Next Year of Gliding | BLACK DEAL Sale

Bert Schmelzer is not only one of Europe’s most influential glider pilots – he is also an accomplished author who manages to combine flying precision with a remarkable talent for storytelling. Just recently, an in-depth feature and interview with him appeared in WeGlide Magazine. His first book, One Year of Gliding, already demonstrated how impressively he blends atmosphere, technique, emotion, and humour into narratives that go far beyond the flying itself.

With Next Year of Gliding, Schmelzer continues this approach. This coffee-table edition is now available as a bilingual volume (German/English) and has been expanded in collaboration with VIENTO Publishing to include numerous new stories. It once again highlights how naturally Schmelzer excels in both disciplines – as a pilot and as an author – with a writing style that captivates experienced aviators and non-flying readers alike.

The following excerpt comes from one of his most memorable stories: “Belgian or Swiss Chocolate?” – an extraordinary cross-country flight from Switzerland to Belgium (1046km), told with Schmelzer’s distinctive eye for landscape, atmosphere, and the small details that turn a flight into a truly unique experience.

For more stories and background, check out the full book, available now in the Viento Store. It's currently being offered as a BLACK DEAL, including a complimentary gliding calendar and a 36% discount ⬇️

“Belgian or Swiss Chocolate?” – Excerpt from the Book Next Year of Gliding by Bert Schmelzer

For several years now, our online flight portals have been offering unprecedented opportunities. An analysis of the areas within reach from my home base Hausen am Albis (CH), for example, shows that it is one of the most attractive places in Europe for adventurous and, above all, varied flights. Wave flights with strong Föhn conditions between Albertville and Vienna, the Dolomites as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the thermally attractive low mountain ranges Jura, Black Forest and Swabian Alb, the Wasserkuppe as the cradle of our modern gliding and la douce France are all within reach. In total, this area covers an immense amount of approximately 400,000 km2. With a little imagination, a wonderful menu can be put together with the local specialities: Wiener Schnitzel in Austria, pasta in Italy, a dish of Fruits-de-Mer in the south of France, … Only dessert is still missing. What would be more appropriate than Belgian chocolate, the best in the world (sorry, Swiss friends). In order to fill this gap, the plan to visit my roots via the air matured for some time.

Since moving to Switzerland in the year 2011, visits to go gliding in Belgium have been limi­ted to participating in the national championships, which are mostly organised in the southern part of the country. Located in the gorgeous Ardennes, Saint-Hubert is undeniably one of the most beautiful airfields I have ever been to. For those familiar with the Belgian gliding scene, it is probably of little surprise that my visits are fairly sparse as Europe’s most complex airspace is not particularly attractive for us, glider pilots. Thermal conditions, especially in Flanders, are not particularly impressive either. The positive side of the story, however, is that the average Belgian glider pilot has little trouble performing beautiful flights in challenging thermal and airspace conditions. Witness the many 1,000 km flights in recent years, even with standard class gliders.

The Ardennes, however, are a different story. On weekends in particular, the airspace is often available up to FL 90 and the thermal conditions on good days are among the best that central Europe has to offer. The downside of a flight from Switzerland towards Belgium is having to cross some thermally challenging areas. From south to north, the Swiss Mittelland, the Rhine Valley near Basel, the Kraichgau, the Rhine Valley near Karlsruhe and finally the Moselle Valley have to be traversed. If you draw that in on a map and colour it in red, those are pretty big spots that would seem to make such an ambitious flight impossible before embarking on it at all. However, long-distance flights become much easier if you look at things the other way round and turn a half-empty glass into a half-full one. That’s also the case in this instance. In fact, the amount of thermally good stretches outweigh the poor ones by far. Jura, Black Forest, Palatinate Forest, Saarland, Eiffel and Ardennes promise an early start and late thermal end on the right day.

Once a more or less homogeneous weather situation announces itself in the area between Switzerland and Belgium in the summer of 2023, it takes little effort to load the flight declaration into the logger and try to make one of my bucket list flights a reality.

The weather forecast showed a stationary front with 8⁄8 of middle and high clouds just west of Hausen am Albis. To the north, the sun was shining and the forecast promised some warm air advection in the area south of the Kraichgau with possible spreadouts in the Jura, the Black Forest and the eastern part of the Swabian Alb. On the other hand, the region between the Ardennes and the Palatinate Forest appeared more than promising. So I decided to declare an 800 km »out-and-return« task with two alignment turnpoints near Pforzheim on the northern edge of the Black Forrest. The chosen turnpoint in Belgium was the quaint town of Sankt Vith on the border with Germany, about an hour south of the place where I spent the first few years of my life.

For long-distance flights, the first and last hours are the most crucial. Therefore, during preparation, special attention was paid to the previously mentioned difficult transitions that would be faced at those times. Unfortunately, the thermal development in the Swiss Mittelland and Rhine Valley is lagging far behind compared to the Swiss Jura and Black Forest. In addition, the »jump« from the Jura to the Black Forest in the early morning is usually not possible at all because the cloudbase in the Jura is not yet high enough. To avoid the weak thermals of the aforementioned areas, the towpilot and I agree to take a high tow towards the starting point near Bad Säckingen on the Swiss-German border. But even with the maximum altitude allowed, entering the Black Forest is often a nail-biting experience, with a slow glide into rapidly rising and poorly landable terrain, often fighting a strong headwind. Timing is crucial. A late arrival means lost time and therefore less distance at the end of the day. Arriving too early is even worse and could mean a second breakfast at the farm of your choice. Fortunately, weather forecasting tools have become incredibly accurate. With a bit experience, interpretation of the data and assessment of the respective strengths and weaknesses of the different models, it is highly likely that you can successfully estimate when and where the first thermals and clouds will appear. Combined with the monitoring of some high resolution webcams and satellite imagery, determining the optimum departure time has become remarkably precise, even when, as in this case, the departure airfield and the first thermal are more than 60 km apart. On the day of the flight, the connection to the first soarable updrafts near the airfield of Hütten Hotzenwald in the southern part of the Black Forest seemed easily possible at 10:00. As the declared task allowed quite a bit of margin, and because of the expected strong winds and low thermals, I decided to aim for an arrival at 10:30. The main reason for not wanting to arrive earlier on this particular day was the timing at a later stage of the flight. More specifically, I wanted to avoid being forced to enter the Kraichgau too early in this type of airmass. 

During the tow, the first clouds appeared on the horizon, and after crossing the startline with a high-speed dive, it must have been one of the easiest entries into the Black Forest’s high terrain. Thirty minutes earlier would have been possible, but definitely less comfortable. Now, the southern part of the flight offered some nice energy lines, a decent cloudbase, but also slightly broken climbs and of course the obligatory big blue hole around Winzeln-Schramberg. Despite this, the heavily ballasted Ventus made good progress against the wind. Approaching the northern edge of the Black Forest, the second crucial phase appeared. Flying into the Kraichgau is very often a rather interesting experience, with cloudbase and climbrates dropping markedly. Allthough its reputation is often worse than its reality, a bit of caution is never wrong, especially early in the day. The planned timing was perfect and as soon as I approached Pforzheim, the first small clouds popped up, not only in the Kraichgau but even in the Rhine Valley. Following the forests and the tiniest wisps of cloud, this weaker area was crossed at a solid pace and in the distance the first »Namibian« clouds started to emerge. This almost caused a huge mistake, as I increased my speed to arrive as low as possible on the edge of the clouds without taking any more mediocre climbs than necessary in the Rhine Valley area. I was expecting the eastern hills of the Palatine Forest to generate the first strong climb of the day. That was a serious miscalculation. The warm airmass meant that the selected hilltop did not trigger the expected boomer from down low. On the contrary, I had to search for several minutes just above the hilltops before finding the saving thermal. In the process, it was necessary to constantly check the glide path to possible outlanding fields. Indeed, the Palatinate with its transition zone between the hills and the western edge of the Rhine Valley is completely dotted with vineyards. Fortunately, with increasing altitude, the climbrate soon improved and it was not long before I was enjoying perhaps the best weather I had ever experienced in this part of Germany.

Once the Ventus and I were established under the powerful clouds produced by the mighty Palatine Forest, the climb rates tripled and life became easy … Not to say very easy. At last I was able to enjoy a tailwind that aligned the clouds nicely. Progress was correspondingly fast, and with a cloudbase of 2,500 m amsl, overflying the airspace of the Rammstein and Spangdahlem military bases was no problem at all. With the low point still in mind, I was particularly concentrated as I approached the Moselle valley to avoid making the same mistake again. At the most crucial points, there were some very strong climbs on both sides of the meandering river. Of course, I was happy to accept them. It wasn’t long before the declared turningpoint came into sight and, as I was now ahead of schedule, the decision to continue after the turningpoint, into the Ardennes and as far as Belgian airspace would allow, wasn’t too difficult. Finally, 15 km east of Liège and on the edge of its TMA, I had to turn around, about 400 km from Hausen am Albis. The way back was very similar: even against 30 kph of wind, the Ardennes, the Eiffel, the Saarland and the Palatinate Forest passed at warp speed due to the cloudstreets and incredibly strong climbs. I can’t recall ever seeing the integrator exceed 5.0 m/s so frequently during a single flight in Germany.

Even the Rhine Valley and Kraichgau were now showing themselves at their very best. Because of the bone-dry soil, beautiful cumulus clouds were everywhere and flying really became child’s play. Just as it was easy to enter the Black Forest on the south side in the morning, it was no different on the north side in the afternoon. In fact, there was so much time left on the way to the finish line that a small detour was enough to make it a free distance of over 1,000 km. In the end, a long final glide along a single shower on the southern edge of the Black Forest finally gave me some time to relax. 

What a brilliant day and what a memorable flight!

I must admit that later in the evening I enjoyed a piece of Swiss chocolate accompanied by a Belgian beer. The perfect compromise.

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