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showing posts tagged with 'soaring'
 
Last call for soaring camp 2010
edited by on June 18th 2010, at 20:49


It's getting closer and closer to Albatros's Soaring camp 2010, and the places are getting filled up as the days go by. If you're still interesting in joining this year's camp, you should hurry up as there aren't a lot of places left. If you're even remotely into flying and want to have two weeks of flying fun, along with one hell of a camp with a great atmosphere, this is your chance. Click on the image to get more information; while the site's in Dutch, you can use the contact form (link at the bottom-right) to get all the info in English.

The soaring camp takes place from Juli 12th until July 25th at the airfield (EBZH) at Kiewit, Hasselt (Belgium). Meals  ...
 
Soaring camp 2010
edited by on June 5th 2010, at 20:51

 
Exam for passenger license
edited by on April 26th 2010, at 22:32

Over the last year I managed to gather my required 50 hours of solo flight time, and yesterday was a good time as any to take my exam for a passenger's license.

The exam itself was basically a revision of most elementary flight manoeuvers (stale turn, high turn, stalling, etc.), accompagnied with an additional back tow (i.e. when the cable does not release).

While I succeeded in my exam, it goes to show that even those things really have to be maintained; I was a bit rusty in performing some manoeuvers. Guess I'll be practising them a bit more.

 
Condor patch 1.1.3 released
edited by on March 23rd 2010, at 22:12

The long awaited Condor patch v1.1.3 has been released. It fixes a critical bug with the newer nVidia drivers, and was particularly a hassle when running Condor in Windows 7.
Aside of the fix, an additional tow plane was added in the mix.

Download the patch: http://www.condorsoaring.com/downloads.htm.

 
Flying season 2010 official kick-off
edited by on March 14th 2010, at 00:43
And so the flying season has started again, pretty much in the same way it ended: it was a dark damp and cold day, and not at all without technical difficulties.
The issues with our tow plane that were supposed to be fixed weren't really fixed. Our backup did perform flawlessly (a luck we did not have at the end of last season).

All of the little troubles and discomforts did not thwart the pleasure of having done about a dozen flights, most of them check flights to sign on after a long winter's break. Although having flown last week, it feels good to have flown a succesful tow and subsequent flight and landing on our own field. Kinda reminds me of last year's start and all.
The winter is ru  ...
 
Albatros organizes Condor Soaring competition
edited by on February 19th 2010, at 16:52

Soaring club Albatros (EBZH) has organized an online competition in the soaring flightsim Condor. In this competition, participants have to fly a set of tasks where they have to try and get the highest score by obtaining the highest average speed.

There are seven tasks in the Provence, set out of Vinon. The other seven tasks are all based in Slovenia (the default scenery of Condor). The tasks prove to be a mix of flying by thermals, and a good deal of ridge flying. For each task, up to three tries are possible. The best of three count as the final result for a given task.

Results of the competition can be found here: http://www.zweefvliegen-hasselt.be/Condorcup.

 
Albatros, recommended by SFA
edited by on December 8th 2009, at 16:19
Soaring club Albatros received the unique opportunity to present its beloved sport of soaring at the open house day of Sabena Flight Academy on December 5th.

Albatros was already recommended by SFA as one of two clubs where future candidates for ATPL/CPL training would be able to follow a pre-entry training course of soaring. This would allow candidates to learn the basics of flying before actually starting the complete training.

 

To recommend this training course to all interested candidates, we were present with a full professional booth. And we can honestly say soaring got quite some attention.

As thanks, we also manage to score some simulator time in a Airbus A320 sim.



Pic  ...
 
Soaring clubs united at Sanicole '09
edited by on September 20th 2009, at 23:30
The 33rd Sanicole Airshow 2009 can definitely be called a success! An estimated 35 000 visitors came to the airfield of Hechtel to witness the yearly airshow held there. An absolute record, so it seems.

Some highlights of the show were: the Vulcan, Patrouille Suisse, and the Blades, the latter which threw in a bonus for the audience, as they flew in a never-seen formation with a Boeing 737 from Jetair. Additionally, this year's show teamed up with the international NATO Tiger Meet.

 

It's on this succesful airshow where Albatros, along with two other soaring clubs from Limburg (province of Belgium), presented the Liga van Vlaamse Zweefvliegclubs.

The three clubs have joined forces  ...
 
Going forward with a license
edited by on July 12th 2009, at 20:05

So I finally got my 15 hours of solo flight time in, and worked up the nerve to take the final check for obtaining my license. And guess what...

I succeeded in obtaining my license. Yes yes, it's still a license for solo flight (still 35h fly time to go), but it's a start.
Now I can start for competition training, etc. The worlds open up, again.

 
First Jeans flight
edited by on April 13th 2009, at 20:43

Up until now, I was flying my solos with a Twin Astir II. It's a 2 seat glider which we use at our club for training (among other things).
The instructors thought it was time I moved on to something else: a Club Astir (also known as the Jeans).

The Jeans is a one seater, sort of the 1-seat equivalent of the Twin Astir I (yes, there's a difference between Twin I and II). It's a small and swift craft; not very recent, and it's a bit fickleish at times. In short: I love it!

 

I'll be flying this for a while, at least until I've enough hours on the thing to move up to the next glider.

 
Going solo...
edited by on August 31st 2008, at 18:39
After a full year of education, I finally got the clearance (well, actually, my instructors basically forced me to do it) to go solo.

 

The experience of flying all alone is a bit weird at first. Knowing that you don't really have anyone to back you up, gives one a funny feeling. On the other hand, after the funny feelings are gone, there's the feeling of ultimate freedom, flying around in the sky with only you.
The very first flight didn't take long (some 15 minutes or so), but for myself, they were the longest 15 minutes ever (and I mean that in a good way).



A tradition among soaring pilots is the not-so-all-famous initiation ceremonial ritual thingy. All trai  ...
 
Soaring camp 2008 @ Kiewit, Hasselt
edited by on April 9th 2008, at 23:43
This summer, Albatros (the soaring club I'm flying at), is organizing a soaring flight camp. This camp is for both people that haven't flown yet, but would like to experience something totally different, as well as for the more experienced pilots, who which to further hone their skills.

The camp takes place from 14th of July 'til 21st of July. Registration is required.



More information and registration: http://www.zweefvliegen-hasselt.be/

If you're not interested, but know someone who might, please refer them to the website. Sympathisers can download the PDF (contains the flyer) and distribute it. Thanks in advance for your support.

Notice
Note that the site   ...
 
Dream flight (Schempp-Hirth day @ Albatros)
edited by on September 29th 2007, at 13:59
Last weekend was another edition of Schempp-Hirth day. Schempp-Hirth is a German builder of gliders, and for several years now, they lend us some of their machines to get a feeling of the latest innovations and a bit of the future in the gliding world...

This year's machines were most interesting, to say the least:

The DuoDiscus XL is the bigger successor of the DuoDiscus X, a flyer for two, with a wing span of a dazzling 20 meters. The XL has all the aspects of the X, but its cockpit has grown significantly in size, allowing for larger persons to fly in it as well. Several other improvements have been made for a better flying comfort.
The XL we had is currently the only glider of its type  ...
 
Some in-flight recordings
edited by on August 27th 2007, at 18:00

Some in-flight recordings, taken when I was passenger on my orientation flight.

The footage was take with my PDA cam, so it's not very high resolution. Format is MPEG-4 with 3GPP subformat, but normally any decent media player will be able to play it back (I know that at least mplayer with AMR audio codec can).

 
Open house at my glider club
edited by on August 25th 2007, at 23:31

Next weekend - sat 25th and sun 26th Aug - you will be able to visit the airport of Kiewit, Hasselt for the open house of my glider club Albatros. You will be able to see what gliding is actually all about: visit the airport, see the gliders, and even fly with one of our skilled pilots: an event well worth visiting...

For more information, visit their site http://www.zweefvliegen-hasselt.be/ (website in Dutch).

 
The Aviator
edited by on August 15th 2007, at 18:13

Time for a new experience, and a new hobby in my life.
Thanks to Bart (aka: my boss), who took me and a collegue of mine for a figurative spin around the block: in the form of gliding...

Next thing I know, I was signing myself up at Albatros Zweefvliegclub (note: website in dutch) at Hasselt (Kiewit), and already have had two lessons.

Those that care may keep their fingers crossed each time I'm in the air (usually on saturdays), and pray that I don't drill the glider down into the ground... ;-)

 
 
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