Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Gliding To 70,000ft

Ray and John ..... agree regarding the S .... however, on the sites I flew from (old abandoned WW2 bomber bases) if you were too high for a straight ahead then you were high enough for a nippy circuit .... though with Sutton Bank, if you could reach the end of the rather short grass strip you were over the cliff at the end with 900 ft of nice air to sort yourself out 🙂

K

Another ex ATC Glider Pilot, I learnt on a 1 week gliding course at RAF Swanton Morley, winch launches in a Slingsby Type 31/Cadet TX Mk.3. I was the first to solo in the course.
Fast forward to 1974 and I joined the Midland Gliding Club at the Long Mynd with the aim of converting my A&B Licence to a C. Now flying the K13 and solo in the,Schliecher K13, still one of the most common training gliders in the world for ab-initio. I soloed in the Ka 8, a wonderful little thing.

The Long Mynd was a ridge site and we had both winch and bungee launches. With the right weather conditions we could fly from the ridge lift into wave and go up and up, I recall 7500ft on one occasion.

Then I met Caroline, we bought a house and that was that.

Happy days....

Peter ...it's a K8 I'm sat in in the pic ... as you say, great little planes .... sort of a flying Morgan really ... simple, light and responsive .. old school tech and heaps of fun.

K

At Grammar School in the early 1960's I was envious of the young lads in the CCF (Combined Cadet Force), some of whom got to do short low "hops" in the ancient Slingsby Grasshopper primary trainer (archive photo) on our school playing field, towed behind a Land Rover. In 1968 I did a basic glider training course at Lasham on a Slingsby T49 Capstan with a group of other lads (me 2nd left), but never progressed beyond that. Unlike my late Dad -- who as part of his pilot training in WWII learned to fly the huge Airspeed Horsa gliders (third pic, from archives) as used in the "A Bridge Too Far" Arnhem landings. But before that operation in September 1944, he was redeployed to Burma and for the rest of the War flew missions in Dakota's, evacuating wounded and dropping supplies. Throughout, he wore the battledress jacket that I'm wearing in the second pic.

Did my A+B license at Kirton in
Lindsay.all grass strip with no natural lift from the the surrounding flat countryside.

Thought it was!
Yes, a lovely little thing.

They are now virtually worthless, with a CoA and instruments less than £2500 base on advertisements online.
I suppose they are really veteran gliders, dating back 65+ years, they first flew in 1957...

Cheap indeed !.... If gliding was still one of the things I could fit in my life I'd be tempted .... a K8 and a sunny day with the larks singing and the thermals popping off .... old-school heaven!

With the tiny and light motors now available I wonder how hard it would be to turn into a very light piece of powered fun ... would be cheap enough to experiment .... I need another couple of lifetimes specificaly devoted to 'projects' 😄

K

There is probably an electric motor glider kit available....

Peter .... can tie yours and Lordofthewings posts together ..... I first soloed in a K13 too .... on a calm evening as a last flight of a full gliding day (that was the normal way at Burn ... nice day ... couple of sound flights under your belt .... instructor would bag the last flight of the day (or so you thought) ... you landed and he jumped out, got you hooked up .. and sent you off into the calm air of the evening first time on your own ... never forgotten in my case) .... the instructor who took the plunge and soloed me, Bernard Wilson, flew a wartime glider into occupied Europe with a jeep and field-gun in the back!

K

Keith, the nearest I could get nowadays to gliding would be to build myself an R/C model of the Schleicher K8B. (But I already have too many other "Projects".....).
I wonder whatever became of that one you were piloting -- maybe this one?
(And here's a pub quiz question: what does the name Schleicher mean ? It is the noun derived from the German verb schleichen, meaning to creep silently or furtively).