South Cambridge Gliders

On Wednesday I was lucky enough to host a gliding evening for my very friendly running club, the South Cambridge Striders. (They were kind enough to come along despite my spotty recent appearance on their runs, which I have variously blamed on a cold, my kids' exams, and a bad knee, but we all secretly know it's because I'm probably gliding.)

Here's one of their rather fetching running vests, unfortunately adorning a horrible sweaty Adrian. If you need a friendly running club near Trumpington or Shelford, come and join us.

But enough of that – onto the gliding evening event! They're usually Monday, Wednesday or Friday evenings in the summer months.

The format for these events is:

• If any of your guests can arrive early (mid afternoon) they may be able to have an aerotow flight as well as the evening winch-launched flight.

! We don't use planes in the evening, so everything in the evening event itself is a winch launch. This time round, Steve, our generous BBQ ingredient-purchaser and chef, was able to come early to try out an aerotow mid-afternoon.

• Guests begin to arrive at 5:30 for a quick 10-minute ground briefing, and to make sure the paperwork is done. (It's fine if some guests arrive a bit later.)

• Whoever's there first, gets to fly first! We take them out to the launch point, get them kitted up, and get them ready to fly.

• As each glider lands, the next pilot is taken over, and introduced to their instructor. They then get to experience the excitement of a winch launch, followed by a few minutes of looking at the view or taking controls (different people want different things!) and then the instructor will land.

• We usually have three gliders going, so can achieve about 20-25 flights in the longest summer evenings.

• Meanwhile someone's cooking on the club BBQ. It's best to leave some BBQ food for the instructors; an unfed instructor can sometimes go feral and destroy whole civilizations.

• Once everyone's flown, the bar opens, and everyone mucks in to pack the hangar.

These group events are cheaper than daytime flying. The flights tend to be short – around 6-8 minutes – but they're really delightful. The sunset is gorgeous, the air is still (usually no thermals to keep you aloft, but also therefore, no bumps!) and it's altogether a gentle and delightful way to experience gliding for the first time.

It's fine to bring sensible kids, and if they're 5′ high, they can fly too.

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South Cambridgeshire, Striders:

Mark looking very cool:

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Scott being strapped in by Jay:

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(thanks to London gliding club for lending us a glider – in case you're wondering why it says that!)

Towing a glider back to the hangar as the sun goes down:

Thanks again to the Striders for helping clean the bugs off the gliders:

As a member of ground crew, my favourite part of the evening is the BBQ (of course) but my second favourite part is seeing the looks on people's faces when they see their first winch launch. I'll do another post someday with a gallery of people's expressions.

(Thanks to the Striders for letting me use their photos, and of course for coming along in the first place!)