Sailplanes return to Cordele

May 12, 2008 08:01 pm

— By CINDY BISHOP
cindy.bishop@gaflnews.com

CORDELE — For the next ten days, the Cordele-Crisp County Airport will play host to more than 70 sailplane pilots and their crews as they converge on the area to take part in the Standard Class Nationals soaring contest.
According to H. Gilly Smith, contest manager, there are in fact two contests being held simultaneously at the airport- the Region 5 South contest which is for pilots mostly from the southeastern U.S. and only runs for six days, and the official Soaring Society of America’s Standard Class Nationals, which is ten days long and draws pilots from all over the United States.
Pilots competing in the Nationals are all vying for a spot on the U.S. World Soaring Team.
Since 1970, the local airport has hosted the event and Gilly said “we [the pilots, crews and their families] keep coming back for obvious reasons. Soaring in the region is great and the Cordele-Crisp County folks are wonderful hosts and lots of fun.”
Monica Simmons, president of the Cordele-Crisp Chamber of Commerce, said the chamber works in conjunction with the contest officials to provide such things as T-shirts, goody bags filled with items donated by local businesses, tents and golf carts for transportation around the airport.
Chamber members also donate door prizes that are given out to the winners of each day’s competition. The chamber also hosts a fish fry for the group each year. This year’s dinner will be held tonight at the airport.
“They love coming here every year because of the hospitality and the ideal weather,” said Simmons. “Of course, they said they weren’t real happy with the windy weather on Monday.
“I told them I could do a lot of things, but I didn’t think I could calm the wind,” she said laughing. “We were so blessed to come out with no damage from the weather Sunday morning...I mean look at all the counties around us.”
The “gliders” as they sometimes are called began practicing over the weekend and held their first day of competition on Monday.
During the competition, pilots will compete in various races that cover up to 250-mile distances from as far north as Macon and as far south as Valdosta.
The gliders, which are basically airplanes with no engines, are transported to the airport by trailer and assembled there. Local airplane pilots then use their aircrafts to tow the sailplanes to approximately 2,000 feet in the air before they are released.
Utilizing the thermal heating from the earth, pilots soar to cloud base heights and use that altitude to fly to their turnpoints and then back to Cordele. Glider pilots are constantly looking for “lift” and the pilots who fly the day’s task fastest win the day. If they win most days, they win the contest.
The contest is open to the public each day of the competition which runs through May 22.

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