Words From Adelaide: Come, Soar With Me
...And then the magic moment: I had been keeping my hand on the dual-controlled joystick, feeling Roger's movements reacting to the sailplane, when he said, ‘Right, John, take over for a bit if you like.’ If I like? My oath! I liked...
John Powell experiences the joy of taking to the air in a sailplane.
It was not my usual sort of lazy, slow-moving morning. I jumped into the car and went on the one hour journey to Gawler, home of the Adelaide Soaring Club*, for a flight in a glider, or sailplane. The words are used synonymously; the difference is that a glider glides down while a sailplane stays up. The similarity is that neither has an engine, and so has to be towed and launched by a ‘tug’ aircraft, or by a winch on the airfield.
What struck me about the Grob 103 sailplane, in which I was going to fly, were the two wheels so close together that, when stationary, the sailplane tips over and rests with one wing on the ground; also the wide wing span of 17.5 meters helping to make the plane aerodynamically excellent. It keeps airborne by catching thermals, up-draughts of air caused by the sun heating the earth and the warm air rising to the cooler air above, or the wind, hitting a ridge or mountain, and being forced upwards.
The Piper Pawnee tug started up and moved into position. Roger Shinkfield, my pilot, made sure I was strapped in while explaining to me at the same time, the use of the seven dials on the dashboard. The canopy was closed over me.
The tug moved forward, the rope tautened and we started to move. The wheels, only a foot below me, at first caused noisy vibration from the rough ground, as we gathered speed and became airborne before the tug. It was at 3000 feet that Roger pulled a lever dropping the tow rope. We flew along with unnoticeable turbulence and the view was superb; the perspex canopy giving a wide unrestricted view. It seemed so incredible that we could fly along, turn, change direction, climb, descend, without any engines at all. The only noise was the wind blowing over the canopy, which necessitated raising my voice a little to talk with Roger, behind me.
And then the magic moment: I had been keeping my hand on the dual-controlled joystick, feeling Roger's movements reacting to the sailplane, when he said, ‘Right, John, take over for a bit if you like.’ If I like? My oath! I liked!
I soon discovered that it only required very slow and gentle movements to control the sailplane; it was mostly a matter of keeping the plane level by holding the horizon in a certain position, by moving the stick backwards to raise the nose or forwards, to lower it.
I tilted the stick to the left and watched the left wing go down; slight pressure on the left foot-bar and we started to turn left; then a slow movement on the stick to the central position, brought the wing up level… check on the horizon…Ooops! Going down a little...move the stick back, slowly, just a fraction—up comes the nose and we are level again. This is wonderful….I could stay up all day. It seemed to me that a glider really flies herself with only a mild correction here and there.
If the nose goes up too much it reduces the airflow lift over the wings, it flies slower and could stall and go into a spin. The speed to keep is at 50 knots with the nose slightly down as gravity is the motive power. The controls are as in any aircraft and the pilot can decide where he is going and go there by ‘snaking’ up and down, rising on the thermals then gliding slowly downwards, watching for thermals for the next rise. The record is a 14 hour flight of 2100 Km, while speeds of 300 Km/hour and heights of 10,000 feet are reached by expert pilots. Roger interrupts my ecstatic joy;
,
‘I'll take over again, John; do you see the rain coming over there? No good; rain on the wings hinders the lift they get.’ And he turned us quickly and expertly.
It seemed too soon that we started to descend. We came in, lower…lower…a slight bump, then we were down and the vibration came on as the two central wheels ran on the rough ground. We slowed to a stop. The left wing tilted down to rest on the ground as helping members came up and opened the canopy.
‘Well, how did you find that, John, better than sex?’
‘Well, it certainly lasts longer and the position is not nearly so ridiculous.’
I’ll be back for more. ---- Flying that is, I hasten to add.
