Gliding News

Channel 4 specialist factual commissioning editor Julia Harrington has commissioned Windfall Films to make Escape from Colditz (working title), due for transmission on Channel 4 in the summer.

The 90-minute film tells of how, in 1945, two British prisoners-of-war were to be catapulted from the roof of notorious Colditz Castle in a homemade glider, fly it to a meadow 180 metres below, where they would continue their escape on foot. The Colditz Cock, as the glider was called, represents a feat of aeronautical engineering - particularly since it had to be built in secret in a tiny attic using homemade tools and improvised materials like bed boards, sleeping bags, gramophone springs and porridge.

Today, when people think of the first flight, they remember the Wright Brothers not Chanute. But Simine Short may help bring Chanute back into the forefront of aviation history. The author of "Locomotive to Aeromotive: Octave Chanute and the Transportation Revolution" (University of Illinois Press 2010; $38), Short has twice been asked to speak at Wright Brothers National Memorial since the book came out last summer and is also scheduled to give a talk at the Dayton Heritage Center in July.

"Yes, people do realize that he contributed to the development of the Wrights," says Short who currently lives in Chicago but is moving to Miller, "but sometimes it is a little forgotten. I think people usually forget what happened 'yesterday'."

Gordon Buckland launches a glider with more than a six-foot wingspan. Soarers use a winch and monofilament line to prople the gliders into the air.

It's taken 12 years, but the end is in sight for the aviation enthusiasts building the Zogling glider destined for the South Canterbury Aviation Heritage Museum.

He retired as the deputy director, Higher Education, Maharashtra state only to get into the shoes of a student again. An example of sheer self-confidence and the urge to pursue a childhood passion. Meet 61-year-old Laxman Kokate who is the oldest gliding pilot being trained at the Gliding Centre, Pune under the Director General of Civil Aviation. He flew solo for the first time on January 25.

Kokate always harboured a secret dream of becoming a pilot someday. He was in the education department of the Indian Air Force from 1974 to 1994. “I would fly to places for duty but could never sit on the pilot's seat until now,” says Kokate who left the Indian Air Force to “explore other fields of work.” Kokate was chosen as a class one officer in the Higher Education department of the government of Maharashtra. “I registered myself with the Pune Gliding Centre a week after my retirement in 2009,” Kokate adds.

“Flying gives you a different kind of high altogether. On my first flight, I felt like a bird up in the sky,” he shares with a smile. Every time that he soars up in his L-23 Super Blanik glider, he views his city in a different way. “It is sheer bliss to get a glimpse of Pune from the sky with its sprawling buildings and grounds,” he adds. ....

Brad Hill's Tetra-15 made its first flight on 27 January 2012. The Tetra-15 is the first sailplane built from the HP-24 project development and tooling.

PEORIA, Ariz. - A glider plane crash-lands in Peoria, sending one person to a local hospital on Saturday.

The National Aeronautic Association is the official record keeper for U.S. aviation, tracking nearly 100 record attempts each year.

Ed: Art Greenfield represents the NAA on the board of the Soaring Society of America.

In May 1899, Wilbur Wright who with his brother Orville had become interested in manned flight, wrote a letter to the French–born civil engineer Octave Chanute who lived in Chicago, asking advice on aviation.

It had been almost three years since Chanute and several other men had alighted from the train at what was then called Miller Junction and walked the mile or so to the tall dunes that lined the Lake Michigan beach there. Their passing through town created a rousing interest for they carried with them the makings of several gliders.

Over a two-week period, the group, camping on the beach, would perform a series of experiments using, among other inventions, a multi–winged glider with a wingspan of 12–feet that Chanute had designed earlier in the spring. The position and number of wings could be changed to accommodate the wind and ultimately was able to make more than 200 successful glides.

"Glide," an exhibition of art inspired by soaring, will open with a reception Saturday at the National Soaring Museum on Harris Hill in Elmira.

James Slocum of Moscow, Tenn., and Steve Vihlen of Germantown, both FedEx pilots and certified glider instructors, are training a new generation of pilots ... the old fashioned way.

They're teaching them the "stick and rudder" method.

After soloing Steve's son Preston Vihlen on Nov. 5, and Sydney Barnes on Dec. 11, Jim soloed his two daughters, Holly and Heather on New Year's Eve.

Two Civil Aviation Authority investigators will today examine the wreckage of a glider that crashed in Otago yesterday, killing the pilot.

WHEN local man Bill Sutherland woke up on Friday morning, he had no idea he would spend the morning gliding over Cootamundra.

Reno: The 2012 SSA convention schedule is available online. There are three days of speaker presentations, including an Organisation Scientifique et Technique du Vol à Voile (OSTIV) track. There is still time to register for the full convention or attend as a daily delegate.

More information

TWO Melbourne men have been seriously injured after a glider crashed into a paddock and barbed-wire fencing in Benalla this afternoon.