After many summer trips to EAA AirVenture Oshkosh in Wisconsin, members of the Lakeland Aero Club are setting their sights on a more distant destination — Ostrów, Poland.
The teen flying club, part of the Aerospace Center for Excellence on the SUN ’n FUN campus at Lakeland Linder International Airport (KLAL) in Florida, is preparing to make history as the first-ever U.S. high school soaring team to compete in the FAI Junior World Gliding Championships.
During the competition, set for July 13-27, 2024, the Florida teens will compete against other glider pilots from a variety of countries, including France, Austria, Belgium, Italy, Czech Republic, and more.
With a fundraising goal of $20,000, the teens took the opportunity during the 2024 SUN ’n FUN Aerospace Expo to hold a fundraising cookout, which included a raffle.
The students are also selling cups, donuts, and patches to raise money for the July trip, according to Mike “Mr. Z” Zidziunas, director of the Lakeland Aero Club.
The team will rent gliders for the competition because shipping gliders overseas is expensive and logistically challenging, he added.
The trip will include adults Zidziunas and Eric Tellmann, and students Steven Tellmann, Qwest Hipps, Kenny Turbeville, Matthew Turbeville, and Dallas Hurd. Steven Tellmann is the team captain and pilot. Hipps is the co-captain and will serve on the ground/recovery crew with Kenny Turbeville, Matthew Turbeville, and Dallas Hurd. Eric Tellmann is a glider instructor, an ATP, and the father of Steven Tellmann.
Hipps, 16, a new member of the club, began his journey in aviation years ago when he traveled to Melbourne, Australia, with his father on his first trip out of the country.
“On the flight, I got to meet the pilot and see inside the cockpit,” he recalled. “I said this is what I want to do. And ever since then, it’s never left my mind.”
No one else in his family is involved in aviation. A friend of his father attended the Central Florida Aerospace Academy — the high school on KLAL — and he helped Hipps transfer to the school. He immediately joined the Lakeland Aero Club.
“Eric Tellman met me the first day I was here when I was working on one of the airplanes, sanding a wing, and the next day, Mike called me into his office,” he remembered. “I thought I was in trouble, but Mike actually got me a gliding scholarship. I didn’t even know what gliding was. I said ‘yes, of course,’ because why wouldn’t I want a scholarship? The next weekend, they got me out to the Tampa Bay Soaring Society at the Zephyrhills Airport (KZPH), and I did my first flight with Eric in a glider. Ever since then, I’ve just loved it. I started my training immediately. I soloed on my 16th birthday, and I did my check ride in January 2024.”
Just two weeks before SUN ’n FUN 2024, he earned his silver badge, which requires launching a glider at 2,000 feet and staying aloft for five hours.
“I got to about 1,400 feet — pattern altitude is 1,200 — and I was about to call it quits and come back down and land and retry again, but I got into a plus six thermal. That’s super good. I took that all the way up to about 4,000 feet, and that was my highest time of the day. After that, I never got below 4,000 feet. I reached the cloud base several times. It was about 6,500 feet, so I stayed at cloud base basically the entire time of the flight.”
“I had my phone with me, but it died,” he said. “And they couldn’t track me. I have an Oudie, but we didn’t have it set up. They thought I landed out somewhere and my phone was dead and they couldn’t find me. They ended up calling my dad. My parents got a little bit scared. When I landed, my instructor was a little bit mad at me, but he was happy at the same time.”
The Oudie is a flight computer, about the size of a cell phone, designed for glider pilots.
In June, Steven Tellmann and Hipps will fly in a regional glider contest in Cordele, Georgia. It will be Hipps’ first solo competition.
The young pilot recommends flying gliders because it “is a really cheap way to learn to fly.”
“A tow costs about $60 to 2,000 feet,” he said. “And you can get about five hours on that, so all that gliding time counts toward your total. If you’re working toward your ATP, that all counts toward your 1,500 hours. Also, you can solo a glider at 14. And you can get your check ride at age 16. So if anyone is on the younger side, wanting to be a pilot, but they can’t get started in powered aircraft just yet, I would say looking into gliding is the best option. It will set them for life.”
As the members of the Lakeland Aero Club’s soaring team prepare for their trip to Poland, they’ve downloaded the foreign language app Duolingo to their phones to learn some basic Polish before their trip.
Miłego latania. (Have fun flying!)
For more information: LakelandAeroClub.org
