AOPA Pilot Magazine - November 2011 - 88

creates ideal conditions that allow us to fly to Tennessee and back, and stay aloft over 10 hours. Most of the aviation community has no idea what goes on here.” Knauff, 73, and his wife, Doris Grove, own and operate Ridge Soaring Gliderport (www.EGlider.org), a renowned sailplane operation in the hamlet of Julian, Pennsylvania, an agricultural area just five air miles and one ridge west of State College and bustling Penn State University. The 20-foot-wide, 1,300-foot-long asphalt runway (79N) on 90 bucolic acres in a narrow northeast-southwest valley has been a launching pad for many national and international record sailplane flights, and plaques honoring those achievements share wall space with posters of exotic cloud formations and photos of thin-winged gliders. Sailplane pilots eagerly await spring and autumn cold fronts that sweep across the Appalachians, spawning steady northwest winds that strike the jagged mountains and create superhighways of continuously rising air. About 60 glider trailers with license plates from all over the country, and bumper stickers from around the world, are parked in the gravel lot, and hangars contain some of the world’s most exotic and efficient sailplanes. Most range in
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value from $30,000 to $60,000 although one, a German-built EB 28—a condorlike, self-launching sailplane with a 28-meter wingspan and a glide ratio in excess of 65:1—tops $450,000. Ridge Soaring Gliderport has a 16-bed bunkhouse for visiting pilots, and the no-frills quarters with shared bathrooms and showers resemble a European hostel. That seems fitting since visitors from Europe, Canada, South America, Australia, and New Zealand are regular guests. Visitors share stories, ride bikes, fish for trout at a nearby stream, and study a giant relief map of the entire Appalachian Mountain chain in the pilot lounge—planning routes for their marathon flights. Despite their language differences, they all speak of sky conditions and clouds in familiar, enthusiastic terms. Towering cumulus clouds, to them, are “Qs,” and lenticular clouds signifying extreme winds aloft are “lennies.” Unlike powered flight, which tends to be a solitary affair, glider flying is a team sport that requires a great deal of coordination and cooperation. It takes help to prepare a glider for flight, move it into position, get it off the ground, recover, and store it at the end of the day. “We have to help each other,” Knauff says. “We work on our aircraft together, we fly

together, and we rely on each other out of necessity. At the end of the day, we go out to dinner together. The social aspect attracts people to this kind of flying.” Knauff says it takes most GA pilots eight to 10 dual flights with an instructor to solo a glider. The FARs require about 10 solo flights (and three test-prep flights with an instructor) to take the FAA checkride. (And, no, forced landings in powered airplanes don’t count toward the solo requirement.) Dogwoods in bloom The Grob I fly under Knauff’s supervision was built in the early 1980s. Its snug, streamlined tandem cockpit has a familiar altimeter, turn coordinator, and ASI with the same white, yellow, and red markings as powered aircraft, but also a few new ones. The mechanical variometer measures rates of climb and descent like a more sensitive vertical speed indicator; and the yaw string (invented by Wilbur Wright!) is prominently taped to the outside of the canopy at eye level. “Most powered airplane pilots really have surprisingly little understanding of the forces that make an aircraft fly,” said Knauff, a CFI and frequent towplane pilot. “They also want empirical references for airspeeds and altitudes in the landing pattern. But a glider pilot flying

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2011

http://www.EGlider.org

AOPA Pilot Magazine - November 2011

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of AOPA Pilot Magazine - November 2011