SAFA Skysailor Magazine

42 SKY SAILOR September-October-November | SPRING 2025 by Craig Taylor, NSW State Hang Gliding Champion, Australian National Hang Gliding Team After 28 years of hang gliding, 12 years of paragliding, and more than a decade of high-level hang gliding competition, I didn’t feel short of challenges in the sky. But in recent years another form of free flight began to intrigue me – one that could take me further, faster, and perhaps keep me airborne well into the later decades of my flying life. Gliding seemed the natural next step. My years of reading the air, weather, and thermals translated readily into sailplane flying which offered me something new: The ability to cover vaster distances at higher speed, with the added civility of returning to the same departure airfield rather than facing multi-hour retrieves. Why gliding? Gliding builds on everything I already know about the atmosphere, but opens a fresh set of possibilities. The speed, effi- ciency, and range are a revelation. Whilst hang gliding gives me an intimate, raw, unfiltered connection with the airmass, From Mountains to Airfields: Why I added gliding to my free-flight journey