On May 6, sixty retired airline pilots attended the yearly “VGV gliding day” at Terlet. Several of them started their aviation career at Terlet many many years ago as a teenager attending the Dutch government sponsored “scholierencursus” gliding course. Gliding instructor Hans Groeneveld, age 80 now and still active as a gliding instructor, trained many of them. He attended this day in the morning to meet some of his former student pilots.

Q: Do you know what’s happening here?
A: Yeah, sure, a day at Terlet for retired pilots!

We had excellent weather conditions with a cloud base above 6000 feet and strong thermals. A crew of 20 (mostly) retired airline pilots offered rides to 40 of their ex-colleagues and some of their spouses in 8 gliders (4x Duo Discus, DG1000, DG500M, MDM Fox and ASK21). Towing was done by a Husky and Pawnee, also piloted by retired airline pilots. In total over 26 flight hours were made with 44 flights. Ten aerobatic flights were made with the MDM Fox.

Harm Buitink (ex B747 captain and visual artist) gave a very nice impression of the interaction between pilots during this day in a drawing.

Ruud Holswilder
Secretary of VGV (retired airline pilots association)