Last January Kirstin had send me an email for a 50% off Sail Plane ride. I got the voucher and set up my ride for my birthday, hoping the weather would cooperate.
This is my glider, number one, waiting for me on the grass.
Number one being towed to the active runway.
These are my controls and instruments, very simple. It is tight quarters even for me. The stick will touch both legs and my legs are almost touching the fuselage, where the speed brakes and canopy eject are located. (Never touch the eject lever - I didn't have a parachute on.) So I don't know how a larger person can fit in, but they do. Max weight for you is 242 pounds.
Time for some last minute instructions - Never touch the eject lever.
I am raring to go. Let's get up in the air.
Close it up. I'm ready for an adventure.
Finally I start my ride down the runway.
I am airborne. You can see that I am up in the air way before the tow plane (the glider weighs only 850 pounds plus the passengers and costs about $120K The canopy costs $6K so don't pull the eject lever).
This is my view of take off, behind the tow plane.
On my way up to 5,280 feet above the ground. The blue piece of yarn you see on the canopy is a wind direction indicator and you want to keep it centered for best results.
I am about 500 feet from our target flight level, about 1000 feet above the clouds.
When we reached our flight level, I released the tow rope from the glider and the tow plane veered left to return to the airport. Remember from here on, we are on a controlled fall, but are able to stay up for hours and fly (glide) for hundreds of miles. You just need to find the thermals (under these puffy white clouds). The sun heats up freshly plowed farm fields, the hot air rises, the moisture condenses and forms clouds. At times we were climbing at the rate of 800 feet per minute. I was surprised at how quiet and smooth the ride was. Brett, it is nothing like Andrew's and your Cessna ride seven years ago. My average speed was about 55 knots (63mph) but we did get over 80 knots (93mph) at times. If you want to go faster, you push the stick forward and dive - seems illogical when you don't have a motor and you are constantly falling anyway. But it all works out in the end.
This is the Faribault Municipal Airport from one mile up.
There was another glider up in the air and we saw him about three miles away and decided to catch and join him. Took a minute to close the gap. He was a student on a solo flight so we kept our distance.
Below is I35 looking north towards Minneapolis. (obviously I am still being towed at this point - out of order).
Minneapolis in the far distance, 50 miles away. I could get my private glider pilot's license in a couple of months. Thinking about it (5 day ground school and about 35 flights, including solo and FAA ride). If you are not afraid of heights and like airplanes, then this is for you. I recommend it. I would like to do it again and next time I will wear a parachute, so that I can to loops with sides of hammerheads. Woot woot!
I actually did fly this aircraft.
Now I am back on the ground. It went too fast. Now that you all think that I was up there all by myself, I was actually with an instructor, Don. He took off and landed it but he turned over the controls once we were up. One exciting maneuver he did was a climbing left turn and then leveling out (you could really feel the G-Forces)
This is the video I took of our landing. This was super fun.
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