100 Years of Soaring

[flynlion]

While I'm sure that other people did it sooner, for some reason the record books claim Oct 24 1911 as the first official "Soaring Flight". To mark the 100'th anniversary several glider clubs got together in Kitty Hawk NC and put on a little air show. My boss Jayne was the tow pilot in one of our Pawnees, here's a video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXkmNKxYthM

You might wanna turn the volume down, those electronic varios can be so annoying :-P

[FOZ_1983]

Nice clip mate, it looks like a rather pleasant flight..... well it would be without that endless buzzing type sound haha.

As nice and pleasant as it looks though....

Its just basically falling out of the sky slowly haha. Would scare the living hell out of me!!

[flynlion]

Nice clip mate, it looks like a rather pleasant flight..... well it would be without that endless buzzing type sound haha.

As nice and pleasant as it looks though....

Its just basically falling out of the sky slowly haha. Would scare the living hell out of me!!

You're correct, they didn't really do much "soaring" during this event, it was mostly just low altitude stuff to show off for the crowd. The real "sport" of soaring comes when you catch a good thermal and ride Mother Nature's elevator up, up, up and away! I freakin' love that :)

The buzzing noise you hear is the electronic variometer which is required during competition so the pilot can tell if he's in lift or sink without looking inside the cockpit. I personally hate the racket they make and rarely use them.

[hurricane]

not something you consider so much when it comes to ww2 aviation.I found that there was a prototype armed german glider,the ka430.maybe put a gun in the nose for dogfighting;)

[Heather856]

Nice clip mate, it looks like a rather pleasant flight..... well it would be without that endless buzzing type sound haha.

As nice and pleasant as it looks though....

Its just basically falling out of the sky slowly haha. Would scare the living hell out of me!!
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[vdomini]

[cut]

Its just basically falling out of the sky slowly haha. Would scare the living hell out of me!!






yes but veeeeery slowly and not scary at all once you're in the cockpit, try it!! Just don't fly too far from the airfield below certain quota ;)
In my country ( but i think almost everywere, not sure about foreign laws ) sailplanes and gliders are the only type of aircraft allowed to land everywere outside the runaway, ( can specially happen during sailing events or contest where to win you have to fly a certain path etc etc ) and then, able to take off the day after.
If you land with a propeller plane outside the runaway the "fly insurance stuff" suddendly get void and the aircraft need certain test to be allowed to fly again.
Sailplanes have minimum sink rates of between 0.4 and 0.6 m/s depending on the class.... and if the air you sink in raise faster than your rate... you gain altitude... super fun! :-)

[CrashLanding]

I'm a sports writer in Hobbs, NM, and we've had a major soaring competition come to town each of the last two years. Very interesting stuff.

They launch from an old army air field that was used for B-17 training during and shortly after WWII.