THUNDER BAY — A city man who took to the sport of gliding decades ago is still managing to reach new heights.
Tom Weiher established three provincial soaring records recently at a gliding event in the keystone province, where he's a member of the Winnipeg Gliding Club.
He broke a 45-year-old distance record for a triangular flight (which requires gliders to fly between three designated locations, finishing at the starting point) by staying in the air for 525 kilometres.
At that event, Weiher also shattered a 45-year-old Manitoba speed record, with an average of 102 km/h.
"That was quite thrilling," he told Newswatch this week in an interview. "I was getting a really good altitude. I was getting good speeds. There was no dull moment. It was just 'go, go, go' and hitting the lift that can be amazingly strong. We were climbing at rates of up to 1,000 feet a minute."
Weiher said a Cessna 172, by comparison, climbs at about 600 feet a minute under full power.
The 66-year-old usually flies in a Schemphirth Discus aircraft, a standard-class glider with a single seat, a wingspan of 15 metres, and no flaps.
Weiher described gliding as an exhilarating pastime.
"I love the challenge. It's one thing to go up and experience a 'thermal,' and stay around the home field. But once you start going cross-country, you're relying on your skills, you're relying on the performance of the aircraft to find lift and avoid sinking areas of air."
He said conditions at the Manitoba event were ideal.
"We had some cooling at night and lots of sun during the daytime, which heats the ground and causes our thermals. Usually in the springtime we get much greater altitudes than we do in the summer. "
Although Weiher's been travelling for years to Manitoba, where he stays in a 5th wheel trailer during his visits, this time was a unique experience.
"I was really impressed. We were getting heights I've never had before."
Glider pilots have to take training courses and pass a Transport Canada exam to get licensed, and Weiher said he can't recall an incident in which he's feared for his safety while in the air.
"We're trained to fly in all sorts of conditions," Weiher said. "Your skills tell you when you should be flying and not flying. There's certain days we don't fly. Winnipeg, or Manitoba, gets a lot of wind at times, so we're limited to about 50 kilometres an hour. That's getting up to the upper limit for ground wind. We can fly a little bit higher, but it doesn't become as safe."
He said he takes care to keep a close eye on weather conditions in the distance.
"I can always see ahead what's going to happen, if conditions change, for instance if a thunderstorm comes up. You see that well in advance. You get down on the ground and you don't have to fly in those particular areas. Those can be dangerous. So I can't say it's scary. It's thrilling every time I go flying. The adrenaline is certainly up because you're concentrating and planning ahead."
Weiher noted that the pilots in two high-profile incidents – 'the Gimli Glider' and the 'Miracle on the Hudson' – in which passenger jets lost power yet landed with no fatalities, were both trained as glider pilots, so they knew what to do.
The Lakehead Gliding Club, based in the Kakabeka Falls area, folded about three decades ago.
Weiher's father was an original member, and often took him along for a ride in his two-seater aircraft.
At 14, he started taking lessons, and two years later he soloed for the first time.
Weiher, who's now retired, went west to find the closest Canadian gliding club in 2019 so he could become recertified and resume catching those thermals.
"You can do a lot of soaring in southern Manitoba. There are so many farm fields and what-have-you for landings if you have to come down somewhere. And the conditions are normally quite good out there. I'm super-happy that I joined."
Weiher is enthusiastic about passing information on to anyone in the Thunder Bay area who might be interested in taking up the sport.
He can be reached by email: tpweiher@gmail..
