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Soaring Over The
Bluegrass State
Soaring is a unique type of flight in that the aircraft are engineless.  Soaring flight is noiseless and vibration less, with only the sound of the passing air.

There are different types or styles of soaring depending upon the conditions encountered in the part of the country in which you fly.

In the mid-west the majority of soaring is thermal soaring flight in which the sailplane is kept aloft by rising columns of air.  It is solar powered flight, as the rising columns of air are produced the heating of the ground by the sun.

How long a sailplane can remain aloft is determined by the amount of lift (rising air) that is available on any given day.  On good days in Kentucky it is possible to fly for four to five hours and climb to seven or eight thousand feet above the ground.

When aloft, sailplanes turn to remain within a column of rising air, causing them to gain altitude.
LSC Activity

LSC operates on flyable weekends and holidays starting around the first part of April and continuing through the summer months and into the fall, with operations ceasing for the year around the end of October.  Because the sun is needed to fly, there is no activity on days with a total cloud overcast or rain.

Flight preparations typically begin around noon with the first tows underway around 1:00 pm.  Flights continue throughout the afternoon as long as there is lift and a desire to fly.

Flight

There are several methods of getting a sailplane into the air.  The LSC uses the aero tow method, where the sailplane is attached to a tow plane by a 200 foot rope, and is then pulled aloft.  Typically the sailplane will be towed to 2,000 or 3,000 feet above the surface before it is released.

The start of an aero tow takeoff sailplane launch.