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Gliderman
Today was the second day of glider training and I had been running drills and practice sessions in my head all week. I finally got the chance to ask some of the questions that had developed in my brain over the past week. Again it was another perfectly serene day, the windsock hung straight down.

My first flight was pretty shaky...the controls just hadn't come back to me yet and I was too tense. Gliding is one of those things that you do better when you are relaxed. Me relaxed...I'll have to work at it. The second flight was much better and I felt significantly more comfortable putting the glider through the turns. I am also not leaning against the turns nearly so much as before. I feel like I am starting to get the hang of this...a little bit. Practiced lining up the glider alongside the runway for the approach glide path. Not too bad, still need to work on that yawing left and right though. I have this tendency to over-correct with the glider.

The Third flight was great. I felt a lot more confident in the turning radius of the glider and didn't pull the nose up so often on this flight. It went fast since I was staying fairly nose down, but it was even more enjoyable this way instead of that feeling as though I was constantly fighting the nose heavy glider by pulling back on the stick so much. Got to feel the glider start to shudder just as we reached a stall point. Interesting to see what it is like, but you don't really want to feel that when you are gliding. I brought it the farthest along the approach glide path of any flight yet and on this one it just clicked. There was one perfect moment there where I was relaxed, the glider was perfectly smooth in flight and the only sound was the whoosh of the air. It was truly beautiful. Of course that changes quickly and with a tight left turn we are on the runway and skidding down the asphalt.

I think I got into the good graces of the flight instructor today not only with the fact that I did much better in the cockpit, but that I was the only one to notice and mention just as we were about to takeoff on the second flight that his beloved old dog was wandering between us and the towplane on the runway...whew...that could have been really bad. Uh...Joe...Gumby is on the runway! Luckily any disaster was averted. Joe couldn't even see him with my fat head in the front seat and Gumby was right in the blind spot for the tow plane pilot.

I am going to be ground crew on Thursdays which will give me the opportunity to see some of the other gliders in action and get me some free flight time...too sweet...because I could see wanting some more flight time. When I asked if they ever took a glider apart and reassembled it if I could help out or watch, I thought they were going to come right out of their clothes. "REALLY" Hell, we got this one big heavy job that we need to do that with and nobody wants to do it, but hey, you're big, you'll be great." Hmmm...maybe I should learn to keep my mouth shut a bit longer.

Finally learned all the models of the gliders there (something like a dozen of them). There's even a couple of really nice looking sport gliders that are single seaters. Hmmm...maybe I'll get to go in one of those after I get certified. Pretty fast and I hear they have great performance characteristics. Met the owner of one of them and we hit it off big time after a discussion of the Delta Unisaw being the best tablesaw on the market. All right, a fellow woodworker to boot.

While standing around afterward helping out, a weird wave of awe came over me. There I was staring up at the clouds and realizing that, "damn", just a short while before 'I' was 'up' there flying a glider. There have been things like flying that I have said I would learn to do ever since I was a little kid and it always seemed like something that would ALWAYS be later, but holy cow..."I am actually doing this!" Somehow it just seemed very surreal.

Still wearing a grin on my face that I think was permanently affixed when I hopped into the cockpit, I head back to Salem to pack up for our weekend of camping at the coast...God, I Love Oregon!