89: Soaring In The Philippines with Rolf Dunder

03/30/21 • 88 min

Soaring the sky a glider pilot‘s Podcast

On this episode of the podcast we first head to the Philippines and talk with Rolf Dunder, He originally learned to fly in Hamm-Lippewiesen Germany but is currently the only glider pilot soaring in the Philippines. Rolf started soaring in 1979, soloed in 1980 at the age of 15. He received his PPL in gliders in 1982 and his CFIG in 1989. In 2000 he picked up his Ultralight rating and in 2001 his Paraglider as well as his single engine in 2002. In 2008 he moved to the Philippines where he started glider operations Nampicuan and now Tuy. Rolf has flown many gliders including the
ASK-13, Ka-8, Ka-6, K-7, Twin III, ASK-21, DG-505, ASW-15b, ASW-19b, LS-4, Standard Libelle, IS-28,
Schweitzer 2-33, Puchatek, Duo Discus, SZD-55, and the Nimbus 4DM.

Rolf has also experienced soaring all over the world and will share some of those exciting adventures with us. He has flown in Japan, France, Australia, Italy, Spain, The United sates and even had the pleasure to be a guest on a 985 km triangle flight in a Nimbus 4DM in Kuruman South Africa. Ralf has logged over 900 hours in gliders that includes over 2,500
flights. He also has over 100 hours in Single engine aircraft with 300 hours in ultralights and 100
hours in paragliding.

(45:45) Also on this episode we will hear another exciting soaring adventure from Dale Masters on Soaring Tales With dale and this one is titled "Go Fly A Kite"

(49:45) For our Soaring safety segment CFIG Ben Mayes joins us from Williams Soaring Center in Williams California for some great advice and some interesting soaring stories.

(1:15) Our Tips and technics segment Monette Beers joins us to share her experience attending the recent Seniors Soaring Championship in Seminole Lake Florida.

All this and more now on episode 89 of Soaring The Sky

https://youtu.be/aD5VRhUdyeA

[email protected]

(45:45) Also on this episode we will hear another exciting soaring adventure from Dale Masters on Soaring Tales With dale and this one is titled "Go Fly A Kite"

(49:45) For our Soaring safety segment CFIG Ben Mayes joins us from Williams Soaring Center in Williams California for some great advice and some interesting soaring stories.

(1:15) Our Tips and technics segment Monette Beers joins us to share her experience attending the recent Seniors Soaring Championship in Seminole Lake Florida.

All this and more now on episode 89 of Soaring The Sky

https://youtu.be/aD5VRhUdyeA

[email protected]

Previous Episode

88: A Gift Of Soaring & Soaring Across America: Bill Palmer & Eric Carden Interviews

Bill Palmer is our first guest pilot we will hear from on this episode.
Bills soaring journey started in 1991 when his wife gave him a glider flight for his Birthday . It was with the now famous Bob Wander in Minnesota. Bill had recently qualified as an A320 captain with Northwest Airlines at the time, but had not flown gliders before nor had any exposure. He started with The 2-33 northeast of the Twin Cities. With the private check ride approaching squashed by winter, he picked up the following May (as Minnesota melted) and decided to simply push for the commercial, which he then completed.

He continued to fly with the Minnesota Soaring club until 1995 where he flew an ASK 21, ASK 7, K8, & an SGS 1-23. Some pilots would do cross country trips with their own gliders, mostly downwind dashes with
a crew to follow in a trailer. Not having access to a crew, Bill put that out of his mind and enjoyed taking friends for rides and working through the A through Bronze badges, and completed the silver 5 hour
duration and 1000 meter gain flights. Bill would have to wait 23 years to complete the silver distance.

Bill moved to San Diego California in 1995 and didn’t seek out soaring there until 2012, after a couple of moves he realized that Sky Sailing was only about 40 minutes away. He checked out in their Grob 103,
102, and SGS1-26 and 1-36 and had a fun time being able to climb to 12,000 feet and play the how-
long-can-I stay-up game, while stretching his goals all within gliding distance of the airport.

Bill is also the author of the book "Understanding Air France 447" Its About An A-330 that crashed into the Atlantic North of Brazil in 2012.

His Soaring goals are to Learn to use the water ballast in his ASG29, for longer and faster cross country flights and hopefully a 750K. Bill also wants to continue to share his enthusiasm to
current and future soaring pilots to fan their aviation flames and ambitions.

(38:00) Soaring Tales with Dale. Dale brings us a story on this episode about bow wave. Have you ever experienced this?

(41:30) We also have a very special Tips & Techniques segment for you on this episode!
Eric Carden has an exciting journey ahead of him this coming summer as he attempts to cross the the entire United States in a glider! Eric started flying hang gliders in 1993 while a sophomore in college, he briefly flew paragliders, and started flying sailplanes in 2015.
He also owned and operated a powered ultralight business for several years, flying and teaching in weight-shift and three-axis aircraft. He has taught others how to fly hang gliders and powered ultralights. In 2011, he started giving beginner to advanced coaching of paraglider,
hang glider, and sailplane pilots in thermaling and cross-country (XC) flying. He has created a free online thermaling and XC course and He's passionate about soaring (especially cross-country)... and about helping others have more fun soaring!
To pay for his fun, he works as a mechanical/aerospace engineer.

For our Safety soaring Segment we go back to Oshkosh 2019 Where we interviewed Riley Speidel live on location under the wing of her aircraft for the 50th Anniversary Celebration. All this and more now on Soaring The Sky!

http://soaramerica.wordpress.com/

https://sites.google.com/site/thermalxc

Next Episode

90: Tow Planes Gliders & Birds Of Prey

Today our featured guest flies out of southern California. Casey Scholz is a 650 hour commercial pilot flying in airplanes and gliders. His ratings include, multi-engine land, single engine sea and land, instrument rating, as well as AGI/IGI ratings. He is currently Working towards his CFI-A and CFI-G. He has approximately 200 hours in tow planes and has about 1,000 tows in the Tow-plane. Casey shares some great stories and also some lessons he has learned flying both ends of the rope that have helped him to become a better and safer powered and glider pilot.

(1:10:30) We then head to the Czech Republic For our Soaring Safety Segment and catch up with Barbora Moravcova. You may know her as the Gliding Junkie on Instagram. She currently flies with The Czech National gliding Team. She will bring us some great safety tips and talk about what she has been up to since we last spoke to her. She also has some pretty cool stories she will share with us.
(1:43) Dale Masters, author and glider pilot will be bringing us another Soaring Tale with dale and this one is Titled "We Hadn't The Foggiest"

(1:44:45) We are then going to head over to Blairstown NJ to catch up with Daniel Sazhin, He brings us our Tips & technics segment on this episode. He has been up in the air and most recently had some super interesting flights with Bald and Golden Eagles. You can click on the link in the show notes to his blog to check out some awesome shots his girlfriend took from the glider. He will share that story from that flight with us as well.

This is our first episode with our brand new segment where we hear from you the soaring community! Chris Stevenson shares one of his soaring adventures about landing out. To share your soaring adventure just click the link below and click on the microphone near the bottom of the page. We want to share your soaring adventure on the next Soaring The Sky, a glider pilot's podcast.

https://www.soaringthesky.com/contact/

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