I fly sailplanes and the silence is fantastic. There is nothing quite like flying on the wind currents and updrafts. Birds have been doing this for millions of years and I am envious of how well they do fly with so little instruction. Bird brain?? I wish I had just some of their flying skills.
While the southern deserts are really good for thermals, there are other places where you can fly ridge lift and even wave. Most sailplanes have a trailer, so just pack up and go where the lift is. 
I am more impressed with their migratory navigation skills.
But yes they (birds) are great at it, they have had a bazillion years to perfect it too.
I started flying at age 14 in a Piper Cub, got my license at age 16, grandfather paid for all the lessons.
When 18 I got my IFR rating, had to stop while in the army though,
they tried to convince me to go into army aviation after finding out my aviation background.
Would have been made WO-2 after transition training, but it was a four year hitch, not for me.
Oh yeah I had an A+P also, earned that while working on birds to pay for flying time, mostly for the gas.
Let me tell you, it is a <not allowed> to change a P+W R-2800 outside in the middle of the winter in a rigged up tent.
I live in New England, not the greatest for sailplanes, lots of trees and houses to deal with.
Further you cannot do a go around with one.
I have been VFR and suddenly a weather change and had to file an in flight IFR flight plan many times.
Yes today Doppler radar has greatly improved weather forecasting, but that is now not when I was flying.
One flight coming back from Pensacola NAS, flying IFR,
I penetrated a huge TC right after RAPCON told me the route was devoid of any such activity.
I got sucked up to around 23,000 feet and thrown out upside down, rolled her back over and grabbed the o2 mask of the back of my seat and put the plane into a 50 degree dive, pulled out at 7,000, dialed in the nearest airport's NDB, while heading to it, dialed in the localizer coupled it to the auto pilot and let it bring us down to the runway.
I, in the process told the tower I was landing on that runway with injured passengers on board, but not declaring.
The storm had hit there and left about six inches of water on the runway, when I touch down, the plane almost nosed over from the water. Plane was a tail dragger.
The weather station just happened to be in that terminal, I went in and told them what I thought of their observations.
Came close to punching the guy I had communicated with.
