Day Two

Today started much like the first. I went out to the field to do an annual inspection on a private glider and to hang out with the fine folks of the Piedmont Soaring Society. When I got done with my inspection the Schweizer 2-33 just happened to be out on the flight line with no one waiting to use it. PSS has two Certified Flight Instructor’s-Glider (CFIG), Charles and Gary. Charles was the gentleman that I almost killed on my first day of learning to fly and Gary is the man that I blame for it since he gave me my first ride in a glider. That day Gary saw me and asked if I wanted to fly. My reply was somewhere along the line of “You’re damn right.”

I did the walk around and told myself that if this plane were to kill me, it would be my own fault. That’s my way of telling myself that the airplane is safe to fly. Gary and I talked for a few minutes before I climbed into the front seat mainly about my previous flying experience and my goals for the future. The main theme of my entire reply was that I didn’t want to kill my instructor or myself. After I strapped myself into the front seat and Gary did the same in the rear, we went over the pre-flight checklist. I told him that it had been several months since my last flight and I couldn’t recall the checklist from memory. He went back over it with me and had me repeat it back to him, which I did, to ensure that I had it locked into my brain, which I did. As of right now I can remember about two things on the pre-flight checklist and that’s about the extent of it. I just need to write the damn thing down one of these days.

I felt pretty good about everything (mistake number one) until Gary started telling me what I needed to do while “I” was on tow. If you read my Day One entry you know that with the flying skills at this point, I don’t do very well on tow. As a matter of fact I’m horrible on tow. Before I knew it we were underway and I was in control, as it were. I flew the entire three-thousand foot tow with a “little” help from the daredevil in the back seat. About a thousand feet into the tow Gary told me to “Just relax on the stick. You’re trying to kill it. Keep your hand loose.” After he said that I paid a little more attention to my right hand and realized that the whole thing was white. I was a few steps beyond the white knuckle stage. I eased back one baby step at a time and actually got a little bit of saliva back in my mouth. By twenty-five hundred feet I was able to keep the tow plane in my field of vision and a little twenty watt light bulb came on over my head. “I get it now” I said to myself, “If I don’t fight the airplane it will be a little easier on both of us.”

Once we were off tow and I had most of the moisture back in my mouth I felt fine. We did left and right turns, hit a few thermals and Gary gave me an abbreviated course on meteorology and cross-country flying. I’m not saying by any means that I am a proficient soaring pilot, but flying a glider is a lot easier when I don’t have to keep a tow plane in front of me. While aloft I had the same troubles that I have had on my previous flights; watch the speed, keep the nose a little bit below the horizon, keep the yaw string straight, ease up on the controls, please stop trying to kill me, etc. etc.

About an hour after take-off it was time to return to the field. Like most student pilots I wanted to stay in the air for a while longer, but gravity took over and we had to land. A calm and experienced voice from behind me guided me down and I landed. Gary had a few notes for me as we towed the glider back to the flight line, most of which I actually remember.

The best part of the day by far was when I saw Amara, my eleven year old daughter, on a take-off roll in the SGS 2-33 with Gary in the rear.

Amara had been asking me all day long if she could fly and I kept telling her “Maybe, we’ll have to see how it works out.” After my flight Gary asked me if I wanted to go again. I asked him if he had any-one waiting to go up with him and he said no. I then asked if he would mind taking Amara up and he told me that it wouldn’t be a problem. I went to my truck, grabbed Amara’s coat and handed it to her. She asked me why I was handing the coat to her and I said “Because it gets cold up at altitude”. She smiled and asked “Am I going flying?” I told her that she was and she made a B-Line to the front seat of the 2-33. I strapped her in, closed the canopy and the rest is history.

I gave her the thumbs up, she returned it and off she went. After the two of them landed I drove the tow car out to the airplane and Amara was absolutely beaming. She got to take the controls a few times and fly herself around while Gary worked the rudder pedals since she couldn’t reach them. I was a bit worried about her getting airsick but she said that she felt fine the whole time and never felt queasy. The only time she got nervous was on the take-off roll because it was really bumpy but she got over it as soon as she felt how smooth the glider was once they were airborne.

We put the gliders and tow plane to bed and said our good-byes and thank you’s. I could still see the gate in my rear view mirror when Amara turned to me and asked “Are we coming back out here next weekend?” It looks like the flying bug has bitten another victim. I just keep telling myself that there are far worse things that she could be spending her time on.

Total Time: 2.3
Total Flights: 5