SKY SOARING:
gliding on
plumes of desert air
By Robb Murray
While
vacationing in the southwest last summer, I decided to follow my adventurous
streak and take a stationary glider ride -- a piloted ride, mind you. I
am writing this in case you have ever thought about doing the same. This is what it was like:
Upon
walking over a gravel runway to the open glider, I was put into the front of
two seats and was told I would soon be doing the flying. ("You’re talking to the wrong
passenger!" I thought.) After me,
the pilot got in and pulled a rigid fiberglass windshield over us. (You never felt any wind while aloft.)
We were
then tethered to a small plane that dragged us across the gravel . . . the
gravel was squeaking so loud and long through the flimsy glider's body that I
wondered when we would ever make it off the ground. At last we eased up into the air.
Up we
were towed to 3.000 feet. Honestly, I
couldn't look out at anything whatsoever for a while. Job One was to hold my composure and not get
airsick like the reassuring pilot kept talking about, especially during steep turns to come. The glider would push through the wavy air
and swoop from side to side, and I would look down at the instruments and
think, "Soon I will have the nerve to look around. But not now.
There's no rush".
If you
can believe it, we had no parachutes.
Just reflecting on this fact was enough to give me some pretty jaggy
adrenalin spikes.
I gradually
began to look out at the desert below, the mountains, the airport, the plane
that was towing us. I kept trying to
get slow deep breaths but they were awhile in being easy. I looked at our wing tips and gradually began
to assume some confidence in the strength of those all-too-light-and-bowing
wings.
Then the
pilot said, "OK. Break us
free." (GULP!) "Pull that knob in front of you. You will hear a snap when the cable
disengages."
"Uh. .
. . do I pull it hard or gradually?"
"It
doesn't matter. Just pull."
Now, when
I had previously gone along and done such a “breakaway-pull” on the Dare Devil
Dive ride at Great America a few years ago, I immediately thereafter
experienced the greatest terror I have ever felt in my life, before or since. I was pretty sure this wouldn’t be as bad,
but I didn't know. So I pulled. But I couldn't look.
I was
sure that we would go into a dive from that instant, despite what I had been
told in advance, But our nose didn't
even dip as it does on a released hang glider.
Instead, we started lifting even more, and actually got up above the tow
plane. I looked at the meter that showed
the rate of rise or sink, and we were going up at 200 feet a minute. This was good because I had been told that
when the glider flies in still air, it descends at 100 feet a minute. So we had some kind of good ratio going
there.
I had
asked the pilot before the flight when it was going to get really fun in the
sky. He said "when a thermal takes
us up at about 900 feet a minute." As I watched, the vertical speed meter
went to 300 . . . 400
. .
. 600 . .
. and then got over 900 feet a
minute.
And that
was indeed some real stomach-disorienting fun!
Well, you
know what they say about things that go up.
Soon we hit the edge of the thermal and began clocking on the downward
side. In about fifteen seconds we were
falling . . .
excuse me – “descending” .
. . at 600 feet a minute. But we were so far up in the sky that it
didn't matter. Yeah, you could get
bumped pretty hard on terra firma at
that rate, but we were far from earth.
So, we began
to find thermals, ride them up, then come off them and ride down the
sinks. We got up to 6000 feet, 3000
above the altitude where we had been released.
When the pilot finally told me to take over the flying, I didn't
mind. It was easy. Circle down and get lift, then pull back and
up until you start to stall. Bank to the
side with pedals and stick. Roll back
down. You want me to give you a ride
sometime? (As if!)
Finally
it was time to come in. The pilot took
over. As we approached the airfield, I
noticed that we were descending at the old familiar 600 feet per minute. I won't tell you I didn't get nervous and
wonder whether or not the pilot might be also, but obviously we made it down
fine.
Then the
sign-up guys asked me if I wanted to go on an acrobatic version of the flight,
with barrel rolls and front loops. But I
politely declined.
And
honestly, friends, I’m done. Those
were thrills enough for this boy.