In Hood River some teens take to the sky before they can even drive

Gliding in the skies is a form of freedom and responsibility taken on by a group of teenagers in the Columbia Gorge who came together through the Hood River Soaring club.
Look, in the sky: it’s a bird; it’s a plane! Actually, it’s a bird and a plane. Both are making slow circles in the blue skies above Hood River.

Like the soaring bird, the aircraft has caught a draft of warm air called a thermal, rising from the valley of the Columbia River Gorge.

The plane is a glider and what makes gliders unique from other aircraft is that they have no engine. They stay aloft by the aerodynamic contours of their outstretched wings as they slice through the rising updrafts of the thermals. And the only thing steering them into those currents of air is a pilot. In this case, the pilot is a teenager who’s not even old enough to drive a car.

Gliding in the skies is a form of freedom and responsibility taken on by a group of teenagers in the Columbia Gorge who come together through the nonprofit organization Hood River Soaring.

“A lot of people don’t think a 14-year-old in the sky above you would be very safe,” said Fox Gossett, a glider pilot-in-training with the club. “But it’s not just any 14-year-old in the skies above you — it’s an educated 14-year-old in the skies above you.”