The First Glider Flight 1

“Are you ready?”

 

“As I’ll ever be.”

 

“Ok, give the ground operator a thumbs up.”

 

I do and he returns the gesture to tell us that nothing and no one is on the runway near us.  

 

“Just give the pilot a nice big rudder waggle.”

 

“Ok.” I say this with a shaky voice knowing that as soon as I do this there is no going back.

 

I slide down in my seat as I push the rudder pedals to the floor of the cockpit. My right foot then the left  I don’t know if anything happened till I see the tow plane do likewise to tell me they understood that we are ready for take-off.

 

I see the rope tighten before I realize the tow plane has started moving. We lurch forward and I hear the sound of the metal of the plane grinding against the concrete runway as the plane tries to resist moving forward. This sensation only lasts for a split second, and then the next thing you know we are 100 feet down the runway and about 3 feet off the ground.

 

This is probably the second most nerve racking part of the flight. This is because gliders achieve lift faster than tow planes. If the glider goes too high the rope connecting us will lift the tail of the tow plane forcing it into a fiery nose dive into the ground.

 

It’s truly an odd sensation. Knowing your mistakes could cost another their life. My instructor stays low, he knows what he is doing and he knows the two men in the cessna are trusting him to stay low. We are well aware of the risks and he still does it. He still flies. Can I take that risk? Can I discard the chance of disaster so that I can fly? Do I want to achieve my dream that badly? I Do, and I will…. Right?

 

The tow plane lifts off, I can catch my breath as it wobbles in front of us. It’s not over though. The actual flight has just begun.

 

“May I ride the controls, Sir?”

 

“Yes, just don’t put any force on them, let me fly it for this part.”

 

I nod despite the fact he is sitting behind me. I place my hand on the joystick that is in front of me and watch the three instruments in front of me. The joystick is not the same as what one would imagine, it is not some fancy fighter jet joystick, nor is it like the retro pacman controller that I found in the depths of my grandparents attic. It is a 1½ foot long metal pole that protrudes out from a small gap in the floor of the glider.

 

Yet I am not looking down at the joystick, all I need to do is feel what it’s doing. My eyes are on the tow plane in front of us. I concentrate on feeling what Marty is doing with the controls and it worries me. It seems too difficult for me. I am just a measly fourteen year old, I haven’t even started high school yet. What am I doing here? Why did I do so much to get here? Why did I let my parents pay $1,000 for this? I can’t do this. I feel my stomach twist, I feel like a let down, I feel like I let myself down and that I cheated my parents out of alot of money. I feel like I will never be more than one of a million, not one in a million. I feel like a loser.

 

Yet moments later I snap out of this self loathing. Why? Why am I quitting now? Because I'm a little scared? No, that’s a stupid reason. I know can overcome this. I will be able to fly this plane one day and when that day comes I will look back on this moment and laugh. I will be so happy that I decided to keep going, and I will never go back.

 

“What altitude are we at?” The instructor asked, interrupting my thoughts.

 

“Fifteen hundred feet, Sir.”

 

“Ok, tell me when we reach around three thousand.”

 

“Yes, Sir.”

 

The next fifteen hundred feet go by in the blink of an eye, mostly because I spent the whole time trying to pop my ears, not really thinking about the stress of learning how to fly any more.I just wanted my dad gum ears to pop.

 

“Twenty nine hundred, Sir.”

 

“Ok,  look to the right and tell me if we are clear.”

 

“Clear.”

 

“Left?”

 

“Clear.”

 

“Ok pull the release.”

 

There is a red sphere the size of a pool ball directly in front of me that has RELEASE written above it, yet I still ask for clarification before I pull it.

 

"This thing?"

 

I ask pointing to the ball.

 

“Yes, that.”

 

I could hear a little impatience in his voice as he said this but I pulled it anyway. There was a loud pop, and then a cling, and then it felt like we had just passed through a spot of air-molasses. I am  not ashamed to say that I jumped a bit at the noise and jerk of the release. It was a rather violent and loud occurance. The nose of the plane started to tip forward and our speed picked up a bit. Yet not the same speed as before we released.

 

“Turn left! Don’t run into the tow plane!”
The instructor tells me from the back. It would have been nice to know he was handing over the controls. I am in control of the plane right now. I’m not scared. If you have ever flown a plane, then you know it wants to fly itself. It should be smooth flying till we get down to 1,000 feet.