07/18/01 - National Glider Academy, OR
The Glider
Academy proved to be the second activity to pick me up as scheduled
(second to COS)! So after my luggage arrived I was off to the
National Guard armory that they were staying at. There was a
cot waiting for me and I set up my gear, and promptly went to sleep.
Whew!
The next day I was the first to go up in a glider and my instructor
turned out to be a pilot of two of the three glider flights I’ve
ever had 5 years ago in Los Alamitos, CA. That was cool. I got some
great footage flying around, and filming him instructing from the
rear seat. Soon two other gliders would be towed up and I got
some awesome footage of them from the high vantage point.
I continued to film the ground work when
we landed, and some academics back at the armory.
The next day a
news crew arrived for some live shots for an early morning wake up
show. I got to hang out with the camera crew and they all wanted to
play with the Canon Xl-1 I’m using to shoot these videos. They
even set it up and connected it to their news van to try some live
feed through it. It was a lot of fun to see how they operated. The
reporter even wanted to try it out, and decided he had to have one.
The camera guy liked it a lot, but had already set his heart
on a $11,000 Broadcast DVCAM (he wins).
The next day was a fun day, and the cadets were taken to see the new
home of the Spruce Goose. I’d had plenty of opportunities to
see it when it was in Southern California, next to the Queen Mary,
but never got the chance. Impressive is an understatement, that
thing is HUGE. I just wish they could spin up the eight 3000
horsepower a piece engines. Its not completely re-assembled
yet, just a couple more feet off of each wing tip, and the
empennage. It was housed in an equally neat building, where it
dwarfed the other vintage planes around it.
The glider academy is certainly the place to go to enjoy the flight
experience itself. "Soaring," as the gilder enthusiasts
call it, is a lot of fun, and flying silently through the sky,
looking down as a bird does, is a great experience. The goal
is to have 20 such flights lasting an average of 30-45min.
If only they had some slots for seniors!
Scott