Owl Canyon Gliderport trains pilots of all ages

By Linda Bell
Correspondent

To soar like an eagle is everyone's dream perhaps, but only a few actually try it.

Sarah Bailey, a 14-year-old student at Webber Junior High in Fort Collins, achieved that dream by making three solo glider flights on Feb. 20. Not only did she attain her student pilot's certificate at Owl Canyon Gliderport north of Wellington, she became the youngest member of the Colorado Soaring Association.

"I started learning to fly last summer," Sarah said. "I thought it was great fun, but it really surprised me how fast I learned to fly." Sarah credits her instructor, Bob Faris, for her flight skills. She comes from a flying family, too. Sarah's father flies both power planes and gliders and her mother runs a registration office for a power plane training program.

Sarah said she looks forward to qualifying for her private glider pilot's certificate when she's 16 so she can take friends on flights.

Livermore resident Chris Jung said he was hooked on gliding from his first flight. His wife gave him a gift certificate for lessons in 2003, and now he's a member of CSA and a certified private glider pilot.

Jung explained that once a glider is aloft, either having been towed behind a power plane or thrust up by a winch, the pilot gains altitude using thermal updrafts, just like raptors. In fact, the raptors will often fly with the gliders, he said, or a glider pilot may locate a thermal because a raptor is already soaring in it. To stay in a thermal and gain altitude, he said, the glider banks within the spiral. Average air speeds for gliders range between 50 and 75 mph, he said.

Jung said the world altitude record for a glider is 49,000 feet. Gliders flying out of the Owl Canyon Gliderport are restricted to 18,000 feet, he said, but there is a protocol for requesting permission to go higher. He said gliders come equipped with oxygen and radio communications and follow strict safety protocols just like regular motor planes. "What we do have that is unique to gliders is silence," he said.

Jung explained conditions for flying gliders are ideal close to mountains. "There is what we call a mountain lee-wave, where the air currents come from the west, up and over the mountains, then drop down in waves for a couple of hundred miles over the plains to the east. It's just a matter of finding and riding the wave, letting them carry the glider higher and farther."

Unlike hot air balloons, that may very rarely get caught in thermal updrafts, gliders are totally controllable and the pilot can fly out of a thermal at any time, according to glider pilot Fred Herr. Herr, 76, is a long-time member of the association and an honoree in the Soaring Hall of Fame at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., for his flight in 1968 from Boulder to Hastings, Neb., a distance of 500 kilometers or 315 miles.

The Colorado Soaring Association, incorporated in 1965, bought the Waverly West Soaring Ranch just west of Interstate 25 in 1985 and renamed it Owl Canyon Gliderport. CSA currently has 60 members, according to Fred Whiteley, club scheduler and governor for Colorado of the Soaring Society of America.

CSA owns four gliders, a small motorized plane used for towing, a launching winch capable of thrusting a glider up 1,500 feet in 40 seconds, and the gliderport, Jung said, which includes the clubhouse, a hangar, runways and adjacent land.

Every member is expected to serve three days a year as ground operations director, or "G.O.D. duty," Jung explained. That person oversees the tower and all scheduled operations and safety procedures for the day, he said, plus leaves food and water out for the "glider cats," which keep mice out of the hangar and aircraft.

Not without humor, the CSA has many awards both serious and entertaining, that it annually bestows on members who distinguish themselves in categories.

There's the "Lead 'A'" Award for the "member who - in a moment of ineptness - demonstrates poor judgment that is exceeded only by his or her luck in keeping the resulting damage to club equipment to a minimum."

Or the "White Knuckle" award, which is presented to the "student who, in spite of all obstacles placed before him or her by the club, actually manages to achieve some goals." (The award is comprised of a stick from a tow plane which, legend suggests, was pried from the grip of a pilot after a rather adventurous tow with a student glider pilot.)

The "Rich Roberts Ballast, Bailing Wire and Bubble Gum Award," is presented to the "member who has most successfully intimidated club equipment into a functioning state."

For more information on CSA or the Owl Canyon Gliderport call or e-mail Frank Whiteley at 970-330-2050 or gilders@soarcsa.org, or check the association's web site at www.soarcsa.org.