Growing up I think that most small boys dream of becoming a fighter pilot or airline captain at some time or another, for me that dream slowly faded amid a youth mis spent day dreaming, drinking and chasing girls. The only brush I had with aviation was a very short aerotow glider flight at Bicester gliding center as part of a school run trip in the mid 90's, Fun? yes, definitely. Cost prohibitive? probably. A little more research would have revealed a very cost effective way to get your wings.
Anyway, fast forward 15 years, a wife, house and a small child I would once again have an opportunity to go gliding thanks to my newly acquired extended family. My wife's father and oldest brother are into their gliding with her Brother Richard being an active member at windrushers. Over a family dinner Richard asked me if I would like to come down and have a few flying lessons at the club which I duly accepted, the dream was reborn, a little tamer than before but reborn it was.
August 2010 - First flight - 3 lessons
Richard and I arrived at the club early and after a few pleasant introductions made our way into the office where Carol, who oversees all things admin, had me fill out a temporary membership form and also a medical form that allowed me to declare myself fit to fly. Richard then took me through to the hanger which was crammed full of different aircraft, he showed me to the clubs training ships (ASK 13) explained a little bit about it and then set about doing the daily inspection as I watched on. Once it was finished and all signed off we dropped the parachutes into the cockpit and then wheeled the glider outside to the edge of the field where a car was waiting to tow it out to the launch point, Richard explained a little bit about ground handling the aircraft as they can do strange things if caught by a gust of wind. With it hooked up to the car we walked it out to the launch point, which is an old single decker bus come cafe, come briefing room, I was introduced to the duty instructor (the guy/girl that runs the show that day) and my name was added to the flying list.
When my turn came up I was introduced to Matt Turnbull who is a member and instructor at the club and a guy I would fly a lot of my early lessons with. Matt showed me over to another one of the clubs ASK 13's (they have 4 in total) and gave me a brief on the aircraft covering what the controls do, what the instruments are and what we were going to be doing. Matt then had me jump in the front seat and showed me how to adjust the rudder pedals and strap myself in, while I was busy getting comfortable Matt jumped into the back seat and while strapping himself in asked me what I wanted to get out of the day. Now I'd not really thought about it up to that point and was not sure what I was supposed to say so I simply responded with "I want to learn to fly" "great" he said "CB SIFT CBE you will need to learn it and remember it" very quickly I learnt that this was a mnemonic for pre flight checks which allows the pilot to ready the glider and themselves for the flight. Once we had gone through the checks and discussed what we would do if we were not launched high enough for a normal flight, we were ready to go. Matt called for the cable and we were duly attached to 3000ft of wire cable and about to be towed into the sky in what I can only describe as one of the most unique and thrilling methods of getting a glider off the ground. Our wing runner lifted the wings level and I could hear the duty instructor calling the winch to "up slack" with that the cable began to creep forward until it was pulled tight, at that point the "all out" was called and what ensued I find quite difficult to put into words. Imagine sitting in a high end sports car that is capable of achieving 0-60 in under 3 seconds, Ferrari, Porsche I hear you say, try a 30 year old glider attached to a huge length of cable and the other end being wound in by a very large American V8. Within a few short seconds we had achieved flying speed and Matt rotated the glider steadily into a 40 degree climb, a mere 15 seconds later we were slowing at the top and Matt levelled off and pulled the release. I now had time to relax a bit and look around and to this day I maintain that the view from a glider cockpit is one of the best you will ever see. You have great vision all around and with a little tilt of the head one can see straight down to the ground which was now 1200ft below. Matt explained the controls again and demonstrated what they did, now I have flown a lot of simulators before so I had a rough idea and when Matt asked if I would like a go I jumped at the chance. Taking the stick in my hand I followed Matt through on several turns and attitude adjustments, he then let me have ago for myself. Soon he was showing me how to feed in rudder to help coordinate the turn better; however being a car driver he explained causes a common problem, I was being too soft with the right rudder pedal when in fact quite coarse movements are required in the training gliders. Soon it was time to enter the circuit for landing at 800ft and as I had got on quite well Matt let me fly the glider round the circuit and took over at the Final turn for approach and landing. We had a quick 5 minute debrief/brief before running through the checks again and hooking up to the cable, I was much more prepared this time around and managed to follow Matt on the controls up the launch to release. Matt then let me have control immediately and we did some more turning exercises, this time however my sim flying was catching me out as I was being a bit twitchy on the controls (something I would take time to get rid of) During this flight Matt began to stress the need always for a good effective look out as glider pilots rely on a “see and be seen” method of avoiding coming into conflict with another aircraft. I flew the circuit again and this time Matt let me fly it all the way down to the round out before taking over to land. The third lesson took pretty much the same path as the other two with even more emphasis of look out and before I knew it, it was time to land and my flying was done for the day, I was then told that there was plenty still to do and I should feel free to get stuck in helping launch other people and I was also shown how to drive the retrieve to pick up cables and other gliders that had landed out of position. After the day had finished and all the equipment and gliders were packed away time for a quick drink in the clubs bar and then off home knowing full well that I had been bitten.
Remainder of August 2010 - Learn to glide! and 3 more lessons
It would be two weeks before I could fly again but to be honest I'd thought of little else in the mean time. I had decided on the learn to glide package as it gave me three months membership to the club and a sum in my flying account to use as I saw fit. I really liked this package because it allowed me to get a real taste of club life and whether I'd be able to cut it or not with out the large outlay of a years membership. I had three more lessons during the latter part of August and these were flown with another instructor, Dave Morgan, Dave asked me to run through what I had covered already with Matt and the three lessons were spent consolidating what I had done before. Dave also let me fly the second half of the winch launch on my last lesson of the day, which was cool. One bad habit I had was a tendency to "stir the stick" as Dave called it, this was down to me playing to many flight sims where constant correction is required, a K13 however is like a trusty old bus, lots of little inputs do little more than waggle the control surfaces and create some extra drag. I found my flying was coming on quite well in spite of my little bad habits and my instructors were now introducing lookout exercises and circuit planning which aims to get you into a pattern for landing starting at a high key area followed with a down wind leg running parallel to the runway in use, then abeam the launch point you reach the low key area and begin a diagonal leg which allows you to keep an eye on the launch point and goings on, you then turn a base leg which brings you to a final turn for approach and landing. It sounds reasonably straight forward but when you throw in wind, lift/sink, other traffic it can get a little bit interesting.
So with my first six flights done I was well and truly hooked and I had made the decision to try and get solo before my membership lapsed at the end of November.
Look out for part two to see if I made it of not.
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