[selfdrive]

Great thread Unicorn, gives us desk workers such a great perspective.
Nice that you had the sun out too, now that spring has set in it must be fabulous in Europe.

[absoluteyogi]

Lovely photos, Unicorn_i20.

For the benefit of us, please share some techniques on how to spot thermal updrafts in the absence of eagles (as you mentioned in one of your initial posts). Generally, I would think that a dry or stony ground during the afternoon would produce good updraft, but from the photos I see lot of green land? i would also imagine the area with roads and houses would produce required thermal current. but then, is flying over a habitation allowed by aviation authorities? I don't know!

this is the first time i saw an altimeter that shows altitude in meters. 900m is a great altitude, especially the higher 400m being achieved only by thermal currents without any mechanical power

Adding the third dimension or the Z-axis to your motion is always great :-). Wish we could do this in Bangalore after you return!

Cheers,
NB

[TurboGuru]

Great thread. is this club open for non members. have been to Toulouse, May be will try my hands next time.

[unicorn_i20]

Originally Posted by Swanand Inamdar

Unicorn, you are a lucky Dude! Thanks for sharing this.
I am sure this must have been a ride and half! Lovely pics indeed.
Any more updates coming?

yes, more updates are come

Originally Posted by informmaha

do you need a pilot licence to do this flight or how does this work?

yes, you need to get a pilot license before flying this, if you have to fly alone. To learn or obtain the license, one needs to accumulate certain flying hours under supervision of another license holder. another t-bhpian 'absoluteyogi' has a piloting license.

in addition, before flying, everybody has to pay for accident insurance.

absoluteyogi, can you throw some light on how many hours one needs to accumulate before getting the license? how much it costs?

Originally Posted by absoluteyogi

For the benefit of us, please share some techniques on how to spot thermal updrafts in the absence of eagles (as you mentioned in one of your initial posts). Generally, I would think that a dry or stony ground during the afternoon would produce good updraft, but from the photos I see lot of green land? i would also imagine the area with roads and houses would produce required thermal current. but then, is flying over a habitation allowed by aviation authorities? I don't know!

this is the first time i saw an altimeter that shows altitude in meters. 900m is a great altitude, especially the higher 400m being achieved only by thermal currents without any mechanical power

Wish we could do this in Bangalore after you return!

yes, lets find some place near Bangalore to smiter our itch to fly
I guess we can find something in western ghats. You may know, "para-gliding" is done on nandi hills, as there is strong updraft on the cliff side.

it is allowed to fly over habitat-ed areas in France, as long as the (main) pilot has a valid license. Even in India, the gliding center in Pune is in a residential area, so not sure about the civil aviation authority regulations concerning to the gliders.

You are right in terms of spotting the thermal. infact, all the gliders were flying only above the limited area i.e. above the town
my boss told me to avoid green fields or lakes. Stony grounds and human habitation should be the first choice.
the members of this club will generally go towards Alps or Pyrenees to fly and this aerodrome is just their "net practice".

and yes, the altimeter showing altitude in meters is an absolute luxury, especially for us who study in SI units. even the airspeed indicator is in kmph. after rising to 900m, we did dive and could reach around 180kmph. The "not-to-exceed" speed for this glider is 250kmph

Originally Posted by TurboGuru

is this club open for non members.

i did not enquire about this. But I guess, you should know somebody who is already a member personally and then he can take you along.

i would have loved to upload more pics and write more, but I am off to Barcelona in next 10hours for the entire weekend. So expect another travelogue involving long drive in VW POLO 1.6 next week from me

[GTO]

What a coincidence for this thread to come up now!! The Team-BHP Mods just went gliding last week at the Deolali Flying Club. Not to the scale that you did, yet it was an outstanding experience nevertheless. Cost 400 bucks a pop to have us in the air for 5 minutes. We went just around sunset, and the view of Nasik / Deolali was absolutely breathtaking.

Thanks for sharing such a wonderful read.

[unicorn_i20]

Originally Posted by GTO

What a coincidence for this thread to come up now!! The Team-BHP Mods just went gliding last week at the Deolali Flying Club. Not to the scale that you did, yet it was an outstanding experience nevertheless. Cost 400 bucks a pop to have us in the air for 5 minutes. We went just around sunset, and the view of Nasik / Deolali was absolutely breathtaking.

Thanks for sharing such a wonderful read.

thats nice, it will be great if you also share your experiences.

btw, as I mentioned in my previous reply, there is a gliding club in Pune as well. This is in Hadapsar, near nirmal township and it costs Rs183/- only. It is quite crowded and have to book the flight in the morning to have your turn in the afternoon. At this place, the glider is towed with a MS Gypsy and flight may last around 15mins, if you are really lucky.

[designersf]

Amazing Unicorn! That is the flight of a lifetime and it is special because, like you mentioned there is no noise from any engine. Flying silently should be a million bucks!!

On a lighter note, with these fake licences in India, not sure if we can trust these glider pilots

[nmalik]

Well, I don’t fly sailplanes but i do fly a paraglider and the essential principle is pretty much the same. You take off into the wind and you try to land into the wind and not with the wind. If you land into the wind you reduce your groundspeed which makes for an easier landing. If you were to land with the wind, i.e. with a tailwind your ground speed would be much higher (trim speed + tailwind speed) which would mean more speed, and therefore more energy, to burn off during your flare to come to a complete stop. I'm not saying that you cannot land with a tailwind, just that it is much more common to come in to land with a headwind whenever possible.

But like I said before, I’m a paraglider pilot, not a sailplane pilot. You guys have obscenely large glide ratios, big spaces to land onto and a carbon undercarriage whereas we just have our legs and the associated limitations so SOP might be a little different for you guys.

Btw, that vario on the top left, does it beep with a varying pitch like the paraglider and hangglider varios do with ascent and descent?

-N

[unicorn_i20]

Originally Posted by nmalik

But like I said before, I’m a paraglider pilot, not a sailplane pilot. You guys have obscenely large glide ratios, big spaces to land onto and a carbon undercarriage whereas we just have our legs and the associated limitations so SOP might be a little different for you guys.

Btw, that vario on the top left, does it beep with a varying pitch like the paraglider and hangglider varios do with ascent and descent?

Nopes, there wasn't any beep with the variation in pitch. when do you get the beep in paraglider? is it while loosing altitude?
btw, where do you fly?

I spotted a powered hang glider and pilot enjoying to the fullest.



With the calm weather and moderate thermal, we stayed in the air for around 40min and then decided to approach for landing. the landing needs to be planned before your drop down 300m altitude. this deciding altitude depends on glide ratio but this is a general thumb rule.
at this altitude, the flight course should be towards the runway. we started descending at 100kmph while maintaining optimum glide angle, took 180 turn and aligned with the runway. altitude decreasing rapidly and i started to get the feel of speed as we approached the ground. near the ground, airbrakes were deployed and landing was perfect. obviously, all this was done by my boss.
the following pics are not of my landing.






Some random pics:
i love taking pictures of planes, especially these utility types.





the aspect ratio does all the wonder of staying longer in flight:









the sailplane i flew, is around 15years old!! the secret of maintaining the age? cleaning it after every flight.


well, not exactly, they had done the wax polish around 3 years back

Cheers!

p.s.: i got rid of my newbie tag with this post. yippee!

[sudev]

Lovely pictorial that raises more enthusiasm of finding another item to add in to my bucket list.

Long time back they used to do gliding out of Safdarjung airport before all the useless junk about security paid put to all flying in and around NCR including training flights.

[absoluteyogi]

unicorn_i20,

40 minutes in the air on a non powered glider!!!! wow ...

generally we hear about 5 to 15 minutes of air time in sail planes, but i guess, its because these are normally towed by a winch or a ground vehicle. in your case, you had a luxury of getting towed by another powered airplane that gave you good 500m altitute to start sustaining.

of course, the pilot's skill plays the most important part in sustaining in the air, wow. i wish you had taken a video with sound while in flight, it would have been awesome to watch the moving landscapes, oscillating horizon along with the cool hissing sound of the breeze .

by the way, i am awaiting pictures from barcelona !

[AltoHoncho]

Wow, awesome insight into this world of sheer bhp and 'g'.. very nicely clicked. Deserve a 5 star surely.

you've mentioned that one has to pay for insurance before every flight. So that means, if you complete say 1000 hrs of flight to get some sort of flying category license, then each time during these many hours you've paid insurance premium from your pocket? Normally how much this amounts to? and does this accumulate over the total flight period?

[CarCynic]

Very interesting post. Hadapsar gliding centre was in news the other day and I was looking at its website.
I have noticed there are a few people on this forum interested in gliding, I wonder if it would be a good idea to form a sub-forum to discuss gliding and other aviation activities.

[akj53]

Very very interesting Gliderlogue. Execellent pics and narration for novices like me. You are a lucky fellow to do this and that too in pristine environment of France.

I have been to the Hot air balloon show of Bristol, U.K., which is supposed to be the largest balloon show in the world. There were thousands of people with their families and dogs as spectators and the experience was remarkable. I have lots of pics of that show and will try to post them sometime.

Manchester airport has a parked Concorde which is the only Concorde open to public. Next time I am in Manchester, I will definitely go and take a guided tour of the same, which I missed last year.

Looking forward to more from you.

[_raVan_]

Excellent pics Unicorn_i20! It must have been an awesome experience

Has anyone tried the glider at Hadapsar, Pune?