Fall 2018 LOCALadk Magazine 27
LOCALadk
back down, especially with mountains hiding in those clouds.
If the clouds start to close in below, the pilot has to get down
quickly. Spoilers—metal panels that come out of the wings
with the pull of a handle in the cockpit—increase the drag
of the glider, allowing it to go down rapidly. The spoilers are
also used in landing the glider.
Another reason to descend is to warm up. Without an en-
gine there is no source of heat, and the temperatures at 10
to 20 thousand feet in October are often below zero. Puff y
jackets, hats, and gloves only go so far when you're sitting
still for a couple of hours in those temperatures.
Back near the ground the pilot announces his intentions
to land over the radio and flies the same pattern as powered
aircraft, past the ski jumps, then turning left to land on the
grass runway that runs parallel to the paved runway, quickly
pulling to the side in case there is another glider also tr ying
to land. Unlike powered aircraft, gliders don't have the op-
tion of circling.
Flying gliders is about as close as you can get to soaring
like an eagle. In fact, it's not uncommon to encounter hawks
and eagles thousands of feet above the ground. A few years
ago while flying over the Sentinel Range, near Whiteface
Mountain, I was joined by two eagles. They seemed to decide
that I was an amateur and soon flew off, vanishing into the
distance just as I was beginning to think I was getting pretty
good.
