Memorial Stone for Nida's Gliding School
Memorial site

The Memorial Stone for Nida’s Gliding School is located to the south-west of Nida.
During the interwar period – in 1933, the Lithuanian mecca of gliding, the Nida Gliding School, was founded on the highest Sklandytojų (Gliders) Dune of Nida, just next to the famous Parnidžio Dune. It is easy to ascend from Sklandytojų dune, as the eastern wind created a favourable oblique headwind on the slope of the dune. The infrastructure of the gliding school consisted of a hangar, a canteen and a school building. From 1933–1939, 508 glider pilots were trained at the Nida Gliding School, including trainees from Germany, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, Finland, France, Czechoslovakia, and the Netherlands.
In 1936, at the Nida Gliding School, the former Lithuanian military pilot Captain Jonas Pyragius set a gliding record of 22 hours and 36 minutes; it was the 4th best result in the world at the time, while in 1938, Alfred Giess broke the record and spent 26 hours and 3 minutes in the air.
In 1978, an arch was built on the foundations of the former hangar, marking the location of the gliding school. In 1998, on the occasion of the 65th anniversary of the school, a memorial to Lithuanian and German gliders was unveiled. The site of the former gliding school can be reached by turning off the road leading to Parnidžio Dune.