I had the opposite view. I scoffed at light powered planes.
I had been gliding for a year or so and was impressed with their performance. A friend took me up in his Cessna. I don't remember the model, but I think it was probably the least powerful model.
In his Cessna, I had the distinct feeling that I was in something that sounded and performed like a Volkswagen Beetle with wings
The Blanik I had been flying seemed to do things so much more easily than the Cessna which seemed to be struggling just to remain aloft.
1973 Series III LWB 1983 - 2006
1998 300 Tdi Defender Trayback 2006 - often fitted with a Trayon slide-on camper.
Ron B.
VK2OTC
2003 L322 Range Rover Vogue 4.4 V8 Auto
2007 Yamaha XJR1300
Previous: 1983, 1986 RRC; 1995, 1996 P38A; 1995 Disco1; 1984 V8 County 110; Series IIA
RIP Bucko - Riding on Forever
I used to think of it as Edgeroi rather than Bellata, but we are talking about the same place. I flew there in 1969.
The strip was on a soldier settler property called "Plain Acres" that was owned by Lynn Garden, my brother-in-law's father.
The first day I turned up at the strip I was just in time to see the Slingsby T31 land. It was piloted by the caretaker from the interferometer just west of Narrabri. It was quite a sight because he had a flowing beard and the T31 had an open cockpit.
The T31 gave the pilot a lot of practice in take-offs and landings and very little time chasing thermals because it had quite low performance.
The Blanik was much better, but not as good as a glider that the Armidale instructor (Wally Stott, I think) brought down one day. He and I flew it from the strip all the way over to the foothills of the Nadewar Range.
1973 Series III LWB 1983 - 2006
1998 300 Tdi Defender Trayback 2006 - often fitted with a Trayon slide-on camper.
I also flew with the Southern Downs SC at Warwick in Queensland, back in the 70's.
As a 200 hour power pilot, I soloed in a Blanik after 50 minutes training and then aero-towed with an Auster J5 and Pawnee 235 for a number of years.
Can't say that gliding ever did it for me, too much standing around doing nothing - waiting for a ride. Maybe if you had your own high performance glider there would be more to it!
While it was an interesting experience, I don't believe that gliding made me a better power pilot - nor do I believe the fairytale that glider pilots make better power pilots. I have never seen a glider pilot solo a power aircraft with less than one hour's training!
Barra,
Well, you are right on the time to solo in powered aircraft after gliding. It took me five hours, but I think that might be the legal minimum? We probably met back at Warwick. I spent a reasonable amount of time around the Club in '73, then was in Townsville '74/'75, then back to Brisbane and did a bit of gliding across 76, 77 and 78. After that moved to Melbourne. Ivor Harris did a lot of towing, Ivan Watt, Gus Mauch, Glen Hart and Alan Thorpe were the guys in the back seat for me.
Regards,
Alan
I was in Warwick from 1975 to 1982. Gus Mauch did my glider and aerotow training. After I soloed in 50 min, Gus soloed Bob Keogh in 49 min - just to beat me!
I once raced Glen Hart from Warwick to Jondaryn (50 ? miles) - he was in his Libelle glider and I was in one of Bob Keogh’s C150’s. Glen took an aerotow to overhead the aerodrome and once he set course, I rolled on the runway.
I beat him - but only by a few minutes! I would not have believed it if I hadn’t been there !!
Hi everone - I trained at Waikerie on Blaniks, Boomerang, Pilatus then cross country on ASW19 and Libelle mainly.
A great sport but a bit hard on the family doing the occasional road retrieve! I converted to power (including towing) and the gliding dropped off.
This is me preparing the Libelle BA for a comp flight at Bordertown in 1974 - nice hair and shorts eh!
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