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By TRINA JONES Today's People Editor
Sunday - June 6, 1982

EAGLEVILLE - If Kathy McFarlane ever tells you she's going to drop in over the weekend, don't look for her to drive up in a car. More than likely, she'll be floating down from the clouds at the wheel of her sleek, gleaming white sailplane.

Mrs. McFarlane, along with her husband, Bill, is an avid participant in the sport of sailplaning, an exhilarating form of flying that uses the forces of nature to fuel a pilot's flight. With no deafening roar of the engine, a pilot is enveloped by silence, a feeling that Mrs. McFarlane enjoys when she's behind the controls of her high performance ship.

"You see and hear things that power (plane) pilots never see," she explained enthusiastically, revealing her obvious love of the sport. "You're flying with the hawks. You see monarch butterflies migrating and round rainbows, then you're flying through canyons of clouds. And you've got the silence."  .

The thrill of silently traversing the sky and the challenges of harnessing natural forces for flying has lured several area pilots into the world of soaring and sailplaning. A group of about 15 pilots of high performance ships meet often at the gliderport at Puckett Field in Eagleville, according to W.G. "Speedy" Bond, the governor of the Tennessee chapter of the Soaring Society of America. The field in Eagleville is the only gliderport in the Middle Tennessee area, attra

A Happy Pilot -- Perched on a wing of her high performance ship, Kathy McFarlane is in seventh heaven when she talks affectionately about her ‘good baby.’ After sailplaning for five years, she notes: ’Usually once someone sits in there, it’s all it takes.  You’ve gotta do it.’

cting pilots from Nashville, Alabama and Kentucky.

Though growing in popularity, sailplaning is still a relatively unknown sport. Many people confuse it with gliding, a related but different flying sport. While helping to assemble his wife's plane at Puckett Field Thursday, McFarlane explained the difference.

"With gliding, the ship is coming down all the time. With a sailplane, you can gain altitude, using the solar-powered thermals," he said.

Thermals, rising bodies of warm air, are the chief fuel of the sailplane pilot. The sun heats the ground, and as the air above the ground heats up, the warm air mass rises. Because air temperature varies with the terrain - for example, a heavily wooded area has much cooler air above it than a flat field sailplane pilots become expert at watching the land's terrain as a way to map their flight strategies.

"The warm air columns are like bubbles in a glass of 'ginger ale," McFarlane explained. "The bubbles break up and go to the top. Birds circle in bubbles of warm air, and in the plane, we find the bubbles or rising columns of air to climb as high as we can," The presence of cumulus clouds is another indication of warm rising air, he added.

Pulled aloff by a tow plane, a sailplane pilot depends solely on his knowledge, skills and levelheadedness to bring the ship in safely. 'As exhilarating, as it is, sailplane demands the pilot's constant attention, "Most people who are not good pilots, who are sloppy, would get out because of the pressure You have to make decisions quickly, and you never quit learning. If you think you've got a handle on it, that's when you get humbled real fast," said Mrs. McFarlane, who's been sailplane pilot for five years.

However, in a sport that relies so heavily on the forces of capricious Mother Nature, even the most skilled pilot sometimes have to make an early landing. That happened 1 Mrs. McFarlane last weekend at a meet in Bainbridge, Ga.

"You're always on the lookout for a proper field to land in somewhere near a highway and a phone where you can call your crew .. In Bainbridge, I picked a place where I could land near a swimming pool. I always have my swimsuit packed the plane," she laughed. 

Constructed of fiberglass - and "a lot of blood, sweat and tears in the cockpit" - Mrs. McFarlane's high performance flyer can be packed into a long trailer for transport ar assembled in about 15 minutes. Once the main body of the ship -- the fuselage --is pulled from the trailer, the two wings (which have a span of almost 50 feet) and the two-piece elevator are pinned into place. Holding one wing as her husband pinned it into place, Mrs. McFarlane noted "You have to stay in shape to do this."

Traveling at speeds of about 70 miles per hour between thermals, an average sailplane outing. can take a pilot over 200 or 300 mile course, depending on the strength of tI thermals. Besides. leisurely weekend winging, bo McFarlanes have sailed competitively. McFarlane, who's been flying 14 years,

Surveying the Skies -- Kathy and Bill McFarlane look over the skyline as they point out signs of thermals, a sailplane pilot’s fuel.  McFarlane points out the presence of cumulus clouds, a sign that the rising columns of warm air are present.

holds a Diamond Distance Badge for staying aloft on a 312-mile. triangular course from Puckett Field Athens, Ala., to Bowling Green, Ky. and back to the Eaglevile gliderport. Mrs. McFarlane, who won a 1981 Easter weekend meet in East Tennessee and has placed second in region competition, holds the female altitude record in the state Tennessee.

Addicted to the sport of sailplaning,' Mrs. McFarlane says there's only one drawback to her unusual hobby: "The on problem with this sport is, I don't have much female companionship. But if you love to fly, that's the only thing that matters"

The McFarlanes will be joining other sailplane pilots Puckett Field in Eagleville on Saturday for a special mini-meet planned for this week’s observance of National Soaring Week.  The activities are scheduled to begin around noon, and people wishing to see the sport of soaring are invited to bring a picnic supper and spend the day.