  Pablo Etchevers
Sailplane rides are one of those activities that manage to change most people’s lives. The Club de Planeadores de Tandil has been giving lectures since 1946… |
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As soon as this place is reached, peace and quietness quickly set aside the anxiety of those who come here to make their baptism flight.
After the introductions and welcome, the instructor starts to tell anecdotes and experiences about this fascinating world of sailplane rides. Apart from telling the history of the place, the courses conducted here and the various flying modalities, whether in thermals, ridge or waves, he explains to the visitors which the essential parts of this small crafts are.
Baptism and Flights
Every weekend, dozens of tourists come to the facilities of the club in order to achieve the dream of flying. For such purpose, it is not necessary that they have any previous knowledge about this air activity or have any psycho-physical tests done.
Tandem flights allow teaching and learning on an innovative fashion.
The instructor is in charge of transmitting all his experience during the flight. And the student, who is sitting by him, learns by presenting all the doubts that may arise as flight hours pass. |
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Roberto Cantón, a 53-year-old student, assures that flying changed his life: “I had some problems in my life, just like anybody’s, and I had always dreamed of flying but I thought I could not do it. Until I made up my mind, and that day my life changed and was marked forever. Flying is like feeling amidst cotton…”
Overcoming difficulties, learning to take off and touching down and even mock emergency situations are transmitted to students by instructors such as Martín Giorgio and Santiago Barreira. Furthermore, the essential meteorology and aerodynamics knowledge, essential to be able to fly, are also imparted.
And with this cluster of experiences, from their twentieth flight onwards, students fly on their own. And they continue until they get the necessary flights to take an examination before the Air Force and thus obtain the glider pilot license. |
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Birds Soul
Flying a glider is something unique and impossible to describe. It is becoming part of an idealized world where there are no borders or fences, where freedom is felt in every meter we advance and where it is possible to test the cold of a cloud without touching
it or feeling how a thermal makes us go up hundreds of meters.
It is listening to the magical music of silence. It is watching how the birds become our flying partners and teach us to catch the thermals in order to go up and stay flying next to them for hours.
As if for one moment we forgot our lives of rational men and let ourselves be carried away by the instinct of the birds that fly simply where the wind takes them.
They say everything changes after flying, and it is true. Those who have experienced this activity assure that their lives have completely changed.
The genius Leonardo Da Vinci, ideologist of what today is free flying, perfectly summarized the spirit of flying in one phrase: “And once you have tasted flight, you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been and there you long to return”. |
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Welcome Argentina - Outings in Tandil
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Even if glider flights are soft and pleasant, it is recommended not to eat heartily the previous night or consume alcoholic beverages. Sleeping tight is another recommendation made by the instructors to those who wish to be baptized in the birds’ world.
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