24 Fall 2018 LOCALadk Magazine
LOCALadk
If you've ever stood on the top of a mountain and won-
dered what it would feel like to spread your arms out and
fly across the valley, then soaring just might be the sport for
you. Sailplanes, or gliders, are motorless airplanes that rely
on the energy in the sky to stay aloft for hours on end, and fly
for hundreds of miles. Not to be confused with hang gliders,
sailplanes have an enclosed cockpit that can sit one or some-
times two and have the same controls as an airliner, only on
a much smaller scale.
My interest in flying gliders goes back to my teenage years
and my participation in the Civil Air Patrol. In fact, my wife
has told me that one of the first things she knew about me
when we met in high school was that I wanted to learn to fly.
It just took me 40 years to get around to it. But in 2009, after
taking lessons with a soaring club in Saratoga, I received my
private pilot's license for gliders.
Flying gliders is as much a mental challenge as it is a phys-
ical one, and the first part of that challenge is just getting
into the air. Since most gliders don't have an engine (some
do have a small engine for "self-launching"), we need to get
towed into the sky by an airplane. At Adirondack Soaring, the
club that I fly with, our tow plane is a Piper Pawnee, originally
built as a crop duster; it is a sturdy, reliable airplane that gets
the job done.
Catching
The Wave
