Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms A very different experience...

Sounds huge fun.

Most of us non-flyers would actually want to crash or land on the M25 though.

Or is that just me?

Brian did you get any indication as to what they cost the use of this out at ?
That could be a very interesting sum.

Hello Peter,

I flew gliders about the same time as you did.

You are right about gliding then being unregulated. It was club rules for us rather than the laws that the playboys in the fan assisted affairs were faced with. I think we stuck to our rules better than they stuck to their laws.

One of my best memories is of a week at Long Mynd with Midland Gliding Club. I went with my wife, our young son, friends and our (syndicated) Slingsby Swallow. The club was pretty self sufficient as I remember - pumped water, their own generator, a decent hangar and good launch facilities. The camaraderie at MGC was great.

Our Swallow came from Long Mynd, I believe it had been damaged on a bungee launch crash in which the lady pilot escaped with just a detached retina, or something like that. We rebuilt it, made a lightweight aluminium trailer for it and I towed it miles behind our Renault 4. Having the best ground clearance of the cars in our syndicate of 3 it was always used for retrieves despite its 850cc engine. Austin Maxis and the like couldn't make it across our ploughed East Anglian fields.

We sometimes go back to the Mynd to watch the action for a while when visiting my daughter. With her husband she has D'Arcys restaurant in the old station at Ironbridge (Morgans welcome) and her super-fit husband runs and cycles around the area a lot.

Happy days.

I'm with envy Brian. What a fantastic experience. The only controls of a fixed wing aircraft that I have ever handled were in a 2 seater glider, and that certainly was not for take off or landing.

I'm not however a stranger to flight as I was one of the pioneers of foot launched hang gliding in Australia (1972??), no 14 in the association we formed in those days, and I have taught hundreds of people to fly hang gliders. My greatest memories are flying in company with sea eagles on the NSW north coast.

I know what people mean about always looking at the sky though. I am forever looking a the terrain and the wind and evaluating slopes as potential hang gliding sites.

I gave it up when I bought my first sail boat and returned to motorcycling: you can't do everything, sadly

Whenever I have to do a check flight at my local flying club e.g. haven't flown a certain plane for 3 months - I always choose an instructor who is also a glider pilot. They're the best.

What a weird perception they have of Simulators.

That's their purpose - much safer to crash a sim than a real aircraft a bit cheaper.

Engineers probably more embarrassed when the computers crash that run the Simulator.

Especially now the methodology is common off the shelf components COTS, rather than mainframes like they were when I started out.

Angry aircrew - now that's something us engineers would rather avoid!

I used to sell flight simulators and for a Full Flight "Level D" they were well over £10m back in the late 1990's.

£10m would be the cost of the base simulator and motion system to which you would need to add:

Aircraft hardware and computors - everything the pilot can touch is the same as the actual aircraft

A flight data pack supplied by the aircraft manufacturer to provide the aircraft operational and flying characteristics. These were typically a couple of millon £ or so

A visual system for the out of cockpit view. These provide a computer simulated view of the airports and surrounding areas.

Level D allows zero flight time trainang and type approval so a pilot could complete all his trianing on the sim and the first time they flew the actual aircraft could be on an operational passenger flight. Indeed, there are now many aircraft types where a pilot has to quailify on a sim as it's too dangerous to train for certain emergencies on a real aircraft.

They are amazing bits of kit and one of the best "toys" to play with

Dear moggers,sad news plus4bassman attended Silverstone and enjoyed the event however traveled home but the following day suffered a serious stroke we have visited jack in hospital and he is making slow recovery.wants to attend Silverstone but paralysis may be a problem.

Dear moggers,sad news plus4bassman attended Silverstone and enjoyed the event however traveled home but the following day suffered a serious stroke we have visited jack in hospital and he is making slow recovery.wants to attend Silverstone but paralysis may be a problem.

Very sorry to hear that, I hope he makes a good recovery. Please pass on our best wishes.