“The glider flight”
“Ill go last”, “No no, nothing about being nervous at all”.
Or that in the two hours it will take every one else to have their shot, those scattered black clouds over in the west might have either found their resting place directly overhead. Or they may have grown in to a full bloodied storm that Noah would be proud to sail in.
“I’m just not fussed that’s all, and besides go first and you have to hang about for no reason just waiting to go home.” Right!
Aye right!
“Nothing to worry about people go swanning about at 7 thousand feet in aeroplanes all the time”. I am told
Don’t look now but these aeroplanes have a major component missing, the engine.
“What me already gosh how 2 hours can just …er fly.”
I see I sit in the seat nearest the pointy bit at the front; the instructor sits in the seat behind. Strange I say I would have though it would be the other way round.
“Nah” says he
He sits in the back as
“His epileptic fits were frightening to many of his pupils”
He laughed at his own joke. I laughed...no really I did.
Take off he says will be done the old fashioned way as the tow plane will need to be refuelled after 2 hours of taking my fellow students up.
“Ill go last”, “No no, nothing about being nervous at all”.
Or that in the two hours it will take every one else to have their shot, those scattered black clouds over in the west might have either found their resting place directly overhead. Or they may have grown in to a full bloodied storm that Noah would be proud to sail in.
“I’m just not fussed that’s all, and besides go first and you have to hang about for no reason just waiting to go home.” Right!
Aye right!
“Nothing to worry about people go swanning about at 7 thousand feet in aeroplanes all the time”. I am told
Don’t look now but these aeroplanes have a major component missing, the engine.
“What me already gosh how 2 hours can just …er fly.”
I see I sit in the seat nearest the pointy bit at the front; the instructor sits in the seat behind. Strange I say I would have though it would be the other way round.
“Nah” says he
He sits in the back as
“His epileptic fits were frightening to many of his pupils”
He laughed at his own joke. I laughed...no really I did.
Take off he says will be done the old fashioned way as the tow plane will need to be refuelled after 2 hours of taking my fellow students up.
He is explaining that due to the earth’s curvature and the g forces, well what ever he said next was lost on me as the glider suddenly started moving foreword. Slowly then a bit faster and then bloody fast and just as I thought we could go no faster we did not have to.
We were catapulted in to the air; the next ten seconds were taken up with watching the clouds get closer very quickly as well as reassembling all my vital organs in to the correct body cavities from which they had been ejected. There was also the small problem of displacing this elephant that had just sat on my chest.
After that ten seconds though I started to see bits of green and brown and grey enter my field of vision. We were levelling out and the scene was absolutely beautiful. England can have its country gardens and its chocolate box villages. This was rough hewn Scotland with a big craggy hill and lush grass looking as if the man from dulux had just finished painting it. Near distance was the palace at scone. It had a grand but not overbearing presence. I could see for miles and the countryside just seemed to go on and on.
I looked down to my left and saw people on the top of the hill that we were using for our thermal lift. Although this lift seemed to have a random floor selection that would make its choice by either suddenly blasting the glider up another couple of hundred feet, or by an instantaneous drop of about the same distance as we left the thermal. These people were standing about and waving at us as we passed. I waved back, giving the thumbs up sign for good measure. Just then some loon sprang from the group and ran full pelt over the steepest part of the hill. Folk in Fife are strange, I know this to be true from my annual pilgrimage to Burnt Island every summer, however suicide as a spectator sport seemed too abnormal even for Fifers. I need not have worried, as I soon realised he had a parachute on and that he was paragliding using the same thermals as us.
Even with the regular seesaw action I was in my element; watching birds fly bye at eye level was terrific. Going in and out of clouds some were of which were the soft fluffy white variety others were dark and sinister, all however filled me full of both awe and respect for nature and the power of nature. One other thing both entranced and captivated me, the absolute lack of sound. Having no engine meant you could hear the birds as they flew past. The soft swish as the glider entered and left larger clouds, this was an auditory experience that I had never even expected.
The instructor then broke my wonderment by saying
“Right your turn now!”
So here it was the moment of truth could I fly a glider. I said
“what do I do?”
After making sure that I understood my left from my right and that if we were looking at the big blue thing then that was up, whilst conversely the big splodge of green was down, he then said that I was as trained as I needed to be.
I remember nothing about my 10 minuets of actual flying. Apart that is from trying to recreate some moments from my favourite war film such as the “Dam Busters and “The battle of Britain”. I remember nothing of what it was like to fly the thing. I am only assuming of course that I never did bomb the forth road bridge and that all passing German aircraft made it safely to there destination. Although I am sure I might have noticed if I had been involved in either type of incident.
And so that just left the landing. Any instructions I asked my pilot.
“Nope he said.
“So how do we land?”
“Ever here of Isaac Newton” he said.
“Yesss”
“Well that’s basically your answer”
“You mean we fall out of the sky?”
”We do not fall any where laddie we GLIDE”
And that’s what happened; we left the thermal and descended in ever decreasing circles until we were above the landing field where we just ran out of space between the air and the ground.
We were catapulted in to the air; the next ten seconds were taken up with watching the clouds get closer very quickly as well as reassembling all my vital organs in to the correct body cavities from which they had been ejected. There was also the small problem of displacing this elephant that had just sat on my chest.
After that ten seconds though I started to see bits of green and brown and grey enter my field of vision. We were levelling out and the scene was absolutely beautiful. England can have its country gardens and its chocolate box villages. This was rough hewn Scotland with a big craggy hill and lush grass looking as if the man from dulux had just finished painting it. Near distance was the palace at scone. It had a grand but not overbearing presence. I could see for miles and the countryside just seemed to go on and on.
I looked down to my left and saw people on the top of the hill that we were using for our thermal lift. Although this lift seemed to have a random floor selection that would make its choice by either suddenly blasting the glider up another couple of hundred feet, or by an instantaneous drop of about the same distance as we left the thermal. These people were standing about and waving at us as we passed. I waved back, giving the thumbs up sign for good measure. Just then some loon sprang from the group and ran full pelt over the steepest part of the hill. Folk in Fife are strange, I know this to be true from my annual pilgrimage to Burnt Island every summer, however suicide as a spectator sport seemed too abnormal even for Fifers. I need not have worried, as I soon realised he had a parachute on and that he was paragliding using the same thermals as us.
Even with the regular seesaw action I was in my element; watching birds fly bye at eye level was terrific. Going in and out of clouds some were of which were the soft fluffy white variety others were dark and sinister, all however filled me full of both awe and respect for nature and the power of nature. One other thing both entranced and captivated me, the absolute lack of sound. Having no engine meant you could hear the birds as they flew past. The soft swish as the glider entered and left larger clouds, this was an auditory experience that I had never even expected.
The instructor then broke my wonderment by saying
“Right your turn now!”
So here it was the moment of truth could I fly a glider. I said
“what do I do?”
After making sure that I understood my left from my right and that if we were looking at the big blue thing then that was up, whilst conversely the big splodge of green was down, he then said that I was as trained as I needed to be.
I remember nothing about my 10 minuets of actual flying. Apart that is from trying to recreate some moments from my favourite war film such as the “Dam Busters and “The battle of Britain”. I remember nothing of what it was like to fly the thing. I am only assuming of course that I never did bomb the forth road bridge and that all passing German aircraft made it safely to there destination. Although I am sure I might have noticed if I had been involved in either type of incident.
And so that just left the landing. Any instructions I asked my pilot.
“Nope he said.
“So how do we land?”
“Ever here of Isaac Newton” he said.
“Yesss”
“Well that’s basically your answer”
“You mean we fall out of the sky?”
”We do not fall any where laddie we GLIDE”
And that’s what happened; we left the thermal and descended in ever decreasing circles until we were above the landing field where we just ran out of space between the air and the ground.
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