Advanced Flying

Once you’ve flown solo and are a proficient soaring pilot the skies the limit (sorry about the pun) you can advance your skills in numerous areas.

Single Seat Gliders

Having progressed through Melbourne Soaring’s two seat gliders and built up sufficient experience and competence, you can then fly your first single seater, which in our club’s case will  be the Astir CS 77.                         

Flying your first single seat glider you will immediately notice they are much more responsive than the heavier two seaters you have been flying.

Something akin to wielding a scalpel instead of an axe.

Aerobatics

Aerobatics are a great way to learn how to handle a glider in a number of unusual attitudes by flying various manoeuvres, and it is fun. Fly with our experienced instructors and they can teach you how to perform loops and other aerobatic manoeuvres in a safe and controlled manner.

Cross-Country Flying

So far your gliding flights will have stayed fairly close to Bacchus Marsh but flying cross country means that you won’t always be within gliding range of home base and may have to land somewhere else. These  flights may be just out of gliding range of our airfield or several hundred kilometres away and will certainly give you tremendous experience.

The club has several highly experienced pilots who can show you how  weather and ground features can affect cross country flights. As there is no guarantee of making it back to our airfield every time, you will also be shown how to perform an “outlanding” in a paddock if the need arises.

It will take you out of your comfort zone but flying cross country is very rewarding. 

Competition Flying

If you discover that you like cross country flying and have a competitive nature, gliding competitions could be next..

You can fly your first competition in a two seater with one of our instructors while learning about the  flight preparation and in-flight strategies used in competition.     

Not everyone who has made it to solo standard will want to do aerobatics, cross-country or competition flying and that is ok with us. Melbourne Soaring’s instructors are happy to help you in whichever activities you want to try.