly along the southern edge. and if you look at the right edge you can see a flying...

I have received book number two.



This is the FAA handbook. This one is much more textbook like than Glider Basics. But it is a bit better quality with many color diagrams and better organization. There is a lot of information packed into its pages. I'm torn as to whether to spend more time reading this one or stick with the other book.

Since the other book follows...

I've read through the first flight lesson in Glider Basics. It begins going over the basic parts of the glider. Wings, vertical and horizontal stabilizers, ailerons, elevators, rudder, wheels, even the pitot and total energy tubes for instrumentation.

Then it gets into what to expect on the first flight. It says the instructor will do most of the flying but I should get to do a few turns with and without the rudder.

I find the bit about the rudder interesting,...