High-flying Bendigo teen bound for Poland

High-flying Bendigo teenager Tom Howard is one of four Australian junior glider pilots chosen for an elite training camp in Poland.The 19-year-old will be off to the chilly mountain skies of Poznan later this month, where he will take part in an intensive five-day camp.The achievement is especially remarkable given he first set foot in the narrow glider cockpit only two years ago. The airforce cadet received a scholarship of $2000 worth of lessons and thought it would take him closer to his dream of becoming an aeroplane pilot.Gliding over the landscape surrounding Bendigo had the former Bendigo Senior Secondary College student sky-hooked.“The angle you go up is 45 degrees and you get pulled up by a cable. As soon as I started, I knew it was what I wanted to do,” he said.“I went solo after 30 lessons.”Mr Howard has flown solo for up to five hours at a time and is one of the youngest members of the Bendigo Gliding Club in Raywood.“Gliding has had an old-farts image,” he said.“The perception of a glider is an old wooden thing held together by tape.”But the apparent simplicity of a glider is part of its ingenuity, Mr Howard said. New gliders cost between $100,000 and $200,000.In just 20 seconds Mr Howard can reach 2000 feet from ground level, lifted up on pockets of air called thermals.In Poland, they glide differently.“In mountain flying you use ‘ridge soaring’. The wind hits the cliff face and you ride those wind gusts up the cliff face,” he said.Taking off the ground with the aid of a winch could put the vehicle into a spin and make most novice gliders sick their first time, but the real skill was in landing, Mr Howard said.“If you need to land and there are no airfields – we get trained how to land in a paddock. “Then you pull the wings off and call someone to pick you up and take you back to the airfield.“But the aim is to not land in a paddock,” he said.He still has an ambition to be an airforce pilot and is taking his powered flying training at Bendigo Aviation, but said he would never give up the exhilaration of gliding.“Gliding is more of a seat-of-your-pants feel. You get a feel for the aircraft and know its limitations.”