Back to gliding after 10 years break

It’s been almost ten years since I last sat in a glider cockpit. Ten years since I felt that unmistakable moment when the winch cable releases and you realise that you are on your own, no engine, powered by the atmosphere and your own skills.

Why I started

I always wanted to give flying a try, but unfortunaltely when I was a teenager gliding moved from being subsidised by the government to free market where the prospective pilots had to pay for the training. Early in the 90s I was poor as a mouse and there was no way I would be able to afford the training.

Years later, when I finally managed to go solo, I realised that all I needed at the time was one flight and I would find the way to pay for flying. Even if I had to rob the bank :-)

The way I started was that I went to Tayside Aviation in Dundee to get a powered flight first. I figured it would make sense to find out how would I cope with small spaces and with height.

I always had a fear of height, yet, for reasons unknown to me, I turned out to be just fine in the cockpit. And this later on included 2200ft no-parachute flight in Slingsby T31 Tandem Tutor.

Why I stopped

Life got in the way, as it does. My son was born, and I decided to make sure he has memories of me on one hand, on the other hand, as any new parent would tell you, there is plenty of work raising kids, specially on top of the full time employment.

Also, the way I felt about the gliding at the time, and the fact that I was pretty current in my local flying, I wouldn’t feel safe flying once a month or two. It would be endlessly chasing the instructors for a check flight before I could on my own. I decided to come back only when I could fly on my own terms.

What brought me back

I always had this master plan at the back of my head that one day I will try to come back. I just wanted to be sure it’s on my terms: have a flight at least once a week.

I remember the feeling of being current and it felt so good. You don’t need to glance at the instruments because you can feel it much quicker with your body. Some of you will know which part of the pilot’s body I am referring to. :-)

The first day back

Going to bed at night the night before was difficult. I was just too excited to sleep. I kept waking up in the middle of the night and checking the time. I was counting the hours until the morning.

I didn’t pick up particularly good day for a first flight back. It was windy, plenty of gust, but I just didn’t want to wait anymore. I wanted to get it over with. I really wanted to find out how it feels to be back in the air. What I called “would I shit my pants test”. :-)

More importantly, I wanted to see how rusty I am. How much I have forgotten. How much I have to relearn. How far I would be from solo standard.

I asked my old instructor David Coats if he could take me up for a flight. He was happy to help and I did what we call Friends and Family flight. Since I wasn’t a club member at the time, that was the only way to comply with the club rules.

Walking onto the airfield again was like going back home. Familiar place, familiar smells, familiar sounds. Even people, just 10 years wiser.

We took a temporary possession of ASK-21 LOV glider, put it in the queue and waited for our turn to winch launch. I had a chance to remind myself the pre-takeoff checklist, which turned out to change from CB-SIFT-CBE to CB-SIFT-BEC, caused likely by a few broken canopies.

David was patient with me. He did the launch, then I took over controls and tested myself if I can still soar at the Bishop Hills. My hands remembered things my brain had forgotten, but I wasn’t as precise as I used to be. Gust also didn’t help. It was a bit of a challenge to keep the speed under control even with a trim.

After 20 minutes David took over again to land the glider. I verbally walked though what I still remembered about planing the circuit, although I forgot the pre-landing checks. Back when I was flying they were about to be introduced. WULF still feels like applicable only in certain scenarios, but that’s for another time.

And here it is: my first entry in the flight log after 10 years!

What’s different now

I managed to get a few flights.

The club has new gliders. GPS loggers are standard now. People talk about FLARM and transponder requirements. The theory syllabus has changed. But the fundamentals are exactly the same: read the sky, find the lift, manage your energy, make good decisions.

I’m effectively starting my retraining to get back to solo standard. Some of it will come back quickly. Some of it I’ll need to relearn from scratch. I’m looking forward to documenting the process here.

What this blog is about

This blog — No Engine Required — is where I’ll write about the journey back into gliding. The flights, the theory revision, the things I get right and the things I get wrong. Maybe some thoughts on what makes gliding such a uniquely satisfying way to fly.

If you’re a pilot, a lapsed pilot thinking about coming back, or just curious about what it’s like to fly without an engine, I hope you’ll find something here worth reading.

The sky hasn’t changed. Time to go back up.