… tomorrow night, January 11 at 6PM, I will be giving a presentation to The Sedona Westerners Hiking Club at the Methodist Church on SR179 … if you are a member or a person interested in hiking and joining the group, I hope you will come out for it.
The title of the presentation is “Uncharted Trails.” For the first time in any of my presentations I will be talking about the machines I have flown … silent flight!
There are about 476,000 pilots in the USA of all ratings plus another 280,000 student pilots … there are less than 25,000 who hold glider pilot ratings and of those holding it, it is estimated that fewer than 2,000 of them fly over 50 hours a year … these are the glider guiders who are serious about cross country flying in a glider/sailplane. I had never flown and learned to fly in gliders in the fall of 1996 and for the next 11 years and 1800 +/- hours of flying time, this is all I knew, and cross-country flying is what I lived for … this continued when I switched to a motorglider in July of 2007 and many more hours over the next 13 years..
I did my first cross-country flight in1997 … it was relatively short, 50+ KM. About a quarter of the way to my destination I lost final glide to where I took off from and did not have final glide to my destination … it was an absolute rush! The only way I would make it to the destination was to use the skills I was learning to find and work the lift I needed to get there! I was absolutely hooked on glider xc flying … and still am even though I got out of active xc soaring three years ago.
If you have an interest in becoming a glider guider, check out the Soaring Society of America website … it is a fantastic sport, and you will find a great bunch of people who will go out of their way to help you. More information on local sailports in another email.
I purchased a new hosting package for my websites and life should be good, however, something happened on the way to the web and both of my websites are now in bit heaven … I have a one page marker page up and will complete building new sites over the next week. Sorry!
Have a beautiful day and keep breathing, smile and seek joy.
Cheers,
Ted
The joy of dawn, and peace abides with me;
And though I know that I again shall see
Dark fear with withered hand approach my sleep,
More sure am I when lonely night shall flee,
At dawn the sun will bring good cheer to me.
excerpt from The Dawn by Max Ehrmann
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The easiest way to reach Mr. Grussing is by email: ted@tedgrussing.com
In addition to sales of photographs already taken Ted does special shoots for patrons on request and also does air-to-air photography for those who want photographs of their airplanes in flight. All special photographic sessions are billed on an hourly basis.
Ted also does one-on-one workshops for those interested in learning the techniques he uses. By special arrangement Ted will do one-on-one aerial photography workshops which will include actual photo sessions in the air.
More about Ted Grussing …
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