Freaked Out…

You might have guessed by my last post that I was slightly freaked out by my Glider flight. I was in a two seater glider, in the front seat. Thankfully I had a pilot in the back seat who could actually fly a glider, and could actually do it quite well.

The first thing that freaked me was that we were being towed by such a flimsy rope out the back of a Cesna plane. Being attached to a plane was sort of freaky. The Cesna seemed so far above, which it probably was. I found it quite bumpy on the start of the tow, and quite bouncy.

The plane just seemed to climb further and further. What really freaked me was when I saw about 20-30 gliders circling in what appeared to be a huge cylinder, which was actually a big thermal. And the gliders looked so close to each other. When we got closer it was almost a game of cat and mouse, with only a few hundred meters between gliders. You might think that is a lot, but just remember that we are all going at least 100km/h, and we can all move in three dimensions, and move at any time.

What made all this worse, was that we were under a G-force, and also under turbulance from the thermals. At one stage we were raising about 1000 feet/minute. This is a lot.

The OzFlarm collision detection system seemed to work. It really scared me when it gave a 20 second warning of a collision at one stage. This must have turned me white, but I don’t think that the pilot the colour drain from my face. After the first lot of testing the pilot asked me if I was ready to go. YES… Definitely.

Then he found another thermal, and told me that it was too good to pass up. This one had him pulling more G’s, and chasing more gliders. I could probably cope with the G’s but the other gliders actually scared me. Basically since they can go anywhere this was scaring me. I gingerly asked if we could land… Once we got on the land a comment was made that I was looking a little green before landing.

Anyway I was happy to get on the ground, even on a grass strip. I think that I would go in a glider again, but I do not think I would want to go into the air where a lot of gliders were around. Or where there were any gliders out there really… I can assure you I am happy to be on the ground.