![]() The video below conveys the feeling of soaring amazingly well. The advantage over parachute drops was that the troops would all deploy on the ground at the same time and place, whereas paratroopers often get separated. These expendable gliders were towed behind powered aircraft and released when they were within gliding distance of their target fields. Some low performance gliders are not intended to soar, notably the troop transports of World War II. Most glider pilots would say they only got to glide on days they couldn't find any lift, but say they went soaring if they were able to repeatedly regain altitude in lift. Soaring involves climbing in natural sources of lift, thereby replenishing altitude lost in the glides between areas of lift. But most glider pilots soar at least some of the time. For example, the FAA licenses glider pilots, not soaring pilots. What is the difference between soaring and gliding? The terms are sometimes used interchangeably. On the other side of the ledger, hang glider and paraglider pilots get closer to the pure experience of what it must feel like to be a bird. The pilot in a sailplane is totally enclosed in a cockpit, protected from wind and rain, and also providing much better aerodynamics. In contrast, my motorglider weighs 850 kg (1870 lb) and has a 23 meter wing span (75.5'). Paragliders can even be carried up a mountain, to the launching area, in a backpack. Hang gliders and paragliders are light weight, with the pilot suspended below the wing. People soar in sailplanes, hang gliders, and paragliders, but there are major differences in these aircraft. See the Soaring Safety section of this web site for some additional thoughts. The sport has a danger factor, but one needn't have a death wish to take it up. Driving has an annual fatality rate of about 1-in-7,000, so soaring is roughly three to four times more dangerous than driving, on an annual basis. Is it dangerous? There are approximately 5-10 glider fatalities per year in the US and approximately 15,000 active glider pilots, indicating that they bear an annual risk of about a 1-in-2,000 of being killed by participating in the sport. I also include a brief list of FAQ's below, somewhat tailored to my own experience. But web searches such as "soaring", "sailplanes", "paragliding", etc. Except for a brief initial launch using an auxiliary engine or a powered aircraft tug, this is done entirely on solar power, the source of the lift.īecause web sites can change rapidly, the only external links I have provided are to the Soaring Society of America and the British Gliding Association, which are fairly stable. In this manner, modern sailplanes (high performance gliders) have soared well over 2,000 km (1,200 miles) in a single day. Soaring is the sport of riding air currents to gain altitude which then is used to glide some distance through still or sinking air, to another source of lift where the process is repeated. Additional soaring photos are on my soaring photos page and two soaring videos are located farther down this page. ![]() More usual trips were to Yosemite, shown in this photo of Half Dome and Nevada Falls, as well as to other areas in and around the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Both were based in the San Francisco Bay Area and allowed "soaring safaris" to places like the Grand Canyon, Telluride (CO), and the Grand Tetons. I owned and flew a Super Dimona motorglider from 1995 to 1998 and a Stemme S10VT from 1998 until 2010. ![]()
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