SOME of the UK’s best pilots have been taking to the skies over the county as Bicester Gliding Centre hosted the regional championships.

Residents in Bicester will have seen scores of gliders making the most of the clear sunny weather this week as they scatter the skies taking off from the Windrushers Gliding Club’s base at Bicester Gliding Centre, Bicester Heritage.

Between 40 and 50 gliders signed up to the annual competition which sees pilots head off from Bicester and take on challenges on routes throughout this week.

Among the competitors in this year's contest, which started on Saturday, is Ollie Wheeler, 18, from Milton Keynes – one of the youngest in the competition.

He said: “This is the first time I have entered the Bicester Regionals and it is the first gliding competition I have entered.

“The atmosphere has been great as everybody is incredibly welcoming and enthusiastic.”

Pilots compete for about nine days, dependant on weather, and it ends Sunday.

Mr Wheeler added: “It is great fun flying alongside many other gliders on the same task and competing against one another.

“I was first introduced to gliding by a friend, who encouraged me to take a ‘trial lesson’.

“I was instantly captured by the exhilarating experience of soaring through the air without an engine.

“My love for the sport has only grown with time as I’ve progressed into flying cross-country flights and exploring the country.

“I’ve been gliding for two years now. I flew solo after about five months, and am now flying cross-country tasks exceeding 500km long, all without an engine.”

The gliding club hosts the competition annually and each day the race director sets a challenge for gliders, including a certain distance to cover with check points across the country.

Fellow competitor Liz Sparrow, of the British Gliding Team, said the challenges had included flying out from Bicester to East Anglia and Suffolk all without an engine.

She said: “We have had cracking weather for it, it has been amazing glider weather the last few weeks and makes for lots of hard, keen racing.”

Ms Sparrow said she too was ‘hooked’ from her first gliding experience in 1990 and hasn’t looked back since taking up ‘the best sport in the world’.

She added: “It is such good fun and great to get look across the countryside, although it is looking very dry at the moment.”

The pilot, from near Salisbury, has also been hosting a course for women during the event to get more females familiar with the sport.

Bicester Gliding Club is keen to encourage more women and young adults to take up gliding.

Ms Sparrow said just seven per cent of the sport nationwide is made up of women.

Mr Wheeler added the sport is also great for youngsters who can fly solo by age 14 and is not an expensive hobby despite misconceptions.

Details at bicestergliding.com