Cruising in the clouds: Glider pilots visit Perry for annual competition

Apr. 22—PERRY — Buzzards, hawks and eagles have some unusual neighbors this week in eastern Aiken County, with dozens of afternoon visitors heading aloft for a Soaring Society of America competition — the biggest annual event held at Perry International Airport, where owners Allison and Rhonda Tyler have high-flying guests from as far afield as Florida, New York and Alaska.

This year's fun, involving gliders being pulled aloft by motorized planes and then set free for three or four hours at a stretch, runs from April 20-25, and columns of rising air — thermals — are at the heart of the matter, providing enough of a boost for pilots to travel hundreds of miles without any fuel or internal combustion.

Among those keeping their eyes on the clouds — and sometimes traveling above them — is Greenville resident Scott Fletcher, a retired mechanical engineer on board for the competition. The self-described "hobbyist meteorologist" noted that this week's highlights included a Monday flight that reached 10,800 feet.

Flights normally begin around noon, with 65 gliders going up one after another, looking to reach 6,000 feet above the ground.

"We're trying to maximize the weather to get us as far and fast as we can go... and it's really weather-dependent, and the weather is different every single day," he said.

"We're trying to find elevators that you can't see," he said, referring to thermals. "We have instruments in the airplane that tell us you're in it, but you have to kind of guess at where it's going to be, and fly over it and hope you hit it."

Several counties are part of the package, with a route normally in the range of 200-350 miles. "Our general task area is from Edgefield over to Lake Murray and then down to Orangeburg and then over to Barnwell, and then back towards Edgefield — that kind of a box," Fletcher said.

Gliders, being small and white against a blue background, are "really hard to see" unless riding a thermal fairly close to the ground, he added.

Easier to spot are license plates from coast to coast. "We have one guy from Alaska, several people from California, several people from Florida and several people from the northeast here. This is the... most-attended glider contest in the United States, and we attract people from all over," Fletcher said, noting that this year's corps includes 65 gliders and four tow planes.

"The release is at 2,000 feet, which is too low, so we're all trying to thermal up to start the task... It's just amazing. You can take an aircraft without an engine, and on an afternoon, you can go a couple hundred miles around here without an engine," he said.

He also touched on the differences between powered and non-powered aircraft. "Powered aircraft, you've got to have a mission. You're going from here... to there, but in gliders, it's kind of like riding your Harley around town. You're just out for the fun of flying. You're not trying to get anywhere. You're just trying to have fun flying."

He added, "The guys that have motorcycles and ride around on Saturday, this is exactly what we're doing. We're just doing it in airplanes."