Reflections on a first flight

.‘I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe……’ reflected Rutger Hauer playing a dying replicant in Ridley  Scott’s iconic film ‘Bladerunner’, and that is how I felt the other Sunday evening, musing over the events of a quite remarkable afternoon; no, I hadn’t seen Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion, or watched c-beans glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate, but I HAD played tag with a soaring buzzard, tickled a cloud with a wing tip just because I could, and all the while being  shadowed for much of the afternoon by my own reflection  haloed in a circle of rainbow, the hauntingly beautiful Brocken Spectre. And the ghostly image keeping me company was of a 50 year old glider, a K6cr.

Before July of last year I would not have known what a glider was; I suspected they were used by both sides during the last war for sneaky attacks on the enemy, seldom reaching their destination, normally crashing instead, killing all occupants. A flight experience day, given as a birthday present, with the possibility of  a follow-up ‘Fixed Price to Solo’ scheme, showed me that there really were still seemingly sane people out there prepared to defy the laws of nature and attempt flight without an engine.

Fixed Price to Solo schemes are great; a financial commitment when self confidence and self esteem are at an all-time low, when the demons within are mocking you for being an uncoordinated idiot incapable of learning a new skill…“give up, give up, stick to something you know, something you can do“………How difficult can it be to balance Stick and Rudder? The target was Solo by the end of the year, and within the scheduled 80 launches; In reality it took until March and over 100 launches,  and the first solo flight was on a day when [and I’ve never told the CFI this] I had only turned up to pay my dues to DGS, having decided to join a club nearer to home-if solo was going to take forever, I may as well cut down on traveling time!

Looking back, those early learning months were great fun, full of frustration and self criticism, but providing some memories that will be unforgettable; touching cloud base for the first time, circling in the same thermal as a buzzard, watching the lights come on in Tavistock as evening draws in……….I had no idea where the gliding experience was going, but I had a few targets along the way, destinations on an unknown journey, with the option of stepping away from gliding after each one without any regrets for the commitment of time and money; Solo, Bronze, Bronze XC, purchase maybe of a glider.

 As it turned out, I bought a glider much sooner than anticipated, having seen a K6 advertised at Shennington Gliding Club whilst enjoying an offbeat few days gliding with some other DGS members. With the invaluable help of Colin Boyd, the K6 was collected from Talgarth, full asking price paid, and brought back to Dartmoor.

Roger and the "new" glider

If the wait to get to Solo had seemed unduly long, the wait to get my own glider into the air was interminable. Pride of ownership was immense, and she sat in the showroom having her makeup redone, she sat on a nearby airfield waiting for the thumbs-up from the local CFI, she sat in her trailer at Brentor waiting for the rain to stop, and finally on Sunday 21st October, with wave developing on the east of the field, the K6, by now named by my wife ’Brangwy’, was once again rigged, test flown by Don, and cleared for me to take her on our maiden flight.

I have been told you never forget your first solo flight, and I probably won’t, but it was functional rather than memorable; Launch, Circuit, Land, Don’t Break Anything; prove to yourself and the CFI this wasn’t all a ghastly mistake. On an early solo flight in one of the club’s 2 K13s I had been fortunate enough to connect with wave, and, totally oblivious to the passage of time, clocked a 2 ½ hour flight, much to the angst of the duty instructor waiting below with trial lessons. Since then I had managed a couple flights just short of an hour; for me, mind-boggling stuff that kept me buzzing from one Sunday to the next. This launch felt very different, though; the culmination of everything that had gone before, at the same time seeming the first ever solo. I would have accepted a 3 minute flight if the glider came back in one piece, been satisfied with 5 minutes, and happy with 15.

Don’s last words of advice before the ’ALL OUT’ were brief and to the point; ’Fly straight to the easterly edge of the cloud, and soar the cloud as you would a ridge’

K6 on the wire.

The launch was OK, but I’ve managed better; the cable back-released at the top of the launch, pulling back too long for height; a momentary intake of breath while the attitude stabilized, and then I was through the cloud. What had looked from the field to be a grey shapeless cloud mass was in fact the trailing edge of a cliff face; a white, gently foaming wall of cloud stretching south east of Tavistock and beyond. Someone had pinched the cliffs from Dorset’s Jurassic coast, painted them white, and they were now hovering like a curtain over Dartmoor. Banking south, I followed the ’cliff face’, pushing as far as was prudent, then turning away from the face, tracking back the other way; zigzagging back and forth, from Mary Tavy to Tavistock and back, climbing the cloud wall as you would any other cliff face; sometimes hot spots of lift, sometimes sink, but always, gradually, gaining height.

I’m beginning to discover that a glider cockpit, like the inside of a motorcycle crash helmet, is a solitary, but never lonely, place to be; and somewhere I could easily spend a lot of time without getting bored. Small challenges present themselves all the time: ‘2000ft, I wonder if I could make 2500.……….lets follow that buzzard, he looks to be cloud-hill soaring, I didn’t know they did that!…………..3000 already, if I could make 3500, I’ll chase 4000 before I look for the field, but then again that looks like the highest wisp, I reckon I can dip a wing in there!’

At 3500ft, we were level with the top of the cloud, at 4000ft we were above, and I was looking down on fluffy white cloud baguettes for as far as the eye could see; the airfield had been out of sight for some time, obscured by cloud, as was Tavistock and Mary Tavy, but moorland was clearly visible to the east and north, and the estuary could be just made out in the south, so keeping within gliding distance of the field wasn’t an issue. I remembered there was a small camera in an inside pocket, and almost went into a stall getting it out, but the K6 remained serenely unruffled by the incompetent pilot. There was little lift above 4000ft that I could find, and we tracked back and forth between 3 and 4 thousand, with the Brocken Spectre  for occasional company. Other gliders would sometimes appear, stay for a while, and then go on their way; Colin in his K6, Martin swooping around in his fiberglass “sports car with wings“, the inevitable club K13; familiar faces drifting in an out of someone else’s dream. I used to hate sharing the sky with other gliders, in case I couldn’t see them, couldn’t avoid colliding with them; now it is becoming one of the pleasures of gliding!

And as quickly as I had been launched into, and found, wave, it started to break up.

Trawling the cliff face became sniffing and scratching for lift; a more experienced pilot would have found it more consistently, and a more confident pilot would have followed the reforming wave cloud north, but that would have meant risking pushing downwind, and I am still at the stage where I need to ensure that the number of landings at Brentor equals the number of launches. With the cloud now broken, the field was once again visible, and  with more sink than lift, it was time to think about a circuit while still stretching the flight for as long as I could………………..count the gliders on the ground, look for potential launches/landings, where are the retrieve vehicles, what’s the wind doing, above all, look out look out look out; I didn’t want this to end, but if it had to, it mustn’t be in disaster!

Good looking round out after a great first flight

Left circuit, bit cramped, cross wind landing, kicked straight at about the right time, landing fairly soft, canopy off, and then the warm congratulatory handshake from the ever supportive Colin Boyd; nice gesture to cap a magical flight.

The K6cr sits quietly waiting to be put away at the end of the day.

Wood, fabric, and glue, a technology the Egyptians had; that was all that had kept me rubbing shoulders with the clouds for almost 3 hours. The rationality of the Greeks, the practicality of the Romans, the mathematical genius of the medieval Islamic scholars, the scientific knowledge of Leonardo Da Vinci, all great societies had managed to use the ocean currants but had failed to master flight, yet they had the means, and certainly the dream……….Only in the last 100 years or so have we understood enough to soar the skies; the ancients would have been green with envy. 60 million people in this country, yet only a few thousand choose to soar with the birds!

For me, that last flight would make a fitting last page in the book, and I could walk away happy with my 15 months dabbling with flight, but there is a glider waiting for me at Brentor, and a cloud or two to be tickled, so it’s probably just the start of a new chapter: Bronze, Bronze Cross Country Endorsement, and THEN have a rethink.

Roger Applebloom