Gliders

[Maritimer1]

There is an old military base about 20km west of town and a small airport a stones throw from the base. Late yesterday afternoon, I took a drive by to see if there were any planes up. I came across a group of cadets learning how to fly gliders. Depending upon where the light was as I turned, the sky demonstrated all its various shades of blue. I so love summer.


True Blue Sky by M.J. Hencher, on Flickr


Gliding Home by M.J. Hencher, on Flickr


Glider coming in for a Landing by M.J. Hencher, on Flickr

[arith]

Cor; I crashed one of those. Takes me back in time it does. Not summer here by the way, I rely on the weather forcast because I have to get out early; they said flooding possible but it was sunny. Tomorrow is forcast for possible flooding

[Maritimer1]

Our flooding often happens in February or March when the ice starts to thaw in the rivers. Not fun!

There must be quite a trick to steering those little planes. Not much to pad you in a crash, that's for sure! Did you go up in one again after that?

I zoomed in on one photo and could see the young driver's mouth shaped in an "O" as the plane was coming down. Such concentration<BG>. They were landing about 300 meters from where I had parked. I enjoyed watching the crew run out to meet the planes and then push them back to the starting point. The endless energy and enthusiasm of youth

[Cantab]

Nice photos. What shutter speed did you use in the first one? I took some photos a few weeks ago of a commuter seaplane and a helicopter. My recollection is that I did not use a particularly fast speed so was surprised that the propeller and rotor of the respective aircraft were frozen as if the engines had died!
From your pictures it appears that there is similar summer weather on both coasts of Canada.

[arith]

No Myra; I wanted to but I had too wait too long because they was training a new lot.

It was a nice day with clear blue sky and everything was normal except I noticed somebody in my way on the runway (grass), so I went the other side of the control caravan to the parallel runway (grass) although it was ploughed up at the start by an angry farmer who didn't like low flying aircraft. The one thing I didn't like about gliders is that they just keep going down and I hit the runway with a bump.

You couldn't see any damage but the Wing Commander did his nut and they all went round to the farmers place in a lorry and ploughed his lawn. But they should just have prosecuted him for criminal damage instead of just using the runway on the left.

Later on I got to fly solo in a powered aircraft a few times You can actually go round

[Maritimer1]

Bruce, in the first one I was using aperture priorty at f/9 and ISO of 200. The camera chose 1/400 and -1/3EV. This has been such a beautiful summer so far. During the past few years, we've had a lot of rain and cloud in the summer.

Steve, happy to know that you were able to fly again!