Virtually anyone who is able to drive a car can learn to fly a glider. It may take from 50 to 150 flights before you go solo, depending on factors such as age, aptitude and how regularly you fly.
Apart from being reasonably fit, there are no great physical requirements and people with a variety of disabilities have found it possible to take up gliding. It is an advantage to start young. Although the minimum age for solo flying is now 14 (it used to be 16), younger members can still learn before this age. There is no maximum age and many members have begun gliding after retirement and gone on to become successful solo pilots. You do need to be less than 2m tall and less than 100kg.
All instruction is by British Gliding Association qualified instructors who are members of the club and give their services voluntarily. Training flights last an average of 10 minutes and a typical session will be either one soaring flight or three or four shorter flights. Beginners follow a common syllabus which includes basic handling, launches, circuits, landings and a range of emergencies so that you can deal with any likely problem before you go solo. As a result gliding has an excellent safety record.
However, going solo is only part of the story. After this, a student will be on daily checks until they have a number of solos under their belt, and then monthly checks whilst they work towards their bronze certificate and an SPL (Sailplane Pilots Licence).
National and international gliding authorities have organised a structured set of tasks to encourage solo pilots to progress at their own rate by flying for longer periods, soaring to greater heights and flying further distances. These increasing levels of skill and experience are the basis of the Bronze, Silver, Gold and Diamond badge system. These tasks are entirely voluntary and many pilots are happy with local soaring within a few miles of the airfield
At the moment, unfortunately, we have a waiting list for membership due to the load on our instructors, so if you decide you would like to learn to fly, just email office@staffordshiregliding.co.uk with your name, age and a mobile number so that we can get in touch when we are ready to take you on.
Staffordshire Gliding Club, as the name suggests, is a club with members but no employees, so the whole process is a voluntary one and we all do that we can to help everyone to enjoy their flying safely.
How Does It Work ?
So, to learn to fly, a student will join the club and come for the day as often as time and money allow. We operate a diary system and we have a duty instructor for each operating day. All the members will mark their attendance on the diary and if they are requiring instruction will book one of the student slots for that day. They then turn up for the briefing at 9:30am and during the day the instructor will try and fly with each of the students in turn. Everyone is expected to stay to the end of the day and help clean the gliders and put them away. During the day when not flying we help others to fly, as for one person to fly it might take four or five others to help (someone to hold the wing, a winch driver, someone to keep the log etc.).
We operate on Wednesdays and at the weekends except during three or four weeks during the summer when we are open all week. We are normally at the airfield from 9am (ish) until we finish, which could be anything between 3pm (perhaps in winter) to 7pm in summer. On Wednesdays during the summer we fly visitors in the evening, so a team of volunteers might stay until about 8 or 9pm helping groups of scouts etc to experience flying.
We are active in winter although we are frequently curtailed by bad weather or a boggy field. Depending on the stage of learning, winter is an excellent time for training – lots of take off and landing practice with circuit flying in-between.
We have about 20 BGA instructors in the club and we schedule at least one for every operating day. Students get priority, so fly first, with other members fitting in around them, sometimes in club single seaters or in their own gliders.
Typically at the start of training, a student will take aerotow launches so that once in the air, they have a bit of ‘stick time’ to get used to flying straight and turning etc. This might be a 20 to 30 minute flight.
For the majority of training up to going solo, winch launches will be used, giving lots of take off and landing training and a student might expect to have three launches and about 20 minutes total in the air. When it is soarable then flights might get extended to allow some soaring training and “upper air work” which is essential before a pilot can go solo.
How Much Will It Cost?
Our costs are listed on the website but fall into the following categories:
- Membership fee
- Flight costs (made up of ):
Launch fee
Duration of flight (varies with glider type)
The instruction is free!
But please note the biggest cost is time. We don’t insist on members coming to the club on a regular basis, but we are very keen that when they come, they arrive on time and stay to the end of the day. Our experience tells us that this is difficult for members with jobs and families. In order to make good progress towards a flying qualification then attending about once a week is helpful and giving up a day a week is a big commitment.