Another geeky thing.

One of my super geeky hobbies that I spend a lot of time doing is flying remote controlled gliders. I started a couple of years ago when I met a really cool group of guys that fly a specific type of glider. Gliders as you know don't have motors to get them in the air,so how do you get them up?Some you throw off a cliff and use the wind that hits the cliff to keep it up. This is called slope soaring and while a lot of fun I hate standing in the wind. Also you have to drive a lot to get to the best spots.You can also use a winch or bungee cord to launch the plane.While it allows you to fly bigger planes its a lot of work to drag a winch around all the time and to assemble the big planes.I gravitated to the most pure of the glider types. Discus Launch Gliders are a pretty new invention in the RC plane world.What they are is a super light,super strong glider with a peg at the end of the wing which you use to launch the plane. It makes it so I can keep a plane in the truck and anytime I find a football field or larger I can go fly.And since the launch heights are not as big it takes a lot more skill to find air to keep you up. For those of you who don't know how a glider stays up basically there are rising rings of hot air called thermals that we have to find.Think of a circling hawk rising without flapping its wings.

Today we were out at the Pleasanton fairgrounds playing around. I broke my plane on the second toss so I took some video of a couple of winch launches and then a couple of DLG launches that Bob one of the best in the bay was throwing. His son AJ is in the second video and while young might be one of the best pilots in the US. Aaron who is in video one is another amazing pilot.