The Cloud Elite Gliding School is being built during the season. Numerous organisational efforts, gliders arriving, parachutes and new aircraft being bought - all of this happens on a living organism.
5 August 2025 – the basic course begins
The Cloud Elite Gliding School is being built during the season. Numerous organisational efforts, gliders arriving, parachutes and new aircraft being bought – all of this happens on a living organism. Perhaps that is why we only started the first basic gliding course for five students in August.
Five students – three of them women taking their first steps in gliding, two of whom already held a powered licence (PPL(A)). It was not the first time I had taken part in gliding training for powered pilots. It is not the natural path of development, but even a professional powered flying instructor was surprised by the precision of glider flying, and it was the same with our students.
Quite a lot of trouble came from realising that a correct turn in a glider requires coordinated movements of the stick controlling the ailerons and elevator (right hand) and of the pedals controlling the rudder (feet), because in aeroplanes the „rudder” is used to a somewhat lesser extent, and sometimes, to counteract the effect of the rotating propeller, we have to make rudder inputs that feel unnatural from a glider pilot’s point of view in order to counteract a loss of heading.
In addition, a discussion in the air often developed:
The instructor said: more left rudder, and the student replied: but I am pressing it.
To explain this, let me note that new equipment brings small downsides too, and in this case the pilot has to overcome not only the air loads transmitted to the pedals, but also the resistance of springs that are not yet worn in and which counteract the pilot’s inputs, trying to return the pedals to neutral.
The first flights are familiarisation flights, during which the student does not really fly the aircraft. They get to know the surroundings and the projection of the airfield from different altitudes. They can admire the views, and those in Mirosławice are exceptionally beautiful, because nearby we have the Ślęża massif, Mietków Lake, the Owl Mountains in the distance, and to the north the panorama of Wrocław.
Why is gliding a safe sport?
Before the first flights could happen, with their escape from reality and everyday matters, it was necessary to „pass” the theory of nine aviation subjects and to have a health check at an aeromedical centre.
When we start any activity in life, in every new place we have to go through on-the-job instruction. Aviation is no different. We have to learn to „walk” around the airfield and to look – or rather to see – everything around us and to anticipate the consequences of what we see, but also of what we hear on the radio. All of this can be summed up in one word: safety.
Every aviation centre, based on the experience of its staff but unfortunately also on regulations „written in blood”, creates a document called a „safety policy” and familiarises all new students and staff members with it, making every effort to ensure its provisions are applied every day and updated on the basis of new occurrences.
Routine – not the negative kind that lulls you to sleep, but the positive kind, which means never forgetting any action on the ground or in the air – calls for repeated inspections and checklists. My first gliding instructor used to say:
fly as if everyone wanted to kill you.
I always understood those words to mean that in increasingly crowded airspace one oversight by others can have catastrophic consequences for us, so in VFR flights we think and look out not only for ourselves, but also for the other users of the sky.
Familiarisation flights – first contact with a glider
The „pre-flight” actions are at least as important as those in the air – I would say even more important. But let us return to the more enjoyable practical exercises.
The familiarisation flights I mentioned earlier are, in most centres, a beautiful kind of „doing nothing” – but not with us. The experience of thousands of flights flown with students led me to modify the assumptions of the training programme.
From the very first moment – from the way you climb into the glider cockpit, hook up the tow rope, close the canopy, sit on the centreline of the glider or adjust the pedals – I talk, and talk, and talk, insisting on actions but also explaining why they matter and what the consequences of skipping them are.
Right from the first flights the student pilot flies the glider together with me – we call it shared control – but there is also time for demonstration and independent action, including making mistakes and correcting them. Individually, depending on perception and ability, we „load” the student with further stages of aviation initiation.
The „five zero” instructor – morning gliding training
Somewhat mysteriously, I told the students that I used to be called the „five zero” instructor. In the first days of training, before everything and everyone settles in and cooperation becomes second nature, our flights ended in the afternoon.
As cumulus clouds appeared in the sky, flying the glider became increasingly difficult. What experienced glider pilots love most, thermals – or more precisely vertical air movement – makes controlling a glider significantly harder for inexperienced students.
At the debriefing that ended the flights I asked a question: are you ready to come to the airfield at five o’clock? A hesitant „yes” resulted in a meeting at first light and pulling the equipment out to the launch point with the first rays of the rising sun.
The very first flights explained everything. Air „like butter” did not disturb the flight, there were no other airfield users, nothing distracted us. Training efficiency increased and by around 11 am we had already finished our daily portion of flying, at a time when aviation Mirosławice was only just starting its day.
Hazardous situations and spin training
10 August 2025. „Things are getting dangerous”.
Since nobody said it would be easy, the flights for tasks four and five came – hazardous situations and spins.
Before starting them we held a long briefing at the base, where we carefully explained all the dangers we may encounter in a glider flight with an aerotow launch.
They do not happen often, but every pilot must have in mind, and have practised, the manual procedures for cases such as a rope break at various phases of the launch and at various altitudes.
The most important element, however, is learning spin recovery.
The first solo glider flight
We are heading „at a brisk pace” towards the finale.
After the hazardous situations we refine every element of the flight, and when the instructor decides that the mistakes made by the student do not put the student or the glider at risk, he makes an entry in the training record stating that the student is „fit” for check flights.
If the check flight goes well, the examiner asks:
Will you fly solo?
The first one was Wanda.
After a short briefing, a radio check and preparation of the glider, the tow plane and glider combination started its take-off run. Even if – as in Wanda’s case – you have already flown solo in aeroplanes, this is a moment you remember for the rest of your life.
16 August 2025 is a date worth remembering, because on that day Wanda became the first Cloud Elite student to fly solo on the Puchacz, confirming the quality of the centre’s training.
The whole flight, as well as the further solo flights that day, went safely and one could say perfectly, because they required no corrective comments from the instructors.
Well done Wanda, and well done Cloud Elite.
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text: Leszek Wlazło
editing: Łukasz Machowczyk