About us
Our club currently has about 110 members aged from 14 to over 70 with a "hard core" of about 50 active glider pilots. Gliding is a sport for both men & women although women are in the minority. We currently do have a number of teenage girls in our group of trainees.
Our gliding operations take place mainly at the weekends and on national holidays between mid-March and the end of October. Since training of our members is our main activity we operate whenever the weather permits - only rain, strong winds & poor visibility prevent us from flying. On days suitable for cross-country flying there are of course many more members (and gliders) on the airfield.
The fleet of 7 gliders owned by the club are all modern glass fibre constructions. We have two ASK-21 two-seat gliders for training; a DG-1001M two-seat glider with retractable engine for advanced training & cross-country flying together with 4 single-seat gliders including a high-performance Discus 2c glider. Our members fly these gliders at low rates, due to much work within the club being carried out on a volunteer basis as is generally the way European clubs are run.
We also own a Touring Motor Glider (TMG) - a SF-25C Rotax Falke - which is suitable for local sight-seeing flights or to fly to one of the many islands in the North Sea such as Föhr. Want to know more about our fleet? You can find an overview here.
We usually launch our gliders using a winch which is powered by a 10-cylinder diesel engine with about 320 hp and is mounted on a truck chassis. With just over 1000 m of steel cable we can launch the ASK-21 gliders to around 400 m in still air and with a reasonable headwind to over 500 m. Winch launches are an efficient way to launch gliders at low cost (for members a winch launch costs four Euros). We can also use aero-tows with our SF-25C Rotax Falke.
Due to our instructors carrying out their work in an honorary capacity the practical and the theoretical training are free of charge. One just pays the normal flying fees which are competitively low (typically 30 Cents/minute).
As would be expected the working language of our club is German, however a small number of members speak English to a conversational level. You are welcome get in touch with us either via the contact form below or by sending an e-mail to info(at)lsv-pinneberg.de. A message in advance will enable us to try to organise a suitable contact person for you. We have individual club members who can speak other languages (e.g. Czech, Hungarian, Slovak, Turkish).