r/Gliding

Hallo folks, anyone knows of any training facility/club in the Northeast offering ridge soaring training flights in their two-seat gliders to get my feet wet? There used to be a place in Beltzville, but this has ceased operations for some time apparently. Thanks

*English versión. Original spanish versión below*

I’m a student glider pilot, close to taking my exam to officially become a pilot, and I wanted to share this in case it helps someone. Especially someone who is just starting out, getting airsick, feeling frustrated, and wondering if aviation is for everyone else, but not for them.

That happened to me.

My first flight was not the epic moment where you look at the horizon and think, “I was born for this.” It was pretty much the opposite. I remember the tow, the strange feeling in my body, like a pull I couldn’t really understand, as if my brain still hadn’t accepted that I was being carried through the air. The day was rough too. My instructor later said something like, “We got beaten up out there,” because of the wind and thermals. At the time, I didn’t know if it was wind, thermals, turbulence, or just my body asking to go back to the ground.

I also remember the first tow release. Pulling that knob for the first time felt incredibly strange. It wasn’t rational fear. It was more physical, like my body was saying: “Wait, we’re letting go of the airplane that’s carrying us?” Everything was new, everything felt weird, everything was too much.

That day I thought: “Maybe this isn’t for me.”

And then came my fourth flight.

I threw up. A lot.

It wasn’t just mild nausea. I actually vomited. And there’s something pretty humiliating about that when you’re learning to fly. You want to focus on flying, improving, listening to your instructor, doing things right. But in reality, your mind is focused on one thing only: not throwing up.

That was the most frustrating part. Before taking off, I wasn’t thinking, “Great, I’m going flying.” I was thinking, “I hope I can handle it today.” And while I saw other students progressing, flying more calmly, enjoying it more, I sometimes had to tell my instructor that we needed to go back down because I felt sick. That hits your confidence. It makes you feel behind. It makes you feel like you’re failing at something basic.

Because it wasn’t just the nausea. It was the comparison. It was seeing others keep flying while I was negotiating with my stomach. It was wanting to be up there, wanting to become a pilot, loving the idea of flying, but feeling like my own body wasn’t cooperating.

I tried everything.

The first time I took a full Dramamine. Then I started taking half. Later, a quarter. I also tried ginger candies, ginger pills, natural remedies — basically any advice I heard, I tried. Some days it felt like I was preparing a survival strategy: water, candy, ginger, medication, eating light, not eating too much, not flying on an empty stomach, looking outside, breathing, ventilation.

I didn’t give up, but it was hard.

And with Dramamine, something happened that I didn’t really want to admit at first: it helped with the motion sickness, yes, but it also made me sleepy. I felt more dull. Slower. Like I could fly, but not at 100%. And during training, that matters. Maybe I reacted a second later. Maybe I wasn’t as precise with the controls. Maybe it was harder to process what my instructor was telling me.

The worst part is that, out of fear, I didn’t always say it. I was afraid they would tell me I couldn’t fly, or that I was doing something wrong, or that I was a problem. Looking back now, I don’t recommend that. If a medication affects you, you should talk about it. But at that moment, I was desperate to keep flying. I didn’t want motion sickness to take away something I hadn’t even truly started enjoying yet.

For a while, I felt like my progress was limited by that. It wasn’t just learning coordination, holding speed, flying the circuit, or landing better. It was trying to learn while part of my mind was constantly wondering if I was going to get sick. And it’s hard to progress when you’re fighting your own body.

But slowly, something started to change.

Not all at once. There wasn’t one magic flight where I landed and said, “That’s it, I’m cured.” It was slower and more boring than that. One day I lasted a little longer. Another day I felt slightly better. Another day I looked outside more. Another day the tow didn’t feel so alien anymore. Another day a bump didn’t trigger that internal alarm. Another day I realized I wasn’t thinking about the nausea the whole time.

My brain started adapting. My body too. I started understanding the sensations. What used to feel like “something strange is happening to me” started to have names: lift, sink, turn, correction, thermal, wind. And when something has a name, it becomes less scary.

It also changed a lot once I started flying more actively myself. Being a passenger of your own sensations is awful. But when you’re flying the glider, when you anticipate the movement, when you understand why it banks, why it rises, why it moves, everything becomes less chaotic. Your body stops feeling like it’s being attacked by the air and starts understanding that it’s flying.

Today, I fly solo.

I still carry Dramamine just in case, but I don’t take it anymore. Maybe I carry it like a kind of lucky charm. I don’t know what would happen on a very strong thermal day, with heat, circling constantly to climb. Maybe my body would still remind me that I’m not invincible. But I’m not the same person I was during those first flights. I no longer take off thinking only about whether I’ll get sick.

Now I enjoy flying.

And that still feels incredible to me, because I remember very clearly when I thought I wouldn’t be able to do it. I remember the embarrassment, the frustration, watching others progress and feeling like I was stuck on something that didn’t even feel “pilot-related,” but purely physical. I remember thinking maybe aviation was something I loved from the outside, but couldn’t actually live from the inside.

That’s why I’m writing this.

If you’re starting out and you get motion sick, don’t draw a final conclusion too quickly. Maybe it’s not that “this isn’t for you.” Maybe your body just hasn’t learned yet. Maybe your brain still doesn’t understand that strange language of movement, altitude, wind, and turns. Maybe you need more time than you’d like to admit.

It embarrassed me. It frustrated me. It made me doubt. It made me try pills, candies, ginger, and anything that promised to help. It made me feel slow, behind, different from everyone else.

But I kept going.

And today, when I’m alone in the glider and I feel that strange mix of concentration, silence, and freedom, I’m glad I didn’t listen to that first thought.

Because sometimes “this isn’t for me” is not the truth.

Sometimes it’s just your body speaking before it learns how to fly.

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Original spanish versión:

Soy alumno de planeador, estoy a punto de rendir para ser oficialmente piloto, y quería contar esto por si a alguien le sirve. Sobre todo a los que están empezando, se marean, se frustran y sienten que quizás la aviación es para otros, pero no para ellos.

A mí me pasó.

Mi primer vuelo no fue esa escena épica de mirar el horizonte y pensar “nací para esto”. Fue bastante más feo que eso. Me acuerdo del remolque, de la sensación rara en el cuerpo, como una tracción que no entendía, como si mi cerebro todavía no aceptara que estaba siendo llevado por el aire. El día encima estaba movido. Mi instructor después me dijo como “nos cagaron a palos”, por el viento y las térmicas. Yo en ese momento no sabía si era viento, térmica, turbulencia o simplemente mi cuerpo pidiendo volver a tierra.

También me acuerdo del corte de remolque. Tirar esa palanca amarilla por primera vez me dio una sensación rarísima. No era miedo racional. Era más físico. Como si mi cuerpo dijera: “¿Cómo que vamos a soltar el avión que nos está llevando?”. Todo era nuevo, todo era raro, todo era demasiado.

Ese día recuerdo estan en la juntada que suelen hacer en el club a la tardecita y pensé “capaz esto no es para mí”.

Y después vino el cuarto vuelo.

Ahí vomité todo.

No fue un poco de náusea. Vomité posta. Y hay algo bastante humillante en eso cuando estás aprendiendo a volar. Porque vos querés concentrarte en pilotar, en mejorar, en escuchar al instructor, en hacer las cosas bien, pero en realidad tu cabeza está ocupada en una sola cosa: no vomitar.

Eso era lo que más me frustraba. Antes de despegar yo no pensaba “qué bueno, voy a volar”. Pensaba “ojalá hoy aguante”. Y mientras veía a otros alumnos progresar, volar más tranquilos, disfrutar más, yo a veces tenía que decirle al instructor que bajemos porque me sentía mal. Eso te pega. Te hace sentir atrasado. Te hace pensar que estás fallando en algo básico.

Porque no era solamente mareo. Era la comparación. Era ver que otros podían seguir volando mientras vos estabas negociando con tu estómago. Era querer estar ahí arriba, querer ser piloto, amar la idea de volar, pero sentir que tu propio cuerpo no te acompañaba.

Probé de todo.

El primer día tomé una Dramamine entera. Después empecé con media. Más adelante un cuarto. También probé caramelos, pastillas de jengibre, cosas más naturales, cualquier consejo que escuchaba lo intentaba. Había días en los que iba casi como si estuviera preparando una estrategia de supervivencia llevando mucha agua, caramelos, jengibre, el dramamine, comer liviano, no comer demasiado, no ir en ayunas, mirar afuera a un punto fijo, no mirar demasiado el tablero respirar, ventilar.

No me rendí, pero la pasé mal.

Y con la Dramamine me pasaba algo que al principio no quería reconocer. Si bien me ayudaba con el mareo (sí, lo unico que funcionó realmente que sentías un cambio), pero también me daba sueño. Me sentía más apagado. Más lento. Como si pudiera volar, pero no al cien por ciento. Y eso en instrucción importa. Capaz tardaba un segundo más en reaccionar, capaz estaba menos fino con los comandos, capaz me costaba más procesar lo que me decía el instructor.

Lo peor es que por miedo no siempre lo decía. Tenía miedo de que me dijeran que entonces no podía volar, o que estaba haciendo algo mal, o que era un problema. Hoy, mirándolo para atrás, no lo recomiendo ocultarlo. Pilotos que se marean es algo común en este mundillo. Pero en ese momento yo estaba desesperado por poder seguir volando. No quería que el mareo me sacara algo que todavía ni siquiera había llegado a disfrutar.

Durante un tiempo sentí que mi progreso estaba condicionado por eso. No era solamente aprender a coordinar, mantener velocidad, hacer el circuito o aterrizar mejor. Era aprender mientras una parte de mí estaba pendiente de si me iba a descomponer. Y es difícil progresar cuando estás peleando contra tu propio cuerpo.

Pero algo empezó a cambiar.

No de golpe. No hubo un vuelo mágico donde bajé y dije “listo, estoy curado”. Fue más aburrido y más real. Un día aguanté un poco más. Otro día me sentí apenas mejor. Otro día miré más afuera. Otro día el remolque ya no me pareció tan alienígena. Otro día una sacudida no me disparó esa alarma interna. Otro día me di cuenta de que ya no estaba pensando todo el tiempo en el mareo.

Mi cerebro se fue acostumbrando. Mi cuerpo también. Empecé a entender las sensaciones. Lo que antes era “algo raro me está pasando” empezó a tener nombre: ascendente, descendente, viraje, corrección, térmica, viento. Y cuando algo tiene nombre, asusta menos.

También cambió mucho cuando empecé a pilotar más yo. Ser pasajero de tus propias sensaciones es horrible. Pero cuando vos llevás el planeador, cuando anticipás el movimiento, cuando entendés por qué se inclina o por qué sube o por qué se mueve, todo se vuelve menos caótico. El cuerpo deja de sentir que está siendo atacado por el aire y empieza a entender que está volando.

Hoy vuelo solo.

Y todavía llevo la Dramamine por las dudas en la mochila, pero ya no la tomo. La llevo como una especie de amuleto, quizás. No sé qué pasaría si me meto en un día muy térmico, con calor, virando todo el tiempo para subir. Capaz ahí mi cuerpo todavía me recuerda que no soy invencible. Pero ya no soy el mismo de los primeros vuelos. Ya no despego pensando solamente en si me voy a marear.

Ahora disfruto volar.

Y eso me sigue pareciendo increíble, porque me acuerdo muy bien de cuando pensé que no iba a poder. Me acuerdo de la vergüenza, de la frustración, de mirar a otros avanzar y sentir que yo estaba trabado en algo que ni siquiera parecía “de piloto”, sino del cuerpo. Me acuerdo de haber pensado que quizás la aviación era algo que me gustaba desde afuera, pero que no iba a poder vivir desde adentro.

Por eso escribo esto.

Si estás empezando y te mareás, no saques una conclusión definitiva demasiado rápido. Quizás no es que “esto no es para vos”. Quizás tu cuerpo todavía no aprendió. Quizás tu cerebro todavía no entiende ese idioma raro de movimiento, altura, viento y virajes. Quizás necesitás más tiempo del que te gustaría admitir.

A mí me dio vergüenza. Me frustró. Me hizo dudar. Me leí todos los post que encontré en Reddit de cualquier idioma y diria que estuve quizas un mes obsesionado con este tema. Me hizo probar pastillas, caramelos, jengibre y cualquier cosa que prometiera ayudar. Me hizo sentir lento, atrasado, distinto al resto.

Pero seguí.

Y hoy, cuando estoy solo en el planeador y siento esa mezcla rara de concentración, silencio y libertad, pienso que menos mal que no le hice caso a ese primer pensamiento.

Porque a veces “esto no es para mí” no es una verdad.

A veces es solo el cuerpo hablando antes de aprender a volar.

Asking the community for research purposes and out of curiosity. For context, I fly in a US club and my club has three real instructors who actually teach, we do have a few other CFI-G rated members but for various reasons they don’t teach, but me and the other two instructors to various degrees are the ones fronting the training as well as keeping the rated members current and safe when needed. We keep exploring how to attract and retain instructors and one idea I had was some sort of compensation or incentive, as we are otherwise volunteers who give time to teach and fly with members. My club’s biggest hesitation of doing that would be it draws us very close to a commercial operation (paid instruction), but my idea was instead of a paycheck, have monthly dues waived or each instructional flight is a small amount towards your total bill etc, but it still meets hesitation.

My question for other club instructors, does your club offer any bonus for volunteering your time and risk to fly with students and other members? In a club where instructors are plentiful I agree you don’t need incentives as much, but when you rely on three instructors who have lives and commitments outside the club and can’t dedicate all of their time like full time staff, what is there to keep them going apart from free flight time?

I'm a former glider pilot who doesn't fly much these days, but the bug never really left. So I made a little tool to replay a day of gliding in 3D, right in the browser. You pick an airfield (ICAO code) and a date, and the day's OGN tracks rebuild over the terrain. You can speed up time, follow one glider from the cockpit (with an audible vario), or switch to a top-down or chase camera. Winch, aerotow and self-launch are recognisable from the trace.

A few fields that usually have traffic (links open the current day):

• Lasham, UK
• Minden, NV
• Williams, CA
• Saint-Auban, FR

…or just type your home field. Coverage is densest in Europe, where most OGN receivers are; in the US it's patchier, so some well-known sites sadly show nothing.

https://preview.redd.it/k73wwbsw7gah1.png?width=3296&format=png&auto=webp&s=6264e9e0454e72ad029da450f9231bbeef79fdc2

Fair warning: attitude is estimated (there's no IMU in the data), ground speed stands in for airspeed, and OGN only keeps traces for ~24h, so older dates come up empty. It's a replay/teaching tool, not an instrument and it runs entirely on OGN data, so big thanks to the volunteers who keep the receiver network alive.

Demo: https://s-celles.github.io/ogn-3d-viewer/

Free and open source (AGPL): https://github.com/s-celles/ogn-3d-viewer

Feedback, bugs and feature ideas very welcome.

So as the title says I'm getting to try gliding for the first time in a few weeks it won't be for long as it's in a group of people but it's for free so can't complain there. Is there any advice or things I should know before I go. I absolutely can't wait as I've been wanting to do this for ages.

I may have gone off a bit half cocked last night when I realised thanks to the comment that I'd entirely failed to test it on a mobile device.

So now v2 ... now playable on mobile viewports.

Also:
- Wind to make it a bit more interesting
- AI is now a bit more competitive (though still reasonably easy to beat, they are mainly there as a gaggle)
- Bugfixes around thermal strengths showing where they shouldn't
- You don't get full thermal boost unless you stop and climb in it

I have had a few further thoughts on what could be done with this, and that's principally a "daily challenge" type game where everyone gets the same task each day, and fastest round wins the day - with awards for longest final glide, fastest final glide, lowest save, best height reached, etc.

I assume most people that clicked through on v1 did so on a mobile and bounced out without being able to make it work, so please give it another try!

Clear your cache (shift+refresh) to get the latest version: https://dontlandout.com

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Hi everyone. This weekend i had my first really long flight with a single seater. Together with an other colleague in his single seater we went off and at one point needed to cross the border to France from Switzerland. The problem is that i did not had a flight plan. I somehow got it wrong and tought i do not need one. But after landing some other colleagues told me otherwise.

Whats your guess, should i wait for a letter or contang the french authority DGAC? What would you do?

Ps: sqwak was 7000 and all the time on and i did not enter any controlled or restricted airspaces.

UPDATE: Now functional on a mobile, but the UI is more designed for a large screen.

So, I was experimenting with ideas for a browser based game and came up with this.... It's a little er.. cross country decision making simulator?

The idea is, you set your speed and pick your next move - do you stop and circle, or do you fly on to the next forming cloud, or into the blue? Everything will cost you height or time, and the idea is to get around your randomly generated task as fast as possible.

I thought it was quite fun to play - possibly has some educational value as well.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this, but it exists, so I thought I'd share. Feedback appreciated.

https://xc-game-965190392438.europe-west1.run.app

https://preview.redd.it/lbev3dnfcw9h1.png?width=3342&format=png&auto=webp&s=f5ddeb9510e35ed5ce8ad25357cfafc73be3d622

This is an editorial I wrote for our local paper. Enjoy .