LAKELAND, Fla. — In a hangar full of planes, there’s something special about the kind of aircraft Steven Tellmann likes to fly.
“I took my first flight in 2019, in a glider, and since then I’ve always been hooked,” he said.
A glider is a plane that doesn’t have an engine and, for Tellmann, when he’s by himself in the air, flying one of these things is unlike any other plane.
“It’s more challenging,” he said. “It’s always, kind of, a different challenge every time you go fly it.”
It’s a surreal experience that has been part of his years of training and practicing with the Lakeland AeroClub.
He’s the team captain of the club’s soaring team and they’re about to do something no high school soaring team in the United States has done, which is glide competitively on an international scale.
“It’s neat in itself, just going to represent the U.S., but it’s also really cool, like to go with my friends,” Tellmann said.
Tellmann will be one of four pilots representing the U.S. in the Junior World Gliding Championships next month in Poland.
It happens every two years and he and the rest of the boys here have been working hard to get to this point.
While Tellmann is one of the pilots, his teammates will be a part of the ground crew.
“It really says something when we’re able to kind of nurture that and keep bringing it up, because now our plane is not just to have me go, we’re trying to work down the line of the kids,” said Tellmann.
Which includes helping those younger kids train in things like virtual reality.
“It gets you used to everything that’s going to be in the airplane,” said Qwest Hipps, a 16-year-old member of the team joining Tellmann in Poland.
According to Hipps, before ever flying a real glider, he and the rest of the students with the club use this technology to better prepare themselves.
“Everything looks identical,” he said. “So, if we if we’re going, if we’re planning to fly somewhere else, we’ll set it up to the airport that we’ll be flying at, and it helps us get to know the area.”
Training that’s perfect for Tellmann too, who, because of logistical and cost reasons, must rent a glider in Poland to compete with.
But, if you ask him, his dad is a pilot and flying has been a part of his life for as long as he can remember. So competition is one thing, but being able to feel the air underneath these wings is a feeling that will never get old.
“I’ve always seen myself doing it,” Tellmann said. “Never really thought about doing anything else.”
And now, he gets to do it while representing his country alongside his friends.
The championships in Poland will be happening July 13 through 27.
Members of the club say they’ll be posting videos of the competition on their YouTube channel for people interested in following their progress competing against nearly 20 different countries.
Nick Popham
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