Gliders

Kewreeuss

When I was very small, every weekend there were always gliders going overhead.
We used have great fun on a Sunday afternoon, watching them being towed along, trying to see the rope connecting them and also trying to see the 'bobble' underneath the nose.
Looking back , it might not have been a rope and I can't remember if the 'bobble' was on the plane towing or the glider, but we looked for it anyway. In our minds, the rope was tied to it. It might have been a wheel.
We loved waiting for moment when rope would be let go and the plane and glider paths would diverge.
It must have been amazing to be in a glider, up in the sky with no engine, just....gliding around.

So what happened to gliders? Did Health and Safety do them in? Were they just to expensive to run, after all you needed a second machine to get them up into the sky?

ohlordy

https://www.dublinglidingclub.ie/

Kewreeuss

Thank you for that.
The history piece is interesting.
I think we must have been watching gliders from Baldonnel.
I love the image of the car bombing down the runway, pulling the cable behind it and the glider passing by on the other side.
It must have been great fun!

jmkennedyie

Good chance it was the Dublin Gliding Club based beside Punchestown Race course

Bog Man 1

There was a Gliding Club in Carlow in the early 1950,s . The Glider was put into the air with a Catapult type device . My father was involved but never flew in it despite being an Artillery Forward Observation Pilot that flew Austers .
I remember him talking about people attempting to fly it from the nine stones on Mt Leinster . I remember seeing a picture of a group of people standing around it . There was a pulley block with either a glider or a replica with controls for training purposes in a neighbours shed .

Stovepipe

There have been others outside the DGC who flew gliders independently and they used bungee launch or towed them to circuit height by cable launch or even vehicle towing. There are a handful of individuals who continue to launch from hillsides on rare occasions. The DGC still do annual trips to Inch beach for a Summer camp and have been known to go to other airfields for group "flyouts". Other than that, paragliders (motorised or not) dominate gliding outside of DGC in the Republic. There are/were a couple of gliding schools in the North,operating under the auspices of the BGA and they also cooperate with DGC. By comparison to Europe and the UK, gliding is practically at a standstill in Ireland.

allybhoy

Anyone here a member of DGC? I presume they arent operating currently. I live fairly close and you would usually see gliders every weekend but havnt seen them much at all this year. . My wife bought me a 6 month membership back in March which I havent redeemed yet but looking forward to doing so...

Bog Man 1

7-4-2012_025.JPG

A glider on Mt Leinster in the early 1950,s .

scudzilla

Went gliding a few times when i was younger, great craic indeed, all for free too.

I grew up in North Wales and joined the ATC (Air Training Corps) at age 12, was some place to join for an aircraft geek, some of the perks....

Flying at RAF Woodvale 3 times a year, at the start it was in Chipmunks, then later on Bulldogs, each flight lasted maybe 30mins, you'd ask the pilot if we could do some aerobatics, loop the lops, stall turns etc. Clever ones asked if we could do a touch and go, that gave ya an extra 5mins air time :pac:

Gliding 2 or 3 times a year at RAF Sealand, was great

Annual Camp at a functioning RAF base, this was great as it lasted 5 nights, you'd go flying one day, night exercise another, choose what dept you'd like to see and you'd spend a day with them, i was the only one who chose ATC so spent the day in the tower. Was at RAF Waddington so Vulcan heaven, also had AWACs there.

Cadet of the year, never me cos i was a little bollix, got to go to RAF Valley and have a flight in the rear seat of a Hawk, had to be over 16 for that one.

Shooting every Thurs night with .22 and 303 rifles using the local Army Cadets range.

And ALL this was free, apart from your 50p a week subs :pac::pac: