Gliding

Over 75,000 people enjoy the sport of flying sailplanes, or gliders, in the UK alone, and it can mean different things to different people. Some people just love the sensation of floating around the skies and enjoying the views without a noisy & dirty engine ruining the experience, some like striving for the absolute precision and skill required to fly aerobatics, and some love the challenge of racing cross-country against other pilots in a competition.

However you look at it, it is one of the cheapest ways of getting into the air in the UK, and certainly one of the most rewarding.

There is also a large and friendly community associated with the sport, with a lot of social activities organised both within clubs, and across the country.

Getting Airborne

Because a glider has no engine, it needs a little help getting airborne. The cheapest and most popular method of getting into the air uses a purpose built winch to accelerate the glider along the ground and into the air. Heights of 1,500ft - 2,000ft can be achieved using this method, but this entirely depends on the conditions, the site and the winch driver!

Also commonly used is an Aerotow - being towed up by a powered plane. It is more expensive than a winch launch but the advantage is that you can choose where you launch to, and how high. Most competitions will launch using aerotow so the launch height is consistent and fair to all competitors.

Finally, for complete purists, there is the bungee launch still offered by a few sites in the right conditions - which consists of launching the glider down a hill using a stretched bungee cord to help it gain flying speed.

Staying Airborne

Once a glider has launched, it will continue to slowly descend until you have to land again, unless you can find some air that is moving up quicker than you are descending.

In the summer, the main way of staying airborne in the UK is using thermals - warm pockets of rising air caused by the sun heating up the ground unevenly. Gliders can circle inside the thermal, finding the strongest lift and gaining height, which can then be used to glide to the next thermal if travelling cross country.

In hilly areas, the wind can blow against the hill and be deflected upwards. Gliders can fly along this upwards rising air and stay airborne - this is known as ridge lift. Some ridges can carry on for hundreds of kilometers (although they tend to be a bit shorter in the UK!) and gliders can fly along them at high speed covering large distances - as long as you want to go where the ridge goes!

Finally, another effect of hilly areas and wind is that an oscillation can be set up - a wave like effect of upwards and downwards moving air. Staying in the upwards moving air, a glider can gain great heights - far higher than can be achieved with ridge lift or thermals - and also cover long distances by flying along the wave 'bar'. This type of lift is more common in mountainous areas, like the Scottish highlands, but as it can extend beyond the hills by a huge distance, it can also be found in the flatter areas in the right conditions. Height records are almost always achieved using wave lift.