Ever given a thought to flying free as a bird? You can in a Taranaki Gliding Club glider at Stratford on a weekend day.
For many years now, scores of Taranaki pilots have soared high over the province using the thermals that dot the sky on a summers day. Or, lofted thousands of feet higher in giant standing waves generated by the Mountain and adjacent ranges. The view of land, sky and clouds are at times, awe-inspring. The beauty and light changing throughout the day to softer colours in the evening and the air adopting a languid limpid feel to it that is quite relaxing.
Gliders can seemingly drift with languid grace in the sky or fly faster than some powered aircraft. On occasions, our pilots have raced along the Kaimai Range at 200kph, soared the face of Mt Cook or covered hundreds of kilometres flying cross-country in Australia.
Gliders are relatively easy to fly, cost less than many powered aircraft to fly and offer the pure recreational challenge of harnessing the solar energy in the form of air currents and demand the pilots to think their way from A to B.