A few weeks ago, over an improptu meal, I was made a very generous offer of a flight (or two) in a friend’s two-seat glider. Needless to say, I didn’t have to think very hard before I gave a response!

Three weeks later, I got the hoped-for call to say that the weather was ok for flying, so I got on the road and headed down to the South Downs Gliding club. Not having any previous experience of Gliding before, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but was soon put at ease by friendly people and Paul’s expert guidance.

The first task was to get Paul’s own glider out of it’s hanger, rather than use the club gliders. This was a simple process – just fixing the tail-plane on and then towing it to the other end of the airfield. Once at the other end of the airfield, we joined the queue for our aero-tow. Whilst we were waiting, I was helped on with my parachute (which I was assured that I was very unlikely to need – to my relief!), strapped into the cockpit and given a brief talk through the instruments and controls. All was pretty self-explanatory, especially the big yellow knob that releases the tow cable – I was told on pain of (quite literal) death not to touch it! Then the canopy was shut and locked, the tow cable was attached, and we were off!

The tug was a rather strange-looking aircraft (I was later told that it was originally designed for crop-dusting), and certainly the first I have seen fitted with a truck-style wing mirror! The tow was a little strange as the glider becomes airborne before the tug, as it generates more lift. Then, when the tug takes off and begins to climb, each movement it makes is reflected about a second later by the glider. The ride up was quite bumpy – presumably because of the turbulence caused by the prop-wash from the tug. When we got up to about 2000ft, Paul pulled the cable release and we were gliding!

As the tug peeled away and down to the right, I could feel the glider slowing down, and everything went quiet and smooth. Intellectually, I knew that this would be the case, but it was still a surprise how quiet it was – just a little wind noise from the window in the canopy. We flew around for a little while, taking in the fantastic views of the South downs.

I had let on to Paul before we took off that I had done a little powered flying when I was at school, with the RAF cadets, in an ancient Chipmunk. It all came flooding back when I heard the magic words “you have control”. The second suprise of the day was just how responsive the controls were. I remembered the Chipmunk needing a pretty good shove on the stick and pedals to make any impression on the direction of travel, and the feeling of plenty of slack in the control cables. Not so with the glider; the controls were super-light and responsive, and to start with, it was hard not to over-compensate and wobble about all over the place. But after a few minutes I was able to relax and make smaller, more accurate control inputs and I began to fly more smoothly. All too soon, Paul took control back and brought us back down to land.

With the offer of “fancy another go?”, we towed the glider back to the other end of the airfield and managed to get the last aero-tow of the day (as the weather was deteriorating). On the second flight I was able to fly more smoothly and was able to fly in between the clouds – a really impressive sight!

It really was a fantastic experience and one I hope very much to repeat. All the members of the gliding club were very friendly and happy to chat to a new-comer. Very big thanks to Paul for the wonderful experience!