Trying to fly again - Success!

[Gliderjohn]

Have basically been an inactive glider pilot for the last 12 years and took my first step this evening to become active again. Got my required ground school refresher course in this evening. Now need to get with an instructor for my in the air refresher time and then can be active again.
Since I do this through a club it takes a lot of time and mostly weekend time, which I always seem to have little of. Trying to get a group of us retired pilots to meet on a weekdays. Will see how it goes, I miss it.
The glider port is about 50 miles from my house so for the Guzzis (Guzzi Content) it is perfect fly and ride or is that ride and fly?



GliderJohn

[Shorty]

Good for you.    I too am inactive, sidelined by lack of medical. Luckily I let mine lapse, rather than be denied. I was on wavers, anyway, for diabetes. I always dreamt of getting back in the air. Glad you have a club to coordinate with. That must help a lot. I was renting single engine craft from a missionary pilot and mechanic training school nearby, and they have long since moved away. The only way I'll get airborne again is with an instructor, or in a Sport Pilot craft. I don't see it happening. So, you must  post pics or links to videos of your return to the skies! 

[Huzo]

Did some time in this over Easter.
Felt like yesterday.

[Antietam Classic Cycle]

My brother-in-law, Ken, recently returned to flying after nearly 50 years off. Some sort of a medical issue way back then, now resolved, he's been renting a Cessna 172 and flying every chance he gets. He feels "born again".

[Diploman]

I acquired a sailplane license in 1978, receiving all my instruction in a Blanik l-23 flying out of a dry lake north of Klamath, Oregon.  Subsequently we moved to Albuquerque, NM, where I lucked into a job working with George Applebay, designer/builder of the Zuni 15m competition glider, America's first and most advanced all-composite glider.  We had a small team of 8-10 people building about a dozen Zunis per year.  Working on gliders all day, commuting to work on my Guzzi V50II, learning to build with composites, flying gliders on weekends - Best job I will ever have! The Zuni/Zuni II was never a great commercial success - only about 30 were built.  But there is one in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum which is rotated periodically into exhibition.

I accumulated a couple hundred hours of glider time (Blanik, I-26, Grob Twin Astir, ASW-20, Zuni, Zuni II), flying over the semi-desert plateau around Albuquerque, where takeoff from Moriarty was at over 5000ft elevation, and summertime thermals routinely topped out at 15-17k feet.  All gliders were, of course, oxygen-equipped.  In early 1981 I left this idyllic life to join the State Department Foreign Service and spend much of my career abroad.  Few opportunities to fly subsequently, with occasional exceptions for France, Germany and South Africa.  My license is no longer active, and I likely will never re-qualify.  But there is something magical about harvesting your flight energy from the atmosphere rather than from a gas tank - I will always love gliders.  So beautiful. 

The Zuni:

http://soaring.geichhorn.com/Soaring_Index/1980/1980Feb_full.jpg

[ScepticalScotty]

I'd like to fly gliders again, never went solo but had about forty flights over one year, nearly all in Blaniks😁. Also had flights in the Twin Astir, and ES52 Kookaburra, KA4.....

Ultimate dream is to own and fly a Floyd Fronius GOAT

[jas67]

Have basically been an inactive glider pilot for the last 12 years and took my first step this evening to become active again. Got my required ground school refresher course in this evening. Now need to get with an instructor for my in the air refresher time and then can be active again.
Since I do this through a club it takes a lot of time and mostly weekend time, which I always seem to have little of. Trying to get a group of us retired pilots to meet on a weekdays. Will see how it goes, I miss it.
The glider port is about 50 miles from my house so for the Guzzis (Guzzi Content) it is perfect fly and ride or is that ride and fly?



GliderJohn

Glad to hear that you're getting back into flying.  I'm an inactive pilot, aside from going up with an instructor once a few years ago to take my daughter up, I haven't flown in 19 years.   I sometimes miss it, but, if I still did it, I wouldn't have money for motorcycles.

I've only taken a few glider rides (L-23 Super Blaník), but loved it!

Enjoy, and fly safely!

[wrbix]

I’m a late-in-life ASEL Pilot - certified in my early 60’s. Have looked into but haven’t started sailplane add-on rating training yet. Fully expect it will make me a better pilot. Not many training opportunities around, compared to powered fixed wing programs/CFIs.

[Chuck in Indiana]

There is a big sailplane club 15 miles from me, and my friend Ed the Rocket Scientist flies the tow plane for them. I have flown and enjoyed them..but.. I have enough time and funds sinks.  There are only so many things a guy can do.

[Gliderjohn]

First day back at the gliderport. I had flight line duty so still have not got my flight review done. We were only flying one of three two seat training gliders because the other two are still needing the annual inspection done.
We fly out of an old WWII Navy primary training air base, later a Kansas Air Guard Base until 1968. The only structure left is the center of the old control tower, but we still have a good 7,000 ft runway. The tow plane pictured is the very first Cessna 182 and probably the one with the most take off and landing cycles (over 26,000 logged when I joined the club in 1985 and was told many were not logged).















GliderJohn

[Bonaventure]

Was always fascinated with Gliders, inactive pp-asel here too, haven't flown since sold a pa-28 140/160(stc) long time ago.  Last airplane I was in was a demo ride at the Midwest LSA Expo September 2014 in a Jabiru J230D at KMVN, neat little light sport, had an autopilot if you can believe that.

[Murray]

Flying is simple you just need to project yourself from an elevated position........ and miss the ground.

D. Adams

[wheaties]

So many pilots!  And so many sailplane pilots!  Back in my airport rat days, I got as far as soloing in a Schweitzer 233.  Lack of funding and a need to get my ass back in school intervened.  Now you've got me looking up the whereabouts of my old soaring club (Nutmeg Soaring, now in Freehold, NY).  I shall have to take a ride to see if I can find them some sunny Saturday. 

Not to be a grammar Nazi or anything, but as I recall, we were quite insistent that we flew 'sailplanes' and not 'gliders'.  A sailplane is something that is efficient enough to stay aloft under the right conditions, whereas a glider is not. 

[cloudbase]

Not to be a grammar Nazi or anything, but as I recall, we were quite insistent that we flew 'sailplanes' and not 'gliders'.  A sailplane is something that is efficient enough to stay aloft under the right conditions, whereas a glider is not.

My coveted plastic card with the pictures of Wilbur and Orville has the word "glider" printed under the ratings heading.

[Testarossa]

Keep us posted, John!

I first soloed in gliders back around 1976, and the 20 or 30 precision "forced" landings made me a much more confident powered pilot. Haven't flown since I sold the Comanche five years ago, and miss it intensely. Now I'm interested in buying a two-place ultralight trike offered for sale at the local airport (7V2) -- my medical lapsed but I can self-certify for ULA, so all I really need is a BFR-equivalent with an ultralight instructor. 

[Gliderjohn]

from wheaties:

Not to be a grammar Nazi or anything, but as I recall, we were quite insistent that we flew 'sailplanes' and not 'gliders'.  A sailplane is something that is efficient enough to stay aloft under the right conditions, whereas a glider is not. 

The wording is difficult at times. Glider is the correct FAA jargon. Your hope is that you can turn your glider into a sailplane as technically you are correct in so much that a glider that can sustain flight is a sailplane. often though if I say glider many people thing you mean hang glider. If you say sailplane you either get a blank stare or understand you mean a glider.
GliderJohn

[twowings]

Hang in there, John! You'll be back in the saddle soon and loving it...  

Maybe sometime you could shoot some GoPro video whilst aloft? 

[Huzo]

Hang in there, John! You'll be back in the saddle soon and loving it...  

Maybe sometime you could shoot some GoPro video whilst aloft? 

Never mind all the BS John.
What bit are you up to, and where has the rust crept in. I did a few hours in a Janus C over Easter and it never seems like the breaks have been as long as they have.
What needs more polish before you're away..?

[Testarossa]

Your hope is that you can turn your glider into a sailplane as technically you are correct in so much that a glider that can sustain flight is a sailplane.

If the 2-33 is a sailplane, then my Penguin was a yacht and my Beetle was a fine German sportscar.

In my mind a well-used 2-33 (maybe 18:1 L/D?) is a glider. You get to call it a sailplane somewhere to the north of 30:1.

Though I rode the Green Mountain wave to 16,000 feet in a 2-33.

[wheaties]

from wheaties:The wording is difficult at times. Glider is the correct FAA jargon. Your hope is that you can turn your glider into a sailplane as technically you are correct in so much that a glider that can sustain flight is a sailplane. often though if I say glider many people thing you mean hang glider. If you say sailplane you either get a blank stare or understand you mean a glider.
GliderJohn

Thanks for that.  I always felt it was a club thing, some small contingent 'decided' that calling the aircraft a glider was a put down, so everyone had to call it a sailplane.  Pecking orders and politics are one of the reasons I dropped out.  Someone decides the way the planes are tied down, and everyone has to comply---even if you've seen a whole airport's worth of birds tied down exactly that way.   Pfffft! 

I'd be first to agree that a 2-33 is nowhere near the sailplane of the better glass craft, but we got the old girl to stay up on a good day.  They were still good times and I'm grateful that I got to fly with some uniquely distinguished gentlemen.

 

[Daniel Kalal]

...the very first Cessna 182..

Not just the first, but the original prototype.  That thing will be full of hand-formed parts out of the engineering experimental shop.  It's the sort of fall-through-the-corporate-cracks deal that isn't supposed to happen, but there it is.  Of course, it's not likely it can ever be sold.  Somewhere out there is also the one and only Cessna 160 (a what?) that also made it through the cracks and avoided the shredder.

[Chuck in Indiana]

Cessna 160

Tell us about it if you aren't sworn to secrecy. 

[Daniel Kalal]

Tell us about it if you aren't sworn to secrecy. 

The 160 was intended to be a low-cost airplane that would be more efficient to build than the 150.  It had some neat and clever features, although it wasn't an especially attractive thing (but, it wasn't ugly, either).  We're talking early 1960s.  But, for all the normal reasons, the program wasn't given the go, so it languished in the engineering boneyard into the late 1970s until it was sent to a scrap yard.  That's where things get fuzzy.  If you send "scrap" to a scrap yard, it's possible that the scrap yard owner will see it as something else.  He sold the airframe.  Last I heard it was stuck away in storage, but it's still out there if somebody gets enthusiastic about owning a bit of history.  But note that the current owner will know exactly what he's got so you won't steal it for scrap money this time.  Later, when Cessna would scrap a prototype (always a sad occasion) it'd be well-chopped and crushed before being sent to the scrap yard for recycling.  Note: a well-worn T37 test article managed to escape the scrap yard through a similar process. That won't happened again, either.

[Testarossa]

That thing will be full of hand-formed parts out of the engineering experimental shop.

Certainly true, but since the first 182 prototype was just a C-180 airframe with a nosewheel, maybe corporate wasn't so sensitive about letting it escape.  The new parts would have been the steering linkage for the nosewheel strut, mounted to the firewall. They never did reinforce the firewall adequately.

[Tusayan]

There are some photos and info on the Cessna 160 prototype here, N5419E.

 http://eaaforums.org/showthread.php?8103-What-happened-to-the-only-Cessna-160



The Cessna prototype that I find most interesting is the Cessna 327, a cantilever wing baby Skymaster that looks a lot racier than its bigger mass produced sister.  I believe I've read that without struts anchoring the twin booms they moved around, having a negative effect on the tail, and that it had lower than expected performance.  Daniel might know better.

[wavedog]

I miss flying. Sometimes.

[Chuck in Indiana]

^^^^ a guy can get hurt doing that stuff.. 

[Gliderjohn]

From Daniel Kalal:

Of course, it's not likely it can ever be sold.

The 182 was at Cessna's scarp yard. A few glider guys were trying to form the Wichita Soaring Association at the time. One of these guys worked for Cessna and got wind of it and actually stopped the process on the day the plane was to be shredded. Cessna agreed to sell the plane to the club for $1 except the final contract version had a typo that said Cessna had to pay the club a $1, which is what happened. If the club ever disbands the plane has to go back to Cessna but the club is still very healthy.



GliderJohn

[Testarossa]

Very cool story!

[Huzo]

There are some photos and info on the Cessna 160 prototype here, N5419E.

 http://eaaforums.org/showthread.php?8103-What-happened-to-the-only-Cessna-160



The Cessna prototype that I find most interesting is the Cessna 327, a cantilever wing baby Skymaster that looks a lot racier than its bigger mass produced sister.  I believe I've read that without struts anchoring the twin booms they moved around, having a negative effect on the tail, and that it had lower than expected performance.  Daniel might know better.

see if you can dig out the Gene Hackman/ Danny Glover movie Bat 21.
The flught sequences involving a 337 Cessna are fabulous..!