Mountain Rating T1/T2/T3

Most glider pilots earn their SPL and then spend years circling the same flat local patch, wondering what the mountains would feel like. The Mountain Rating is how you stop wondering: it takes your existing SPL and certifies you to fly the alpine zones T1, T2 and T3 around Vinon — the same terrain that hosted the 2013 European Gliding Championships and, in 2026, the FAI Sailplane Grand Prix France.

Mountain flying is a different discipline, not just a bigger version of what you already know. Valley winds behave nothing like flatland thermals. A ridge that looks generous from the air can turn lethal on its lee side within seconds. Wave systems can lift you thousands of meters above anything you've flown before — or humble you just as fast if you misjudge them. This course exists because that gap between SPL-qualified and mountain-competent is real, and crossing it safely takes structured, dual-flown experience, not guesswork.

Over two weeks you'll learn to read a mountain sky the way locals do: spotting the thermal that's about to trigger off a sunlit face, riding a wave system to altitudes flatland flying never offers, and planning cross-country routes with real terrain, real options, and real margins. You'll progress zone by zone — T1 around Vinon, then T2 into the Préalpes, then T3 into the high alpine terrain further afield — each stage building the judgment the last one demands before you're ready for the next.

This isn't generic instruction bolted onto a mountain backdrop. Every flight is flown dual, with your own certified mountain instructor beside you — not a rotating roster, one person who knows exactly where you are in your progression, flight after flight, and adjusts the plan to match how you're actually flying, not a fixed script.

By the end of the two weeks, you're not just carrying a new endorsement in your logbook. You're carrying the judgment to look at an alpine sky and read it — the same skill that separates the pilots who fly Vinon's ridges every season from the ones who only ever look up at them.