Soar like an eagle in Avenal
By Joshua TeheeTucked away in the hills of western Kings County is a place of dust and wind, where men soar like birds — in unpowered glider planes.
There isn’t much around these parts — no buildings over two stories high, no antennae, tanks or towers, nothing much higher than a cow fence, really. Maybe some small trees and a 15-foot telephone line.
But that’s how the members of the Central California Soaring Club like it, just open space and air.
“The joke is, there’s just a big landing spot for miles and miles,” says Roy Norman, president of the club, which runs a nonprofit glider airport in Avenal. The airport is open by appointment all week, with two pilots and instructors available on weekends. First-timers can get started with a discover ride for as little as $60.
This is true flight.
The gliders are essentially like commercial airliners, only built stronger, without any of the complications of an engine or electrical system and kept aloft by lifts or air currents.
Those birds you see, the eagle and hawks soaring in what seem like endless circles? “We’re trying to do the exact same thing,” Norman says.
Glider pilots rely on skill and judgment to analyze the terrain and weather. Instead of enjoying the countryside or the sky, they look for lift clues in the air, things like birds and cumulus clouds.
The Avenal location is one of the best places to soar in North America — the club bills it as the safest.
Because it’s situated on the edge of the Valley up against the coastal mountain range, the airport sees a combination of the four sources of lift. It gets thermal lift, the most common type created by the sun’s heat rising in columns off the ground. But it will also see convergence when two air masses meet. It gets slope lift from winds blowing up the face of a steep slope, and mountain waves will bounce off the mountain cliffs.
And even without an engine or fuel, a glider is able to fly as long as the currents allow — four to five hours on a good day. The longest flight on record lasted five days.