Graduating to Gliders: A Paragliding Pilot Transitions To Sailplanes

My Schweizer 1-35 sailplane at Mifflin County Airport, PA

August 31, 2003:
Wind is blowing "over the back" and we've been waiting on launch at Ellenville, NY, for the better part of three hours, hoping conditions will settle down enough for a paraglider flight. I discovered paragliding four years earlier, and since then, boating around a few thousand feet over the ground under my 15 lb. nylon wing has become, if not my very favorite thing, a close second. A modern paraglider is a miraculous thing, emerging from a backpack and transforming in three minutes into a diminutive soaring aircraft, with a 40' wingspan, a comfortable seat, instruments and radio, an emergency parachute, significant back protection, and even a supply of drinking water. With a turning radius smaller than any except rotorcraft, in the right hands it's capable of coring-up in tiny wisps of lift. The current open distance record for paragliders is 263 miles, and while this may strike some as rather limited, bear in mind that after landing, the pilot simply folds the wing and tucks it with the harness back into the rucksack and hitches a ride home.

But this morning, we're painfully reminded that PG's have serious limitations too, namely that the window of operable conditions is quite small. Because they are slow flying, winds of over 20 knots keep us on the ground, as do winds that necessitate a downwind take-off. Tired of "para-waiting", Narunas is heading to Randall Airport and invites me to join the gang who are going to try out the new hydraulic winch he's built. I pack up my glider and we drive down the mountain and caravan over to Middletown to do some tow launching. At the other end of the airfield there's a sailplane club. We walk over to coordinate our operations with them. "Is it possible to go for a ride?" I ask. It always starts with an innocent question.

In the space of ten minutes I find myself strapped into the front seat of a venerable old Schweitzer 2-33. My pilot, Tom Decker, points out the well-worn release knob and the trim lever and the next thing I know we're at 2500' AGL and he's telling me to take the stick and concentrate on pitch control. Before you can say "Special Four-Flight Intro Package," I am writing out a check which will make me the Valley Soaring Club's newest member.

I spend the following couple of months living for the weekends and the all too brief moments of quality time I get to spend with our CFIG "Uncle Hank" Nixon, and commercial pilot Scott Calvert, in the cockpit of the 2-33. These guys are my kind of people, as I'm discovering virtually everyone in the club to be: amiable, intelligent, and committed, with a taste for laughter and lame jokes, and a passion for soaring. Moreover, they seem to love teaching and helping newbies like me enter the sport.

The first time I try to fly the tow, I think, "I'm not going to be able to do this." But little by little Hank tosses more pieces of the puzzle my way. And with Scott's encouragement ("That didn't totally suck…") I find I am slowly getting the hang of it. Between lessons, I try to help out with ground crew duties, and covetously watch as a fifteen-year-old kid named Kamil makes yet another perfect spot landing in the club's little sports car of a glider, the 1-26. Although I'm nearly 30 years behind him, I'm trying hard to catch up. On several evenings, once the sailplanes are tied-down for the night, I bring out my paraglider and a lightweight backpack motor I've recently acquired, and take some beautiful, hour-long flights over the farmlands in the glassy smooth air, as the sun sinks to the horizon. Randall Airport is my new favorite place.

img src="../../images/soaring_randall_from_air_web.jpg" border="0" alt="Paul Villiniski" >
randall airport Valley Soaring Club gliders at Randall Airport, Middletown, NY

November 2, 2003:
I arrive early on Sunday morning to find no other students. I am in the rare position of having the Maestro all to myself, and to my delight I have five flights with Hank in rapid succession, during which we box the wake, do stalls, and practice flying the pattern and landing. On the fourth flight, during take-off, I announce that we have 200 feet and I have enough altitude to return to the airport should the rope break. Ping! Away the rope goes. I never even saw it coming. I am suddenly a little busy and can't glance behind me, but I'm pretty sure Uncle Hank is having a good chuckle.

We land after the fifth flight and Hank jumps out to turn us around and hook up the rope. He tells me I'm going to take a tow to 2500', fly around and practice basic airmanship, then get into the pattern with plenty of room for a long downwind leg and make a nice smooth landing. As an aside he adds, "I'm not coming on this one." At this news, I give him my best deer-in-the-headlights look, and this time I ascertain that he is, in fact, having a good chuckle. But just as soon as my take-off roll begins, I feel my face stretch into a wide grin, which lasts throughout my first solo flight, and well into December. At the end of the day I thank Hank, telling him I've been waiting for this day for 30 years. I don't manage to tell him why: my thirteenth birthday present was a glider ride in Elmira, very likely in a 2-33.

November 23, 2003:
Hank signs me off for my first flights in the 1-26, and I instantly develop a crush on it. But the Valley Soaring Club flying season is drawing to a close, and with a heavy heart, I help as we suspend the disassembled 1-26 in the hanger for the winter. I poll my mentors about where I might go for a couple of weeks to continue my training. I've begun to sink my teeth into the idea of having a Private Pilot Glider License in my pocket by springtime. Scott recommends an outfit called Seminole Lake Gliderport, in Claremont Florida, 30 miles west of Orlando. I call and speak with the extremely pleasant Ingrid Kjenslie, who, along with her extremely pleasant husband Knut, owns and operates the gliderport. (Is everyone in this sport simpatico?) I explain my clever scheme to her: I will arrive between Christmas and New Years, with a total of exactly 10 hours and 22 minutes of airtime in gliders, do a bunch of flying, and leave 10 or 12 days later, having passed my checkride with the examiner. She agrees that this is possible, at least in theory. Then she slyly suggests that I also arrive having completed the written exam.

Wondering what I've just gotten myself into, I put down the novel I'm reading, and pick up the Soaring Flight Manual, the FAR's, and the ASA Test Prep Guide. A few days later I come across an online practice version of the exam, and give it a shot. I score a 34.

My freelance work schedule is a bit quiet at the moment, which is a good thing in terms of having time to study. But it's a bad thing in terms of knowing just how I'm going to pay for my little adventure in Florida. Telling myself that this is why god made credit cards, I make a concentrated assault on the study material. My powers of short-term memory, having been somewhat compromised by a misspent youth, are taxed to the limit, but on December 10th at 3 PM I emerge victorious from the Laser Grade computer testing center in midtown Manhattan. With a happy little glide in my stride, I walk uptown. I am going to meet a gentleman who has decided to commission an artwork from me. At 4 PM I make my way home, with an envelope in my pocket, the contents of which will more than cover my upcoming training. It's beginning to seem like I'm supposed to be doing this.

VSC Schweizer 2-33 trainer takes off behind the Pawnee towplane

29 December 2003:
I arrive at Seminole Lake Gliderport (N 28∞24.000', W 087∞50.170' – I've been practicing with my handheld GPS on the drive), and settle in. The guesthouse is a comfortable and surprisingly tasteful doublewide house trailer, although the paper-thin walls make it seem as though the other residents are actually in the room with me at all times, and inexplicably, all the interior doors stop four inches from the floor. Nonetheless, I'm a very happy camper. My "housemate" for the first week is a very cordial Japanese optometrist making his second visit to Seminole to continue his training in hopes of soloing. The language barrier proves to be quite a high hurdle for him, and I put my drawing skills to use attempting to diagram some of the concepts he's struggling to apprehend. But I have plenty to struggle with myself.

Six Foxtrot Lima Zero is a 2000' x 200' smooth grass airstrip. It is surrounded by the office, a small swimming pool, two large hangers containing a small fortune in gleaming white German fiberglass, a long series of open "T" hangers, a field full of dozens of gliders hibernating in their trailers, a couple of Pawnees, the guesthouse, and Knut and Ingrid's home. A number of "snowbirds" also take up residence here in RV's during the winter months. One of these is a soft-spoken gentleman named Walter Weir, who routinely flies his ASK-27 up to Gainesville every other day for practice, an out-and-back of about 200 miles. Each morning I ask him if he's going to Gainesville that afternoon and he just smiles and gives me a bemused look from behind his orange-tinted sunglasses.

The day after I arrive (the operation is closed on Mondays) I begin my training, making six dual flights in a shiny Let L-23 "Blanik". My CFIG, Ron, is a dapper, septuagenarian, ex-RAF pilot, whose patience I waste no time in testing. Between Koichi, who's having trouble not just with English but also with the concept of a landing pattern, and me, Ron has his hand's full. My notes, made over dinner that night, list seven distinct problems I need to work on, one of which is getting comfortable flying a high tow position, unlike the low position we use at Randall. Another is taxiing after landing: I keep forgetting that on the ground, directional control is achieved with rudder alone, and I keep moving the stick and dropping a wing, then over-correcting in the other direction, while the glider careens along, swerving drunkenly. This, coupled with the fact that the Blanik's handbrake is not really working, as well as our proximity to several hundred-thousand dollars worth of sleek fiberglass sculpture stationed along the threshold and lined up at the end of the runway, is a bad thing. Ron is not amused. Neither am I. In fact, I'm a little bit freaked-out by my utter lack of control.

The following day, flying with Knut, (who readily switches hats from CFIG to tow pilot to gliderport proprietor to DG rep to FAA examiner), I start to get a number of my "issues" ironed-out, just in time for a new one to emerge. We take a high tow, then fly a couple of patterns. Then a couple more. Followed by a couple more. I seem to be consistently misjudging my approach and arriving on final way too high. I've been feeling that my 175 hours in paragliders were easing my transition to sailplanes, particularly in terms of having some grasp of soaring concepts. But now I'm seeing what Knut refers to as a "negative transference." I'm having trouble shifting gears from the 8:1 glide slope of my paraglider to the 28:1 L/D of the Blanik. We fly another pattern. Knut wants me to have the divebrakes out on my downwind leg, and adjusted so that I use half brakes on final. I understand it, but there's a real lag in my ability to simply do it. We fly one more. Finally, on my tenth flight of the day, Knut signs me off to solo in the Blanik and I do a final pattern flight alone and manage not to embarrass myself. "Cheers," I say to myself as we put the glider away for the night. It's New Year's Eve in Claremont, Florida.

Knut and Ingrid take the following day off, during which I study for the oral, go for a long run on the empty dirt roads branching into the surrounding ranch lands, and stare longingly at the cloud streets that are marching off into the distance by one o'clock that afternoon. The next day I strap into the Blanik and take-off, refusing to return to the ground for more than two hours. Although my thermalling turns are not even remotely what you'd call "smoothly coordinated," they'll just have to do. Suddenly I realize that the flat Florida landscape, littered with fast food chains and shopping malls, is truly beautiful from above. A myriad of small, curiously shaped lakes shimmer below me, some bright green, others varying hues of blue. When I land and go in to review my flight with Knut, he greets me saying, "I guess we have a new soaring pilot." He tells me to help some of the pilots assemble their ships over the next few mornings, so he can give me my "B" and "C" badges. There's that damn grin again.

Over the next few days I alternate between flying with Ron who coaches me on the maneuvers for the practical test, and taking "joy rides" on my own. Each day during my stay the cumulus start to pop at around noon and the sky is nicely developed by one o'clock. Although cloudbase doesn't ever seem to get much over 5000' AGL (in Florida AGL and MSL are usually within a hundred feet of each other,) the conditions are consistently great. According to Walter, "You could throw a brick into the air and it would keep going up."

The one maneuver that I'm really intimidated by is the slip-to-landing. I practice forward slips at altitude, remembering what Scott told me earlier in the fall about picking out a straight road or line and following it while slipping. Then, with both Ron and Knut, I practice flying the pattern in a forward slip. I learn to extend the downwind leg and turn base far later than I "want" to. Even in a full slip, at 200' AGL the Blanik is still going to glide nearly half a mile. If the divebrakes were to fail, I really would have to be skimming over the trees on final to get this thing down before running out of runway. Finally, Knut declares from the back seat that the divebrakes "aren't working" and we're going to land without them. I don't enjoy it. But a minute later, I've found I can.

The days roll by quickly. As I look over my notebook from my stay, there are scribbled notes made each morning while talking with a weather briefer. There are notes made while studying each evening for the oral, which is imminent. There are hypothetical courses plotted to the surrounding airports, with flight profiles, go-ahead points, and magnetic bearings. There are minimum sink and stall speeds calculated for different bank angles for the Blanik, as well as the 1-34, (which I have high hopes of flying before I leave Florida). There are lists of questions I have for my instructors, or some of the other pilots, or which I hope to answer myself on my next flights. There's the phone number of a fellow who has a Schreder HP-11A for sale (god help me!) There are journal entries that talk about the particular challenges of learning to fly sailplanes, and the quiet satisfaction I feel as this new world begins to open up to me.

6 January 2004:
I arrive at the office at 4pm for my oral, with a Jacksonville sectional, my plotter, a virginal E-6B, and all of my books under my arm. Knut switches into his Examiner hat and instructs me to plan a short cross country flight to the south, using several airports as stepping stones to reach a final towered airport in class D airspace. I slowly develop the flight plan with a real interest, as though I might actually make this flight in the morning, because that's exactly what I'd like to do. Over the course of three hours, the exam takes on a more conversational tone, in which I'm able to ask questions about things that remain unclear. Rather than simply answer my questions, Knut, a natural teacher, asks me a series of questions that allow me to reason my own way to the answers.

8 January 2004:
Checkride day! Knut is considerably more business-like than usual. On our first tow of the morning, as we pass through 200', Knut asks what it means if the tow pilot rocks his wings and I tell him that it means "release immediately!" So he does. I remember to get the glider's nose down before making the 180∞, and the landing is uneventful. During the next two flights, I manage to box the wake acceptably, although the rectangular form I attempt to draw in the sky with the sailplane has a distinctly "expressionist" quality to it. The other maneuvers are fairly uncomplicated. As a former motorcycle instructor, the habit of turning my head for visual directional control was bludgeoned into me, and it serves me well, making the act of clearing turns obvious to the examiner even from the back seat. Finally, I hold my breath and fly the slip-to-landing, all the while telling myself I'm not in my paraglider and I've got plenty of glide. Knut "gives the brakes back to me" about halfway through my final approach and we land normally. We open the canopy and step out and Knut shakes my hand.

At 1:30 that afternoon, I chase a big spider out of the cockpit of the 1-34 and we roll it out. The old ship has clearly led a long and productive life, but during my stay at Seminole it hasn't left the ground once. It's a little bit tatty, but as I lower myself into it, it feels perfect, and I know my crush on the 1-24 is about to be supplanted with a new one on this weathered, but more capable machine. I slip my electronic paragliding vario, with it's audio switched on, into my pocket. On takeoff we hit a bit of turbulence, and I fall back in the seat, which I haven't managed to adjust correctly. Of course, my back is connected to my arm, which is connected to the stick, which suddenly jerks backwards several inches, beginning a series of very ugly pilot-induced oscillations. One of these is so violent that my head hits the canopy. I'm scared, then really angry with myself for such a messy start, and it's a humbling reminder that even though I've got a brand new license in my pocket, I am a rank neophyte and there are a thousand ways I can get myself into trouble. I get the glider settled down, take a tow to 3000', and manage to release in lift. As I slowly relax into the flight, I begin to get the 1-34 figured-out a bit, and climb up to base. It's a typical Florida afternoon sky, and I hop from one cumie to the next, all the while keeping the airport in sight. At one point I realize I'm a mile over the ground, which, in theory, gives me a straight-line glide of more than 30 miles. After the 8:1 L/D of my paraglider, this idea makes me laugh out loud. The afternoon passes by in dreamy silence, until the waning daylight compels me to put the glider's nose down in a spiral dive and set up for my landing.

That evening I record the 3 hour and 46 minute flight in my logbook. It's my first entry in the Pilot In Command column. I add a brief description of the flight: "First flight in 1-34…very poor take-off, PIO's, but settled down for a lovely flight. Improving." Smiling, I add one more line of evaluation, using some of the technical jargon I've gleaned from Hank and Scott: "Didn't totally suck…."

With my SGS 1-35 sailplane "Tango November" at Randall Airport

• Valley Soaring Club, Middletown, NY
• Schweizer 1-35 Sailplanes
• Soaring Society of America (SSA)
• Seminole Lake Gliderport
• Wings & Wheels - Sailplane Classifieds

westy pulling 1-35