[Scan-DC] Glider frequencies -- 123.3 MHz (main) & 123.5 MHz (backup)

[David Schoenberger]

Andy,
Thanks for the interesting post about gliders.  On a somewhat related note,
one can listen for the skydivers operating out of Orange County Airport on
122.8000 (the plane may be monitorable even up in Northern Virginia).  They
are fairly active on weekends.  122.8000 is also the CTAF/Unicom for Shannon
Airport in Fredericksburg.

Dave

On Sun, May 31, 2009 at 4:23 PM, Andrew Clegg <w4jecom at w4je.com> wrote:

> A friend and I stopped by Front Royal airport (FRR) on Saturday. It's a
> very
> small airport staffed by some very friendly aviation enthusiasts. FRR sees
> a
> lot of glider activity, since they are at the foot of the Shenandoah
> mountains. A prop plane is used to tow the gliders up in the air ($32 per
> tow), then they detach from the tether, and the gliders stay aloft on
> thermal currents. They can be up as long as 3.5 hours, although an hour is
> apparently more typical. It depends on the currents. The gliders stay below
> 8000 ft and they are outside of the controlled Dulles air space.
>
> Anyway, one of the glider pilots gave us a close look at his glider, and we
> talked to him quite a bit about the radios. In his, he runs a standard VHF
> radio tuned to the FRR unicom frequency, but when he's up in the air, there
> are also two national "glider-to-glider" frequencies that he uses. So of
> course I scanned those frqeuencies all weekend, and caught some "glider
> chatter" from about 20 miles away from the airport. Anyway, I wasn't aware
> that there were standard glider frequencies, and thought others might be
> interested in listening in. I am back in Arlington now and I can hear some
> activity, although they are quite weak, even with my antenna at 200 ft. I
> suspect most or all of the activity is only on warm, sunny weekends.
> According to the glider pilot, the best time of day for gliding is mid
> afternoon on a sunny day, when the heat currents are at their greatest.
>
> If you ever get a chance, stop by FRR on a sunny summer afternoon. It
> appears that they are launching gliders just about every sunny weekend day.
> We saw two launches in the space of an hour. It's a nice place to bring
> sandwhiches and a drink. They have chairs outside in back of the terminal
> where you can sit and watch the activity from just a few tens of feet away.
> They also have an airshow coming up on Sep 12th. Unfortunately I'll be on
> travel then.
>
> Cheers!
> Andy
>
> FRR unicom: 123.0 MHz
> National glider-to-glider frequency (main): 123.3 MHz
> National glider-to-glider frequency (backup): 123.5 MHz
> FRR info: http://www.airnav.com/airport/KFRR
>
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