Cascade Soaring Society

Have you ever wanted to soar like a bird?

Have you ever had a dream where you spread out your arms, leap into the air and start to fly? Well - soaring in a sailplane comes pretty close.

Did you know that there is a soaring club right here in East Wenatchee?

Cascade Soaring Society has about 30 members who fly gliders from Pangborn airport. The club owns two 2-person sailplanes and one single-place sailplane. Members are active on most good-weather weekends, March thru October, just down the road from the main airport building.

Did you know you can fly solo in a glider at age 14?

You can get a pilot’s license to fly gliders by attending a ground school (usually a once-per-week class held on winter afternoons or evenings) and then taking instruction in a two-place glider (usually several months of lessons in the Spring and/or Summer).

Want to know more or come visit the local soaring club?

Visit our website at www.nwinternet.com/~blanikam/css/default.htm

Here is our address and some phone numbers: Cascade Soaring Society • One Pangborn Drive • East Wenatchee • WA 98802

Telephone at our glider hangar: 886-0811

Instructor / day phone / evening phone

Instructor Colin Clarke 662-5536
Instructor Dean Johnson 548-8605
Instructor Tim Moomaw 667-3032 745-8794
Instructor John Roskos 886-0233 663-6831
Instructor Vitek Siroky 884-8305 884-9628

Introducing soaring to the next generation of pilots

Fifth grade students at Robert E. Lee Elementary School in East Wenatchee get an introduction to gliders (May 1999). Vitek Siroky, one of Cascade Soaring Society's instructors brought a high-performance glider to the school. He and his assistants assembled it in front of the students.

Each student got a chance to sit in the cockpit and feel the controls.

Mrs. R. Freeman, their teacher, who has won several awards for her excellence in math and science, got to try the glider too.

Boys liked the parachute...

And the girls the fact, that they too can become pilots!

Eighth grade students at Eastmont Jr. High School in East Wenatchee get an introduction to gliders (October 1998). Chris Stark, science teacher (on right) explains the principles of flight, while Mark Spurgeon, Eastmont Jr. High School's Principal, checks out the feel of the glider while seated in its cockpit.

Christina Hungelmann, science teacher and herself a pilot (on right) assists one of her students trying on a parachute. Christina is intrigued with airplanes; her husband is building a power plane which has a control stick instead of the usual "wheel", something to get used to! She points out that gliders also have control sticks instead of wheels.

Mark Spurgeon, the school's Principal (on left, in the glider cockpit), is open to the idea of holding a glider ground school for interested students at his school during the upcoming winter months. Instructor Vitek Siroky from the Cascade Soaring Society answers questions.

Chris Stark, science teacher (on right) hands out flyers supplied by Cascade Soaring Society. Altogether over 100 flyers were distributed among the students (the flyer is reproduced below in a smaller version). Besides the flyers, over 30 SOARING magazines were given to students in the three science classes, donated by Blanik America, Inc.

Back to Cascade Soaring Society home page