ABHA, 8 June 2006 — The first tour of Saudi Arabia by glider is well under way. The expedition — Arabian Winds — was launched on June 1, a year after the idea was proposed by Prince Bandar ibn Khaled Al-Faisal and following five months of planning.
The expedition team of three gliders, ground support staff and camera crews left the Saudi Aviation Club at Thumama, north of Riyadh, on June 1 and is due to return tomorrow.
The team — Supreme Commission of Tourism Secretary-General Prince Sultan ibn Salman, Prince Bandar and Capt. John Bally, a British competition glider pilot — is flying German-built Stemme gliders capable of long distance glides at altitudes of over 15,000 meters.
“Speaking personally,” said Prince Sultan, “so far it has been successful. There was tremendous work done on the planning side and the whole team and ground crew have done incredibly well to keep this glued together. As we progress day by day, it gets better planned and we learn what not to do next time.”
Prince Bandar first proposed the idea of Arabian Winds during the early development of the Saudi Aviation Club (SAC), which was then in its early stages of development. “The idea of the trip from the very beginning was to explore gliding areas in Saudi Arabia and to confirm that gliding would be very successful in this part of the world,” he said.
Subsequently, the idea arose to make a documentary about a trip round the Kingdom by glider and record the landscape from the air. However, the project developed into a full expedition as the scale of the challenge became clear.
“The conditions are amazing for most of the year,” he said, “allowing serious cross-country trips and amazing sights. The potential is really great for Saudi Arabia and gliding.”
He said that the involvement of the SCT had made the trip much easier. He confirmed that this was definitely an operating partnership that had every potential to continue that way.
“We would like to generate interest in gliding locally,” he said, “because without that it is not going to work.”
Later in the development of the project, Prince Sultan linked the expedition with the SCT.
“When the documentary film was being planned,” he said, “we decided that this was too good an opportunity to miss. It would develop the reputation of the SAC and open up a new window to allow people to fly gliders in Saudi Arabia and put the Kingdom on the gliding world map.”
The survival challenges of the trip, a very real consideration in the harsh terrain over which the expedition passes, formed a separate challenge for the logistics and support crews.
“By mounting the expedition,” said Prince Sultan, “we are really testing the system.” He said that the venture is not only training and testing the expedition members, but also air traffic control and regional authorities, to whom recreational flying is entirely new.
The expedition has been a learning experience for both pilots and support crew. Prince Bandar said a high point of the trip so far was the ability to glide 600 to 800 km a day, a feat that is not easy to achieve in the crowded airspaces of Europe. “That is just amazing,” he said. “You find very few glider pilots who get an opportunity to do more than 500 km in a cross-country flight. For me as a beginner with only two years’ experience, to be able to do this right from the beginning is a real high point.”
Over the Taif escarpment, Prince Sultan glided into what was effectively a dead spot and lost lift. A combination of a computer navigation error, the refusal of the engine to start and isolation from his team mates brought him within 15 seconds of aborting the day and heading for the coast.
“Fortunately, I found some thermals that gave excellent lift that retrieved the situation,” he said “If I could see that lift, I could kiss it, basically.
“Adrenaline,” he observed, “is a wonderful teacher.”
His next target is to start a gliding club in Riyadh with smaller less expensive gliders for training.
“I imagine that next year gliding enthusiasts will be invited in — we are building toward that with a Saudi gliding association and a Saudi gliding club,” he said.
He hoped that next year would see another expedition with 20 or more gliders and pilots invited to participate. “I think it is a shame that Saudis don’t see Saudi Arabia the way I see it. It hasn’t been opened up or really explored, and that is what we are working on. I think that the next couple of years will see tremendous changes to Saudi tourism.”
He said his biggest target audience was the Saudi citizen, especially young people. “If it is going to take adventures to get people’s attention, may it be so just to get people to start getting the feel for gliding and to feel the wind.”
