I owe it all to the Silver Creek Glider Club and the good folks there.

You have to hear it to believe the noise a pumpkin makes when it hits the ground after falling 1,000 feet. Twenty-two intrepid bombardiers let fly a veritable hailstorm of gourds (“pumpkin sized” hail?) on the inanimate target, alliteratively quaking in its boots, though it lacked boots, feet, and even legs. For three hours the skies echoed the silent swish of the Schweizer 2-33A glider, making attack run after attack run on the drop zone.

When all was said and done, when the terrible destructive forces had run their courses (which would all be downward, since none of the pumpkins had been equipped with either engines or guidance fins), when the tow plane’s engine sputtered anthropomorphically into relieved quietude, it turned out that, again this year as in most years past, the safest place to stand would have been directly on top of the target.

That’s me in the 2-33 taking my “best shot.” Click the picture to see more photos of the grand event, including an exquisite shot of our custom ordnance.

On a more serious note, I also took “Kermit” up for a flight. Kermit is a Schweizer 1-26 single seat glider and much more responsive and fun to fly that the 2-33. I realized as I was strapping in for my first take-off that this was the first time I had ever flown a single seat airplane.

See how serious that was? Did you ever think you would see a lime green airplane?

After releasing from the tow plane, I noodled around looking for lift under clouds until I was down to 2,400 feet. That had me kind of depressed because, although I expected the sled ride, I had hoped for better. Then bump went the glider and I circled around and managed to actually stay near enough to the center of a thermal that I got back up to 3,000 feet.

With new confidence, I headed northeast a bit more, toward the town of New Douglas and a larger, grey-er cumulus cloud. Son of a gun, it had lots of lift! I circled under that one until I saw another club glider higher than me at the next cloud south. Not being as dumb as I look, I headed for his thermal (thanks, Gene!). Between those two thermals, I was able to climb up to 5,000 AGL!

After an hour in the air, I flew back to the gliderport so someone else could have a chance with the plane. And ever since, I’ve been grinning like a fool.

Indeed, I did not find any more significant lift (bits of teasers here and there) but I did enjoy the view on a partly sunny afternoon after a cold front swept through. The approach and landing were good. (That’s pilot speak for: “Both the airplane and the pilot were still in serviceable condition after landing.”)

The thrill felt the same as when I first soloed an airplane, Cessna 152 N5317P at Long Beach Airport in 1986.

Today’s weather is for even better soaring conditions. Gee… I think I’ll have to head back out to the gliderport.

Gene handled the take-off and then let me [try to] follow the tow plane. At 3,000 AGL, Gene released the rope and it was back to me to try to fly the plane in some semblance of coordinated flight. Since most of my flying has been in Piper Cherokees, I had pretty much forgotten what the rudder pedals were for. I got to learn again today. Gene also demonstrated stalls (slow, fast, and “Six Flags” [anything you can do at Six Flags, we can do up here, he told me as he dropped the nose to pick up a bit of airspeed and then hauled back on the stick into a climbing stall]), steep turns, and a nice slip to landing. A scant 0.3 hours after take-off, we were back on the ground.

We hooked up to the tow plane without even getting out of the glider

and this time I got to mangle handle the take-off. Once again, those silly rudder pedals kept demanding my attention. Fortunately, tow pilot Bob took it well and towed us up to 3,000 AGL again. Everything that I had read led me to expect another quick glide back to earth. Instead, we found lots of lift and I was actually able to capture several thermals, stay in them (occasionally), and even urged the ship up to 4,000 AGL. I know that I was ham-fisted on the controls and had the plane’s attitude wandering all over the place, but I was pretty pleased with myself and with the length of the flight. After 1.6 hours, I landed because I was hot, sweaty, and tired, not because we had run out of lift and altitude.

Yup, you guessed it. I’m psyched and ready to go again.