North Queensland Soaring Centre- Who we are

[chief pilot]

The North Queensland Soaring Centre is a non-profit club of gliding enthusiast. We come from Charters Towers, Townsville, Cairns the Tablelands and all over NQ.

The club is based at Charters Towers airport in the big silver hangar near the cricket pitches. We fly almost every Saturday, the last Friday of the month and occasionally Sundays.

You can learn to fly gliders with our nationally accredited instructors or if you prefer you can just become a social member and help out at the airfield, launching gliders etc. It is an exciting way to spend a Saturday.

Gliders stay aloft by riding invisible thermals caused by the sun heating the ground- the same way hawks do. Gliders can fly several thousand kilometres in this way, though 500k is more likely the limit at Charters Towers.

Junior members are especially welcome.

http://www.charters-towers.com/homeimage/forumimage/events/soaring-club-north-queensland-144-117.jpg

You can find out more about us and soaring below

North Queensland Soaring Centre (http://www.geocities.com/nqsc_au/)

NQSC in Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Queensland_Soaring_Centre)

Learn about Gliding (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gliding)

[chief pilot]

Soaring is a great sport, and the perfect introduction to aviation. So much so that the military held my gliding hours is such high esteem, I entered the advanced class at flight screening with just 2 1/2 hours of powered flight. I had to fly a Cap 10 aerobatic taildragger (similar to the Red Bull planes) through aerobatic manoevers with just 2 1/2 hours powered flying experience!

Gliding is in my view the best way to get into aviation. Cost is very low. A young person could go from ab initio to solo for not much more than the cost of an X Box, certainly much less than the cost of a PC.

Young people learn discipline, self control, self analysis and much more from flying. Because NQSC is a non profit organisation, the instructor's time is free. That's right nobody pays for the instructor- he is a volunteer! Yet you won't find more qualified soaring pilots than your instructors, who are Nationally Accredited pilots selected especially for the role.

[chief pilot]

Web Log or Blog of NQSC goings on.