My Flying

During the drive to the airfield I was admiring all those pretty Cumulus clouds and they were looking oh so good, showing lots of promise for the day ahead. Unfortunately the member turn out at the club was low, but still just enough to get us airborne.
The instructor gave one of the new students a quick flight before they hurriedly had to return to earth due to "motion" reasons.

I then hopped aboard and the instructor asks, do I think you're up for a trip to Cockscomb (and back). Now Cockscomb is a mountain some distance (60km) with little or no out-landing possibilities. The only safe place to land is a small airstrip, on a member's farm, about 50 km away. So off we go. We thermalled to 4000 feet and then headed off in a North Westerly direction. We managed to climb up to 7000 feet before having to turn back as the lift was getting thin. To say I learnt a ton during that 1.5 hour flight would be an understatement. One thing I most definitely did learn is that I really have a huge amount still to learn. A huge amount.

We return with almost 3000 feet to spare and lost some of that trying very hard to get the aeroplane to spin, the best we could manage was about a 270º incipient spin. Really enjoyed it.

On our return the instructor informs me that it is time to go solo. Not my first solo in an aeroplane, but my first in a glider. So I'm strapping myself in and I ask if he just wants a circuit. "Sure", he says, "but if you find some lift feel free to explore it". "No", I reply, "just a circuit is fine for me." So off I go. At the end of the launch I release at 1300 ft and soon find myself gently gliding through some lift. As I had all that height I say to myself, "ok, just one orbit." Then, "just one more." Eventually 15 minutes later I'm still up there and need to remind myself that I need to get my first solo gilder landing behind me. I pull off lots of tight turns to loose altitude, start the circuit at 900 ft and land just where instructed to. Damn, I was chuffed with myself.

View the photos here.

So that's a dual cross country and a solo in one day at 240,00ZAR. Not bad hey!