AOPA Pilot Magazine - November 2014 - 128

PILOTS

'GLIDER BOB'

Robert B. Saunders
Colorful character in the glider world
BY THOMAS A. HORNE
ANYONE WHO HAS ever been around
Stemme motorgliders will remember its
most colorful and enthusiastic demonstration pilot, Robert B. Saunders. Known to
all as simply "Glider Bob," Saunders started
working for Mark Arnold, Stemme's first
United States sales representative, in
1996. America was a brand-new market
for Stemme's high-end motorgliders (see
"Power Sailing," page 58), and Arnold
needed a demonstration pilot. On a trip
through Telluride, Colorado, Arnold ran
into Glider Bob at the airport, where he
operated Telluride Soaring. Saunders made
a living by flying tourists in his two-place
Schleicher ASK-21 sailplane, towed aloft by
a Cessna 150 that he upgraded himself with
a 180-horsepower engine.
Arnold wanted to sell Glider Bob
a Stemme. "But it was one of the first
Stemmes, and it had a 93-horsepower
Limbach engine, which was basically a
Type I Volkswagen Beetle engine," Saunders
said. "I told him that it wouldn't get off the
ground up here in Telluride." (Telluride's
field elevation is 9,078 feet above sea level).
But when Stemme made the switch to the
turbocharged 115-horsepower Rotax 914F
engine in 1997, Saunders started working for
Arnold as a demo pilot and flight instructor.
What followed was a career spanning
13 years and 4,000 hours as Stemme's face
to the U.S. public. He was unforgettable, in
his shorts, sandals, and sailplane pilot's hat.
Glider Bob's official employment with
Stemme ended in 2010, but he's still a very
active demonstration, delivery, and instructor pilot for the company. His biggest thrill?
"I took Neil Armstrong up in a Stemme in
2007," Saunders said. "He flew gliders back
in Ohio and had a place in nearby Mountain

128 | AOPA PILOT November 2014

Village, so I put him in the left seat and he did great! What an honor it was to fly with him.
He was such a humble, pleasant gentleman."
On another demo flight, he flew with an older African American who showed up at a
gliderport north of Phoenix. "This guy took the stick and he had the feel!" said Saunders.
"So I asked him if he flew before and it turns out that he was one of the Tuskegee Airmen."
Eventually Saunders did buy his own S10-VT, which he now uses in his latest Telluridebased business venture, Glide Telluride (www.glidetelluride.com). "It's pricey, true, but it's
all because of the exchange rate. When the euro started in 1999, the exchange rate was 85
cents to the dollar; now it's up near $1.40. So while the base price in euros-about $220,000-
hasn't changed, the euro's strength has pushed up the price," Saunders said.
Saunders spends his days flying tourists in his Stemme, cruising and gliding at 14,000
to 15,000 feet, on oxygen, with his many customers. He said one passenger summed up
non-pilots' responses by saying that he was debating whether to go to church or take a motorglider
LOGBOOK
WHO | Robert Brian Saunders
ride. "I think I just did both" was his conclusion.
You'll likely find Glider Bob aloft in his Stemme,
RATINGS | Commercial and CFI
flying "along the north ridge, soaring to 15,000 feet
certificates with glider ratings, private certificate with single-engine
and taking in that magical view."
AOPA
land rating.

EXTRA | Related to the Marx Broth-

ers. His father's mother is the Marx
Brothers' mother's first cousin.

http://www.glidetelluride.com

AOPA Pilot Magazine - November 2014

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