Cairngorm departure lounge will keep young pilots firmly grounded
Cairngorm Gliding Club is celebrating ‘remarkable’ success with its recruitment drive, having attracted plenty of young members - but how best to keep them?
With the strath’s weather so up and down - if you’ll pardon the expression - training young pilots can be a frustrating experience, since consistent flying is a must to keep the interest level high.
The club is solving the problem by simply removing the weather factor - taking the training cockpit inside!
As club secretary Phil Hawkins explained: “We are currently in the process of building a full sized gliding simulator.
“Many of the larger gliding clubs have them, and they quickly become a useful tool for the instructors when teaching new student pilots.
“Remarkably, we now have at least seven new members who are under 18, and we need to keep them enthused regardless of the weather.”
Mr Hawkins went on: “We recognise two potentially big advantages of using a simulator.
“Firstly, a significant reduction in the number of flying hours - and therefore the cost - before the student reaches the solo flying stage, and secondly, the ability to provide basic lessons for new members even if they are dogged by successive weekends of bad weather.
“The basic idea is to start with a written-off glider fuselage without wings, and to find a realistic space in which to install it.
“The fuselage is equipped with electrical step motors to detect control movements which are linked to a computer using flight simulator software. This projects realistic views of flying from Feshie airfield onto screens surrounding the installation.
“We are using a large re-furbished caravan to contain the system, which should provide space for pre-lesson briefings, spectators and document storage as well as the pilots themselves.
“The system isn't yet finished but the elements are slowly coming together and it should be working within the next few months.”
