The gliding is moving along nicely. I now have my ‘B’ certificate (which doesn’t mean a lot), and I’m almost at my ‘C’, which means I can go cross-country.
My check flight for the ‘B’ involved flying the glider with the airspeed and altitude dials covered up to make sure I could rely on my own judgment rather than staring at the instruments.
- In the Junior over Camden on a blue day.
It wasn’t too difficult until I entered the circuit at what I thought was about the right height (which it was). Then the instructor opened the airbrakes on the downwind leg to make the glider lose height and I thought: “Oh, I must be a bit high and he’s helping me.”
Silly me! He was simulating flying through sinking air and kept the brakes out until we were too low for a normal circuit. Once I twigged what was happening, I turned in towards the grass runway early before we ran out of height, and we landed in the middle of the strip. That was just the right thing to do so I passed that test ok.
Then I flew the single-seat Junior and stayed up for two hours and 12 minutes, a personal best. There was still lots of lift around under lovely puffy cumulus clouds, but I came down because my bum was getting a bit numb!
Yesterday wasn’t a good soaring day, 30 degrees, blue skies,but no thermals – still a very pleasant way to fly.
