Learn To Fly!















If one of your goals in life is to fly a glider, we can help you with that dream! Southern Soaring is perfectly placed to assist you and has:
  • Excellent instructors
  • Modern dedicated training facilities
  • Quality equipment
  • Personalised training programmes

Paul Hugh (Hong Kong) on a Learn-to-Fly Course with Darren Smith in October 2008. Paul went solo at the end of his course.

Our courses are carefully structured to cater for your individual needs. With Southern Soaring, you won't be a number in the system or part of a large group. The ground theory part of our courses are unique to Southern Soaring and are based on the Gliding New Zealand training syllabus - one of the most comprehensive in the world. We have adapted this so that material can be viewed using easy-to-understand PowerPoint presentations - the perfect introduction to each flight.

Southern Soaring's Learn To Fly courses are based around three stages of flying:
  • Going Solo ('A' Certificate)
  • Post-solo consolidation ('B' Certificate)
  • Advanced flying to Qualified Glider Pilot standard ('C' Certificate)
On completion of each stage, you will receive a logbook endorsement and a badge!

Learn To Fly Course

For those who have never flown before, your first goal will be to complete your 'A' Certificate and fly solo. To achieve this, we provide a structured ground theory course that goes hand-in-hand with daily flights. You will receive a logbook, training schedule, course notes, Powerpoint briefings for each segment of the course and a series of flights in our Grob glider that will teach you all aspects of flying you will need to know to fly by yourself. 


Southern Soaring's Twin Astir training glider.

For this seven-day course, you will have one-on-one teaching, or share ground classes with only one other pupil. Achieving solo depends on a number of factors (coordination, consistency, suitable weather, etc) but we will ensure you have the best possible chance of succeeding in the time available. 

What is included:
  • Unlimited glider hours during course period!
  • 30 aerotows
  • Logbook
  • Training schedule
  • Training manual
  • New dedicated teaching facility
  • Briefings and debriefings for every flight
  • All affiliation charges are included and access to weather information, coffee/tea making facilities and high-speed internet are free
  • All landing fees and airfield levy charges
Course costs:   NZ$4950.00

To convert this amount to overseas currency, please click here. For bookings, please click on the following link.

Takao Chichibu after going solo in January 2007 on his 30th flight in Southern Soaring's Twin Astir.

Post solo and Advanced Flying

With post-solo and advanced flying, Southern Soaring will put together a personalised package based on what YOU would like to achieve.  This is far more cost effective than signing up for courses offered elsewhere where you have to repeat exercises or are taken out of your comfort zone by over-enthusiastic instructors wanting to further their skills! 

Goals you may want to achieve could include any of the following:
  • 'B' Cerfificate
  • 'C' Certificate
  • Passenger rating
  • Aerobatic rating
  • Back-seat rating
  • Dual-tow rating
  • Qualified Glider Pilot rating
To put a course together that suits your time constraints and budget, we will need to see what training you have carried out elsewhere and know what your goal is. From there, we put together a suggested programme and further fine-tune it until you are happy.

For further details on what we can offer, please email Chris Rudge on chris.rudge@soaring.co.nz

For those wanting to specifically learn how to fly cross-country or in the mountains, please click the following link: