RidE To GlidE

By Mark Loring, Member #3699

Photos by Mark Mustchin

When Sally and I first saw the Ride to Glide we were instantly in and have been looking forward to this adventure for weeks. Neither of us had been gliding before. I had done some paragliding many years ago over the Hinchinbrook islands and that was the extent of our combined experience of unpowered ‘flight’ if you could call it that, being tethered to a boat some 50 odd metres below. The weekend arrived and we decided to go up early on the Monday morning by car, the K1600GT having most of it’s plastic bits safely stored on the lounge on the back deck while some for and aft cameras are installed. We arrived a little early soon to be joined by Mark, Donna and Robert. All drove so we did not feel so bad then for leaving the Blue Beast behind. We met our hosts at the Kingaroy Soaring club and proceeded to do the registration before looking at the two club gliders we would be using. A short wait and a bit of basic introduction to gliding and before long Sally and I were shrugging into the parachute backpack and strapping into our flying machines. Donna had decided not to glide but had managed to squeeze into the cramped passenger seat of the tow plane. Col was Sally’s Pilot and Dave took me up. I was first on the runway and we were towed up to about 2,000ft where the rope was released. We were gliding and looking for thermals under the cumulus clouds spiraling over and over to gain height. We flew from Kingaroy to Wondai, Murgon and Cherbourg slowly losing altitude before spiraling again under the clouds to recover altitude. Most of the flight was between 6,500 and 9,000ft. At about the same time I was taking the controls at 7,000ft for a few minutes, Sally was climbing to about 5,000ft with Col having been surprised at how quickly the tow plane and glider got airborne. Sally was enjoying the flight and had just taken the controls and was heading for Wondai when she succumbed to air sickness. Sally is unfortunately prone to air and sea sickness and the ill feeling was too great to continue and Col took the controls back and they headed back to Kingaroy for a smooth landing.

Dave and I continued soaring and I was permitted to take the glider to a gentle stall, pulling the nose up which reduced the speed until the glider could climb no more. Dave then executed a quicker climb and stall and explained that gliders are very forgiving as there were no violent

changes in altitude through either of the stalls. Time to head back to Kingaroy but before we landed Col was up in the air again with Robert or Mark M in the front. We hung around and waited for them to gain some altitude before we fell in behind, spiraling in formation. A few rounds of follow the leader and it was off to the landing strip for a smooth touchdown.

A most enjoyable day and an experience I can highly recommend to anyone, providing they do not suffer badly from motion sickness.

Warm regards,

Mark Loring and Sally Little