In my opinion, two of the most wonderful things in life are soaring, and tea. Both require you to take some time for it, both can give you unforgettable moments, and both regularly tend to unite people in all places of the world.

Admittedly, tea does not play any important role in my soaring world. Soaring however is one of my favorite topics to talk about whenever I hold a cup and have some like-minded fellows around. So could there be any better place to sip my char and share some words and thoughts with you than the Soaring Cafe?

My name is Benjamin Bachmaier, and I sincerely welcome you to my new Soaring Cafe column, “Tea with Two-Delta”, whose first post you currently happen to be reading. Every week from now on, I will invite you to sit, calm down, have a brew and let your thoughts be innervated by a quick five minute read at this place.

I have been recruited to join the Soaring Cafe Team by the amazing dutch blogger Ritz de Luy, who keeps a close eye on all major soaring activity in the world to keep us well informed on her own blog as well here in the Cafe. The hard-working editors of this Site, Bill and Rand, have zealously asserted that I am to be the first regular columnist from Germany for the Cafe and, as Bill states, “so much in soaring happens in Germany!”…

Some of the German speaking readers may know me and my gliding blog, flugfieber.net, where you´re unlikely to find any news-related topics and useful information but instead run the risk of getting assailed by texts and short stories which rather bear a novel´s flavour. I write true and honest stories about alpine soaring, competitions and cross country, my learning process in all of these, about my feelings and my emotional relationship to the whole soaring thing. It´s quite a mess sometimes, but altogether writing helps me organize my thoughts and many people read it, so no excuses here.

I also write occasional specific articles for the German “Segelfliegen” print magazine. I have mainly specialized in Alpine Soaring knowledge and long-distance cross country.

While being a twenty-two year old engineering student and having partaken in soaring for some eight years, I have been quite a bit around the gliding world. I hold a license since the age of 16, found a quick way into cross country and competition flying, and from that point forward my dreams, plans and actions went off through the ceiling. Now I can look back to about ten national and international competitions throughout Europe, flights over a dozen countries of the world including New Zealand and Australia, a 1000 km OLC flight and, lately, an instructor´s rating.

The reason for all of this is that I´ve always been lucky enough to be free to fly. Wherever I went and whatever ideas I had, I could find support, advice, help, a glider, a tow, a mentor or whatever else it was I had come for. That´s one of the things I love about the soaring world, and  I have long ago decided to give it all back. This is why soaring is the maxim of most of my acts and thoughts.

What is it that makes you get involved in the Gliding sports?