When September comes around, so does the Juniors Weekend!
If you are not familiar with the concept yet, I recommend reading my article about the 2024 edition first, as I explain a little more about what the Juniors Weekend is and why it has become such a fun yearly tradition.
This year, the Juniors Weekend took place in Geraardsbergen, at Overboelare Airfield. For me, that is pretty much the furthest you can travel within Flanders while still going from one gliding airfield to another. Luckily, a few other juniors from my club wanted to go as well, so we arranged a carpool and made the trip together.
With Friday evening traffic doing its thing, it took us quite a while to get there and we arrived rather late. Luckily, there was still a good plate of spaghetti waiting for us when we arrived — exactly what you want after a long drive.
The main event of the Juniors Weekend takes place on Saturday, but the hosting club traditionally opens its doors on Friday evening already. It makes perfect sense: if you have a long drive ahead of you, you would much rather do it the evening before than get up ridiculously early on Saturday morning.
And since Overboelare is quite a drive for many clubs in Flanders, plenty of people had the same idea. So after the spaghetti, the weekend properly started with a nice social evening at the airfield.
The next morning it was time for what we had all come for: flying!
As with every flying day, we started with a briefing. During an event like this, that briefing is especially important because there are pilots visiting from all kinds of different clubs. Besides the usual information about weather and operations, we also went through Overboelare’s local procedures so everyone knew what to expect.
And then it was finally time to head out to the airfield.
The absolute highlight of my day was getting to fly the Ventus 3.
I had never flown a modern high-performance glider like that before, so I was very excited when I got the opportunity. And honestly… what an aircraft. It is not only an incredible glider to fly, but also just ridiculously beautiful.
I took a picture from the cockpit that day and it has been my phone lock screen ever since. A little reminder of what I am working towards every time I open my phone: study hard, find a good job and, hopefully, one day save up enough to have a beautiful glider of my own. 😊
The rest of the day was filled with flying as well. With so many different aircraft, pilots and clubs together in one place, there was always something happening. We managed to keep flying until the sun was getting pretty low, which feels like exactly how a Juniors Weekend flying day should end.
Once the gliders were safely back on the ground, it was time for the next important part of the weekend: food.
The team at Overboelare had put together an amazing group of volunteers, and among everything they organised for us was a proper BBQ dinner. After a full day outside and in the air, it definitely tasted good.
And of course, no Juniors Weekend would be complete without the Saturday night party.
With everyone finally done flying for the day, it was time to relax, catch up with people from other clubs and enjoy the evening together. Just like every year, it turned into a very good one.
This yearly weekend remains one of my favourite events on the Belgian gliding calendar. It is the perfect combination of flying, trying something new, seeing people you might otherwise only meet a few times a year and simply having a lot of fun together.
And I am already especially excited for the next edition…
Because next year, the Juniors Weekend is coming to my own club at Keiheuvel — and I will be helping organise it!
See you there? ✈️
