I went for my first soaring flights today and the only reason my head is not in the clouds is because there were not any clouds. Gene, one of the instructors as the Silver Creek Glider Club, took me up in this Schweizer 2-33.
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.
