Pilot Has Been on Cloud Nine for 63 Years in a Sailplane

“This is the closest man can come to being a bird,” shouted 78-year-old Gus Briegleb as he caught the whirling dust devil and soared skyward at 500 feet per minute.

Briegleb was piloting a two-place, slender-winged, silver with red trim Czechoslovakian Blanik--a sailplane, which has neither engine nor propeller.

A few minutes later, he maneuvered the glider into an “airwave” rolling off Mt. Baldy, enjoying the exhilaration of surfboarding in the sky.

Fueled by the wind, his sleek sailplane soared silently in and out of thermals as he chased dust devils above the desert floor in San Bernardino County.

For 63 years, Briegleb has been catching thermals--rising columns of spinning hot air, miniature tornadoes, dust devils at ground level--and riding wavelike air currents bouncing off mountains.

He built his first glider in 1928 in the basement of St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles, where his father was pastor. It has been his passion ever since.

“I’ve spent more than 7,000 hours flying gliders and have loved every minute. I can’t get enough of it. I hope to keep doing this to my dying day,” said the veteran pilot as the sailplane caught another whirling lift and headed toward the heavens.

Briegleb soared 40 minutes with a reporter tagging along for the ride. He reached heights of a mile or more then started his slow, steady, sledlike descent back to the dirt strip at Krey Gliderport for a smooth touchdown.

John Krey, 68, a retired Lockheed engineer, bulldozed the airstrip 90 miles northeast of Los Angeles three years ago for glider pilots. He tows sailplanes with a 300-foot rope attached to his Piper Pawnee that rumbles across the desert in a cloud of dust until both planes are airborne.

Briegleb released his towline 3,000 feet above the airstrip, made a run for a spinning column of hot air, then soared like a bird.

Briegleb is not your run-of-the-mill weekend glider pilot. His name is often mentioned whenever glider pilots get together.

He is one of the few people in the country still flying sailplanes at his age.

At the National Soaring Museum in Elmira, N.Y., dedicated to the history of glider flying, an exhibit honoring Briegleb “for 63 years of contributions to the nation’s soaring techniques” is one of three exhibits featured this year.

Another notes the 100th anniversary of the first glider flight by Otto Lilenthal in Derwitz, Germany, and the third is in honor of the 60th anniversary of the first national soaring contest in the United States, held at Elmira.

Briegleb was one of the first glider pilots to be inducted into the U.S. Soaring Hall of Fame. He has been designing, building and flying gliders in Southern California since he assembled his first one in the church basement.

Briegleb’s highest flight in a glider was 23,900 feet out of El Mirage. The flight lasted 3 1/2 hours. His longest flight was 6 1/2 hours and 300 miles over Texas.

In 1934, Briegleb started The Thermal, a Southern California magazine for glider pilots that is still published. A plaque in his El Mirage home notes that he founded the California Soaring Assn. in 1936.

At the Soaring Museum exhibit are models and photographs of a dozen Briegleb gliders, including his two-place BG8s and single-place BG6s flown by the U.S. Army Glider Corps in World War II.

His build-your-own-glider kits, used around the world, are displayed and so are photographs of his Sailplane Corp. of America hangar at El Mirage, which is behind his home. The headquarters and hangar are filled with tools, glider parts and half-finished and completed sailplanes. Nowadays, he works alone in his shop mostly for his own enjoyment.

He has not slowed down when it comes to his favorite pastime--soaring like a bird. He flies for pleasure, still gives lessons and, as a commercial instructor, conducts biennial flight tests for glider pilots.

One recent Sunday, he flew for an hour with Vern Hutchinson, 65, a retired Northrop engineer, to verify his glider flying capabilities. He passed with flying colors.

“I’ve known Gus since I was a little kid,” Hutchinson said. “He taught me to fly gliders in 1947. He flew gliders with my mother and dad. Gus taught half the old-time glider pilots in Southern California how to fly and he’s still at it, giving flying lessons to those who have just discovered the peaceful solitude of flying without an engine, without a propeller.

“Gus Briegleb is half man, half bird.”