Ephrata airport hosts glider competition

Pilots have 'more fun' flying without an engine

PHOTOS:

1-2. Dan Gadowski washes the wings of his glider Wednesday morning, during the Soaring Society of America's Region 8 Soaring Championships at the Ephrata Airport. "The wings are the most important things," he says. "That's what gets you home."

3. Contest director Ron Bellamy discusses safety with contest pilots Wednesday morning, including the dangers of impulsivity and how best to combat it, during the Soaring Society of America's Region 8 Soaring Championships at the Ephrata Airport.

4. Pilot Tom Udd works on his glider Wednesday morning during the Soaring Society of America's Region 8 Soaring Championships at the Ephrata Airport.

5. Pilot Kerry Richards works on his glider Wednesday morning during the Soaring Society of America's Region 8 Soaring Championships at the Ephrata Airport.

Up, up in the sky — it's people, flying purely on the elements.

The Seattle Glider Council began sponsoring the Soaring Society of America's Region 8 Soaring Championships at the Ephrata Airport on July 5. The championships last through Saturday.

"They have been coming here every year for somewhere in the neighborhood of 20-something years," said Barbara Deycous, manager of the Port of Ephrata. "I've been here 15, and they were here years before I got here."

Deycous said that the championships benefit the community.

"These people come to town, they stay in hotels or motels, they eat out, the recreate in the community, and of course the airport itself is known to have some of the best gliding thermals in the nation," she said.

The thermals are what give the gliders lift.

Bob Wallach, contest manager and Washington state governor for the Soaring Society of America, said that the Region 8 contest has 28 pilots and a variety of aircraft, which typically take off about noon and get back around 5 p.m.

The planes are divided into two classes, he said — a sports class in which scores are handicapped so that fast and slow airplanes can fly together, and the 15-meter class, limited to aircraft with wingspans of 15 meters.

The pilots fly tasks, such as flying to a certain location within a certain amount of time. Integral GPS recorders verify positions and speeds, and are used for scoring.

"We tow up a couple thousand feet, then we release, then we go out and we fly," Wallach said. "A typical contest day, depending on the type of airplane, we can fly 200-300 miles in a day and it's scored, according to speed."

The Seattle Glider Council rents a building on the Ephrata Port territory, he said.

"This is an ideal place to fly," Wallach said. "It's one of the best venues in the country, as far as we're concerned. We don't get as high or quite as fast as we can in Nevada and in the mountains, but the terrain is very hospitable and the soaring is very good."

Rudy Allemann, a pilot competing in the 15-meter class, said he has been soaring for over 40 years.

"If a person has developed a feeling or a love for flying, this is a way of demonstrating pure flying," he said. "You feel like a bird, and you compete and show your skills against other pilots that are like-minded."

Tom Udd, a pilot competing in the sports class, said he enjoyed the competition.

"Soaring is a sport that is very attractive to anybody that enjoys the freedom of being able to fly," Udd said. "It is a very big challenge to use the atmosphere for your engine. People say, 'How can you fly without an engine?' It's a lot more fun without it than it is with it, and challenging."

The pilots use the atmosphere and the solar radiation off the ground that creates thermals, Udd said.

"(There are) great thermals in this area that are produced," he said. "You often see the dust devils; that's a sign that there's a thermal."

Udd said that the airplane is always flying down at a specific rate, but if the air is going up faster than the airplane is flying downward, it produces an upward lift to the airplane.

"Fly in the center of that, gain several thousand feet of altitude and go again," he said.

"It's fun, it's easy to learn," said Kerry Richards, a pilot competing in the sports class. "It's one of these things that it's actually easy to learn how to fly, but learning to do it really well can take a lifetime."

Contest director Ron Bellamy said that in testing their skills, pilots push the limits, but within safe parameters.

"Soaring is actually a very mental activity, a very mental game, as well as just physical prowess," he said. "These days, it's even more technical because we've got little computers mounted in our cockpits and tied to our knees. It gives the pilots the chance to really go out there and test their skills against other pilots."

A variety of things brings people to the sport, Bellamy said.

"The thrill of being up in the air without an engine is paralleled many times with sailing, because you're working with the elements of nature and trying to harness that energy," he said. "On the other hand, it is a very highly developed aspect of aviation engineering and design. The gliders are designed to maximize their capability to fly, and then you're keyed into the weather conditions and what the systems are doing, so you really are in a vast arena of technical wisdom."

Barbara Deycous said that the event draws pilots from all over the Pacific Northwest, and next year it will be a national contest.

"We enjoy having them every year, look forward to having them every year and hope that they have a good time while they're here," she said. "It gives us a lot of exposure, too. These people go back to the Seattle area and they enjoy having been here."