Commercial Glider

drunkenbeagle

drunkenbeagle

Gang Member
Ink is still wet. After 10 years of flying, I'm amazed how nervous I was. I wouldn't have passed me. Test jitters aside, the oral was fine. While my flying wasn't as smooth as I would like, apparently it was within the PTS. No one would mistake me for Bob Hoover though.

So, if anyone wants a glider sightseeing ride in Tampa, I'm your man. I'll probably stick to flying the towplane for a while though, until I get my "sightseeing narration" down cold. Best soaring weather is Feb-Jun here, if you are in town.

For anyone on the fence about doing it, DO IT. Definitely will make you a better pilot. It is pretty cheap. And for what it is worth, I learned a lot about flying airplanes from it too (my power-off 180's are a thing of beauty now)
 
Stomp16 said:
Congrats on the new rating! I bet that was a fun one to get.
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Yeah, the "Power-off 180" in a glider is done at 200' AGL. Fun stuff. There was a twin otter on the numbers when the DPE pulled the rope. There's no plugging it back in... (traffic cleared, to be fair, he had no way of seeing him and there was no radio call)
 
Congrats!

The best advice I can give about giving glider rides = sick sack. don't fly without one. :laff:
 
tlewis95 said:
Congrats!

The best advice I can give about giving glider rides = sick sack. don't fly without one. :laff:
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I've 'borrowed' about 30 of them from 'Southernjets' in the last few months, hopefully I won't need to restock for a while.

Being the young, charming kid at the field, I have a feeling I'll get stuck with a lot of the intro rides. The old farts are more interested in flying their own ships. They aren't really there because of their social skills either;)

I love hanging out with them though!
 
drunkenbeagle said:
I've 'borrowed' about 30 of them from 'Southernjets' in the last few months, hopefully I won't need to restock for a while.

Being the young, charming kid at the field, I have a feeling I'll get stuck with a lot of the intro rides. The old farts are more interested in flying their own ships. They aren't really there because of their social skills either;)

I love hanging out with them though!
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Good deal!

A lot of the rides I did were with the younger crowd (basically and teenager) which were the ones that I liked to do. I can have sympathy for your old guys because between giving rides, and working ground, I usually only got to fly my dad's ship one day a week...

Let us know how the first ride goes!
 
tlewis95 said:
Good deal!

A lot of the rides I did were with the younger crowd (basically and teenager) which were the ones that I liked to do. I can have sympathy for your old guys because between giving rides, and working ground, I usually only got to fly my dad's ship one day a week...

Let us know how the first ride goes!
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Will do, but it may be a while, since I'll be flying the Pawnee doing tows a lot. I'm not sure I'm comfortable doing intro rides yet anyway. I'll wait til one of the old timers makes me;)
 
Very cool. I'd love to get my glider rating but there isn't really anyone around me that does it.
 
esa17 said:
Thats a bold claim! You'd better be a blond.
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I am. But seriously, getting the CFI-g was the point of all of this. We have a cfi shortage, i will be doing that in a few weeks to. like a lot of glider cfi's, I would much prefer teaching power pilots...
 
Jbroz04 said:
is there a reason for so many? seems high
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Some were just "fun" flights when there were good thermals (the majority of the glider time I have). And some were for the CFI-G, which I did while I was waiting for this ride to get scheduled - it took a few months.

The rest was just my bad stick and rudder :) Really, just kidding. 33 flights is probably the bare legal minimum - you need 20 PIC, probably 10 dual before that, and 3 - 90 days before a check ride. 45 is not really that much.
 
Yeah I was just about to ask that (what JBroz asked) as I'm thinking about coming down to FL this winter to get my glider add-on. Drunkenbeagle, I'm curious, can you PM me details (financially, time-wise, etc.) regarding your transition.

Thanks,
Greg
 
I've been thinking about doing it too. What did it cost ya? There is a glider place not far from here looking for a CFI-G.
 
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