UK Virtual Gliding Association

Gliding in Microsoft’s Flight Simulator has never been one of its major features. You can’t just jump into a glider, power up 4 colossal jet engines and take yourself across the Atlantic. It requires considerably more finesse than that. You have to find a way of getting the aircraft to go up, when, without an engine, all it wants to do is go down. The weather engine in FS can be manipulated to provide upward air currents, which, when the glider is within those rising air currents, will indeed cause it to go up faster than its wish to go down.

The UK Virtual Gliding Association (UK VGA) is effectively a virtual equivalent of the British Gliding Association, following its rules, competitions, badges and awards schemes, and flying from the Flight Simulator equivalent of real world Gliding sites.

Those who enjoy virtual gliding are a select group scattered across the globe and we are proud to add our name to the list of virtual soaring organisations. We offer events and training, and have an active forum. Possibly uniquely within virtual soaring, we use a connection to VATSIM to enable us to see each other, and other aircraft, and for those aircraft to see us. The air traffic controller saying “There is reported glider activity at Long Mynd, keep a good lookout” is now not bluffing!

Virtual gliding can be quite simple with fixed rising air columns (thermals) that you know will always be there, very useful for beginners, to quite complex using software tools to generate random thermals and ridge lift with varying strengths, and affected by the wind speed and direction. We have a fleet of very elegant modern aircraft which you can freely use, or choose your own of course.

The VGA will initially be based at the Long Mynd, Shropshire, which is home to the real world Midland Gliding Club, other bases in use are Seighford, Parham and Lasham.

If you have an interest in gliding in Flight Simulator, why not join us? Click on the Membership tab at the top of the page to enrol.