Frequently Asked Questions

Please see the contact page for our address, directions and other details. If you want to visit us please read this guidance page about coming on to the airfield. You will find a link to directions to the airfield on this page.

Yes. If you buy a trial lesson or one day course you will get a voucher to present to the recipient. They can then arrange to fly with us at a mutually convienient time.

We fly on Saturday, Sunday and Wednesday throughout the year. When our holiday courses are running (March - September) the airfield is open 7 days a week for members who do not require an instructor. There is also club flying on several weekday evenings during the summer.

Yes. We often arrange sessions for groups of friends, work parties, clubs, Scouts, Guides, school parties, and others. These are usually flown on a Tuesday or Thursday evening in the summer although we can make special arrangements for you to fly during the day. Weekends are generally not available for groups because of the demand on our facilities from members. Visitors may use our barbecue and our bar (subject to licensing regulations) after flying has finished. For large groups we can give a discount on normal trial lesson prices. Please contact the club office to organise a session.

People over 1.9m (6ft 3ins) may not fit in the glider. Usually the problem is headroom but you will fit if your sitting height is 98cm or less.  You are welcome to come to the airfield and try a glider for size.

The absolute maximum weight for each glider occupant is 110kg. This comes from an airworthiness requirement; there is no flexibility in the limit and all gliders are the same. The 110kg includes you, your clothes, a parachute (7kg) and anything else you have on your person. In practice you need to weigh less than about 102kg, (16 stone). If there is any doubt we have scales at the launch point.
There is also a limit on the total weight in the glider and maximum and minimum weights that relate to the position of the centre of gravity of the glider. Here we have some flexibility because we can use a different glider, find a lighter instructor or put you in the rear seat. We often weigh lighter people to make sure they are above the minimum weight.

No. Our training gliders have two seats in tandem configuration, one for the instructor (usually in the rear seat) and one for you. The only 3 seat gliders are operated in the USA.

Flights with an aerotow launch last from 15 to 30 mins, depending on how high the tug takes the glider.  Please see our trial lesson page for more details of the various launch heights we offer.  Winch launched flights last from 7 to 10 mins. Our instructors will always try to extend the flight by finding a thermal, but whether they can or not is dependent on the weather conditions on the day and a degree of luck. Therefore we are unable to guarantee any specific flight time. For someone new to gliding, extended thermal flying may cause motion sickness, which of course we want to avoid.

Full details of our chages and fees are detailed here. However, if you are a full flying member your costs will include

• the annual membership,
• launch fees for each flight you take,
• soaring fees for flights in club gliders longer than 10 min.

Our fixed price to solo package includes all flying and membership fees for the first year. Instruction, provided by volunteer members qualified to instruct, is free of charge.
Once you have gone solo and aquired further experience in the club single seat gliders you will want to consider buying your own glider. This can cost anything from a few hundred pounds for an old glider to many tens of thousands for a state of the art high performance glider. A decent entry level glider of reasonable performance can be bought for less than £10,000. To reduce costs many gliders are shared in a syndicate of 2 or 3 people.

To fly solo is about as difficult as learning to drive a car. However, gliding has huge scope for advancement and no one ever stops learning. There are always challenges even for the most experienced pilots.

Basically, if you're fit enough to drive a car then you're fit enough to fly solo. Before you do so you will have to have a medical declaration from your GP or an Aviation Medical Examiner. Details of fitness requirements for taking a trial lesson are on the trial lesson page.

Gliding is an adventure sport that offers great enjoyment and exhilaration to those taking part. However, all participants should be aware that, like other adventure sports such as mountaineering, skiing or potholing, gliding involves an element of risk. For example, gliding is not as safe as flying in a commercial airliner. However, we believe that the balance of risk and reward is one that we can live with. Statistical comparisons indicate that you are less likely to suffer a serious injury gliding than playing rugby. For a further comparison, the figures indicate that you are slightly more likely to have a fatal accident scuba diving than gliding. At the Cotswold Gliding Club we place the very highest priority on safety and we work hard to minimise the risks in our sport. All our instructors are qualified by the British Gliding Association and are subject to regular re-qualification checks. Our aircraft are checked each day before flying and are subject to thorough annual inspections. Should you have any concerns about the risk involved in gliding, or want more information, we would be pleased to discuss it with you. Please contact the office and ask to be put in touch with an instructor.

The legal minimum age for flying a glider solo is 14 so there is little point in someone starting to learn to fly a glider any younger than 13. There is no upper age limit and we have members still flying solo in their eighties. For trial lesson participants we have no minimum age but children must weigh at least 51 kg (112lbs). Please ask if you have any questions.

A modern glider can fly at over 150 mph although more often we fly between 50 - 90mph.

Gliders climbing in thermals normally stop at cloudbase, which can be anything from 3000 - 6000 ft. Pilots who have been taught to fly using instruments can climb inside clouds and reach 12000ft or more. Certain meteorolical conditions allow much higher climbs - the UK record is almost 38000ft.

We can stay up all day long if weather conditions and stamina permit. Night flying is not allowed. Flights of over 5 hours are very common.

Generally when we fly away from the airfield we plan to fly a course and return to the airfield.  Flights of 300km (186 miles) are common and 500km (310 miles) is not unusual.  The record from Aston Down is 750km and the UK record over 1000km.  Very long flights involve zig-zag courses to fit in the UK.

First of all you can feel it in the seat of your pants. Thermals can lift the glider at up to 10mph and you notice the acceleration upwards as you fly into the rising air. Secondly, we carry an instrument that tells us the vertical speed of the glider. We find thermals by searching under cumulus clouds (they are made by thermals), looking for other gliders already climbing, looking for soaring birds and flying over ground features likely to generate thermals.