The club’s K-13 two-seat glider.
Gliding is going well. On Wednesday I flew an older glider, the Schleicher K-13 with the Chief Flying Instructor and practised some spinning and steep turns. He was satisfied with my flying and said I was OK to go solo that day. I had a couple of solo flights which were great fun, although it was a bit of a grey cloudy day and there wasn’t a lot of lift about.
There was a gusty crosswind so it was good experience in the difficult bit – the circuit and landing. The K-13 is a wood and fabric aircraft with a metal tube fuselage which first flew more than 45 years ago. I flew one at the Long Mynd in England in 1970.
A guy who was having a joyflight in another glider took a photo of my as I was circling in the same thermal over Camden town. It’s an iPhone photo, so I’m the little dot in the top left corner!
- Thermalling above Camden in the K-13
A few more flights and an oral exam on rules of the air and other regulations and I should be able to solo without being checked by instructors.
They are a good bunch of blokes at the gliding club. The midweek flyers tend to be retired and a bit old, like me! One member helping out I was told had seen the Hindenberg airship flying when he was a lad in the Netherlands before World War II.
