This was apparently the local area ‘Gliding Championships’. The field is at a middle school near where I live and these guys are out here each Sunday piloting their gliders.

I’ve driven by them in haste a number of times and always wanted to stop and check it out. Luckily when I stopped today, the ‘masses’ had shown up from far and wide for a trophy. There were about 19 people there. But it was really pretty cool. Those things are far larger than I had thought from my car on the street.They are graceful and silent, much like the hawks that were aloft wondering what these colorful things were.

The rules are simple… There is a launcher that is a motorized string that runs on car batteries – the guy flying his plane controls the speed of the motor with a foot pedal – at the peak of the string’s arch, while your plane’s flaps are shooting it straight up, you ‘unhook’ your plane and you’re gliding at about 400′. Then the person that lands their glider as close to 10 minutes and as near to a fixed target on the ground wins. Sounded a bit silly to me until I watched these guys timing their landings to the second and they were able to land them sometimes within inches of the ground target. Pretty cool. I asked one guy how he felt about his 10:03, dejectedly he said ‘I’ve left the door wide open’. This is serious. And very peaceful I found, but maybe that’s because I wasn’t flying one.

:Trevor