New Thing #52 - Gliding

Wow. #52. The end. Finito. I can't believe it's been a whole year since I started my list. It's kind of bittersweet. For my final thing, I decided to do one last adventuresome thing. It's similar to the flying I did a few weeks ago, but this time I flew in a motorless glider plane.

I read about soaring or gliding a few weeks ago in a local newspaper called the Java Journal. I never even knew we had a newspaper called the Java Journal. I found it at a local breakfast place while I was waiting to be seated. Good thing too. I had heard about gliding awhile back and always wanted to try it. I never knew that there was a place close to St. Louis that did it. Well, sorta close. It was only 45 minutes away.

Anyways, I called last week to try to go but they told me the ground was too wet. Huh? Of course I was used to real runways from the times I've flown in small airplanes, so the concept of the ground being too wet to fly was weird to me. But, whatever, it worked out well to do it today. Except for the fact that it's a typical Midwestern summer day. High 90s, heat index over 100. Awesome. This would be super fun to fly in a small plane with no A/C. Why do I keep doing this?

Well, I called this morning to make sure they were flying before I drove all the way there. The lady I spoke to on the phone had as much energy as a snail riding a sloth. I couldn't get her to really even answer my questions at first. She kept saying they'd be flying all day, but I wanted to make sure I could go gliding. Finally she said that I could come out, but she didn't seem very happy about it. So, I headed out to the Highland, IL airport to get my glide on.

Maybe I should explain a bit what gliding or soaring is based on the St. Louis Soaring Association's website. The gliders are motorless and rely on rising air to stay aloft. The glider must first be towed up to altitude by a motored plane, and once it's let go, the rising warm air helps it stay up. Because Central Illinois is so flat, only thermal activity is available to create lift. A thermal is a small area of rising air which has been heated, usually by the sun. In order to climb or maintain altitude, the glider pilot must turn his aircraft to remain inside the rising airmass. This is the reason the glider is so often seen in a continually turning flight path. In good weather conditions, a pilot of average ability can stay aloft for several hours. If there is no thermal activity, the length of a flight simply depends on the height to which the glider is towed during the launch.

Once I got to the airport, I parked and headed into what looked like the main office. It was unlocked, but no one was in it. I waited a minute or so and headed over to the hangar closest to the office. No one was in there either. Interesting. I looked around a few more minutes before I tried calling the main number again. Now, these people knew I was coming. I had told them I'd be there in roughly an hour. It only took me 45 minutes, but they still should have been ready for me. I dialed the number and had my ears blown out in rapid succession. I had made the mistake of dialing the number while standing on the front porch of the office. The front porch contained a shrill speaker that was so loud and high-pitched only dogs should have been able to hear it. I sprinted off the porch and continued to let it ring hoping somehwere, someone would pick it up. Nope. It went straight to voice mail. Where the heck was everyone? I saw cars parked, so I knew someone had to be there. As I looked around, I saw another hangar further away and then what looked like tiny moving specks in the distance. Out of the hangar sped a golf cart headed down towards the tiny specks. Aha! Life!

I decided that I didn't really want to haul my ass all the way down to where the few people were until I knew for sure what I needed to be doing. A little bit later the golf cart came back and two men told me my glider was ready, they were just waiting on a pilot. Whew. At least there was life at this airport. It was a bit creepy not seeing anyone around. I headed back into the office to cool off. It was only 10 am, but it had already broken into the 90s. Why the hell did I choose today to go flying? I was told that my pilot would be in to get me, and shortly thereafter a very elderly man walking really slow walked into the office. Dear lord please do not let this man be my pilot. He looked like a stiff breeze would blow him over. Nope. He wasn't my pilot. I have absolutely no idea what he did at the airport, but luckily he was not going to be flying with me.

I didn't have too long to wait until I was told that my pilot was taking up a student working on his license, and then I could go. In the meantime, they took me down to where I would be taking off from (where all those tiny "specks" were). Thank goodness for golf carts, by the way. I also realized why we couldn't fly last weekend. There was no asphalt runway. It was just grass. Now I see what they meant by the ground still being too wet. Shortly after I got to the end, I saw another glider take off with the teacher and student.

Our tow plane.

The other glider plane.

That's an older glider and not the same one I would be taking.

While I waited, I met the lady I had spoken to on the phone. She seemed nice enough, but there was just something about her. I don't know what it was, but she seriously didn't seem happy that I was there. She was asking me all kinds of questions about what I knew about soaring and what I'd be doing. I told her I didn't really know much, but that was why I was there. She then asked if I had been told how much it was. I guess she wanted to make sure I didn't back out when I heard the price tag.

While the other plane was still in the air, another pilot showed up, so we decided to go ahead and get me in the air. They took the golf cart and hooked up the tow line to it to pull the glider around to the runway. The prep work was a lot quicker than it was when I flew with Ben. It took all of a minute and half to run through everything. The gliders only held two people, but the cool part was that I got to ride in the front, and the pilot sat behind me. Our controls were identical, so I'd get the opportunity to fly again. Great. Hopefully I would do better this time around.

Here's my glider!

I love how they used old cushions to keep the canopy open to let air through.

Moving the glider into position.

I also found out that I'd get to release the tow line once we got up to altitude. Sweet! It would be like doing the Dragon's Wing all over again! Once everything was all checked out, the tow line was hooked to the glider, the canopies were lowered, it was time to get flying. This take off was indeed a bit rougher than flying with Ben. Mainly because we were being dragged across the ground and we felt every bump and divot on the ground. The actual moment we left the ground was incredibly smooth though.

The cockpit.

The instrument panel...not nearly as high-tech as Ben's plane.

The yellow knob is the release handle.

Getting ready for take off. I love the string on the canopy top.

One of the guys on the ground took some pics for me with his camera.

She's helping keep the wings level while we were waiting for lift off.

We're just leaving the ground.

The takeoff. Sorry for the bumpy video. You try keeping your hands steady!

The rise to altitude was very similar to flying with Ben. It was very slow and peaceful. There is skill involved for the pilot though because he has to mimic the tow plane's movements so we stay behind them. It didn't take too long to get to our altitude of 3500 feet. I pulled the release lever and we were on our own. I expected a big jerking sensation, but it really wasn't that bd. From there, Kirk, my pilot, or Captain Kirk as I like to call him quickly explained the concept of flying. I was well aware of this by now, but it was a lot easier to fly than Ben's plane. Maybe it's because I could see over the nose of the plane and I could fly like that rather than relying on instruments. But, I found I was a natural at this. It was really easy and there was no way to jerk the controls. He showed me how to bank and turn, speed up and slow down. It's too bad I'm not coordinated enough to fly AND videotape myself. Because there wasn't enough thermal activity in the air (hard to believe on a scorcher like today), we didn't stay aloft very long. But, before we landed, Kirk showed me some acrobatic movements. That was awesome. Watch the next video for an example of 2 Gs of force on my body. But beware, if you're prone to motion sickness, you might want to take some Dramamine first.

Woo-hooooo!!!! Now I want to tag along with a fighter pilot and do some crazy acrobatic stuff!

My view of the ground as we tipped on our side.

Kirk did this a few times before we started to descend too much.

He did a fly by of the airport here.

Finally it was time to land and the actual touchdown was pretty tame, but then once again I felt like my butt cheeks were being dragged across a box of marbles. Not pleasant.

I didn't record fast enough to get the touch down.

I kind of look like I'm sitting in a torpedo.

We were only up in the air for about 20 minutes, and that included the tow time. That's probably the only part that sucked, but you can't predict the weather patterns. Kirk said that they've only had a few good days of soaring so far this year. It's too hard to determine if you're going to get enough lift or not. I still had fun, and I'm glad I did it. I've come to realize that I really like flying in small airplanes now. Enough to get my own pilot's license? Nah, probably not. I think it's just the adventure that I like.

Well, this is it. The end of my list. I'll post a recap and some of my thoughts on my actual birthday. Stay tuned!