Learning to fly. (The idiots way)
(Warning, all the events in this article
took place in the
Ok, I’ll admit it,
the reason I wanted to learn to fly was I thought it would help me attract
women. Now there are quite a few of you, all men, who are wishing I hadn’t said
that. But let’s face it guys, which of you hasn’t pictured yourself in a bar,
talking to a pretty young woman, and saying; “yeah, well, life to me is all about the beauty of free flight, surfing
the wind, seeing life as an eagle does.”
Which roughly translates as; “any chance of me having your phone number?”
So I signed up with a school. I was quite
fortunate in this, as a very nice young chap by the name of Innes Powell had
just opened a school on
I turned up early and waited. And waited. And waited. After a
while a tatty red van with paragliding stickers all over it turned up, and out
jumped a short, stocky, jolly looking chap. “You
Taff?”, he asked. “Yep, that’s me.”
“Oh, ok, you’re on the wrong side of the hill that’s
all, we’re all on the other side, waiting for you.”
A good start.
So I followed the van to the other side of the hill and joined the rest of the group. Innes introduced me to the group as “our new navigation expert.” First things first, Innes gave me a wodge of forms to fill in, all of which seemed to indicate that I was from here on in totally responsible for any and all the school’s equipment, up to and including the school’s van, and possibly Innes’ TV. However they also stated that, should any accident befall me while I was training, then that was totally my own fault and I shouldn’t even think about blaming anyone else. Which seemed fair to me.
Innes then smilingly relieved me of a large cheque.
At this point the wind picked up, the rain poured down so we packed up and promised to meet at the same spot the next day.
The next day was sunny and bright. We met at the car park at Cox Tor, the right one this time, and Innes gave us a brief introductory talk on what we would be doing today. He also introduced us to Pete, a trainee instructor, who would be helping out on our course.
Innes called us one by one to the van, asked us roughly what we weighed, and gave us a set of equipment each. Some of the guys had already bought gliders off Innes, and were proudly toting these about.
Lugging the equipment up the hill, we stopped at a flatish area. There we learned the basics of the glider and harness systems, unpacking the gliders and rolling them out for the safety checks. Innes then demonstrated putting the harness on, and all the correct ways of ensuring we were safe while doing this. This may sound pretty bloody obvious stuff, but it’s amazing how much benefit can be gained from having safe routines drilled into you from the start. Don’t skimp on it.
Innes then taught us about building a wall, and we learned that we were now in control of a powerful beast. I learned this by being dragged through several large cowpats and a patch of stinging nettles.
We progressed. Innes found my ability to put on a harness upside down and to be able to strap my arms through the leg loops fascinating, if not very amusing. He also found that I had an amazing sense of balance. Amazingly bad that is.
Then we moved on to ground-handling. Ground-handling is very aptly named, as I spent most of my time being dragged along the ground. I could see Innes frequently totting up the extras I was going to be charged. The only thing that stopped me being severely embarrassed by this was that most of the others were doing the same. Oh, and the guys who had bought their gliders were now trashing their very clean looking bits of kit. I did try not to look as if I was enjoying that too much.
Eventually, after collecting a rainbow of
bruises, and once flying backwards, up the hill with Innes and Pete in hot
pursuit, it was nearly time to go home. Innes had one of his “looks” in his
eye. “Ok, who want’s to do a short hop?”
Everyone put their hand up, so I did too, eventually. We strolled another forty
or more metres up the hill. Innes got us to do the front launch we’d been
practicing, and, as he delicately put it; “run
like all buggery down the hill”. Pete stood at the bottom with two table
tennis bats, to show us what to do with our hands, although as Innes said
later; “Taff, did you think Pete was
swatting a wasp?”
So we did it, and for one brief but never to be forgotten moment, I was flying for the first time. Skimming about ten foot off the ground, I flew for all of twenty metres. I was hooked.
One poor soul had to endure this conversation;
Innes; “So then Mike, what do you think you did wrong there?”
Mike; “I jumped in the air to try to get off the ground.”
Innes: “And
what happens when we jump in the air when trying to take off?”
Mike; “The weight comes off the glider and it doesn’t inflate.”
Innes; “That’s correct. But the answer I was actually looking for was, “we fall flat on our faces in a pile of cow manure and look a complete idiot in front of our fellow pupils.””
Mike never, ever, again tried to leap into the air while taking off.
Over the next few weekends, I got used to hearing Innes say;
“Tomorrow it’s going to be too windy/not windy enough/too wet/too wet and windy/too wet, windy and cold/not windy and too wet/snow forecast/I’m going to a comp,” etc.
But the good weekends did come, and our flights down the hill got longer, and we started doing some turns, and getting to control the glider more. Our only accident in the group occurred at this time. Innes on the radio; “Ok, Joe steer away from the rocks, steer away from the rocks, steer away from the rocks, left hand down, left hand down, left ha....Can someone ring an ambulance?” Fortunately one of our group was a doctor and was able to give first aid at the spot. The pilot involved was notorious for not listening to instructions, and too cocky by half, we all learned a lot from his mistake.
By now of course I was absolutely obsessed with paragliding. Just to show how bad this had got, I was at work one day, and one of my colleagues told me; “if you mention the words “flying,” “wind” or “Dartmoor” once more today, I will kill you.” Fine words coming from a nurse.
In fact my work colleagues had started a sweep on which part of my anatomy I would injure next, with bonus points for the more ludicrous ways I got them. I think the winner predicted that I would manage to bruise my buttocks in some spectacularly stupid way. I did. I fell down Sourton Tor while totally unattached to my glider. They thought that even I couldn’t beat being so inept as to be able to injure myself before the gliders had even been unpacked for the day, so they gave him the prize.
So we’d now started soaring properly, I
used to dream of Friday nights weather forecast stating “dry and warm, with light north-westerly winds,” as this meant Corn
Ridge, the best local soaring site, would be on! But if that actually turned
out to be the forecast then I’d get all anxious, as by Saturday morning the
forecast would inevitably have changed to; “cold
and wet, with strong to gale-force south-easterly winds.”
Ok, so I’m out at Corn Ridge, and soaring back and fore on the ridge. By now I was so good at this lark I could get my harness on in one go without falling over, launch without eating grass, and Innes had even stopped telling me; “left hand down. No Taff, that’s not your left, the other one is the left,” over the radio. I was quite pleased with myself.
Then it happened.
“Taff,
fly out from the hill. That’s it, now turn, keep turning, keep
turning...” “Funny,” I thought, “I seem to be going up?” My first
thermal! I hung into it until Innes told me to fly out, and then I looked down
to find my way back to the hill. Gawd I was a long way up! I flew on down,
noticing the beauty of the view way out over the moors. I was almost back to
the top of the hill, when I noticed the glider react, “Turn again you soft Welsh sod, you’ve got another one!” I think
Innes was a bit envious at that point, thermals on
When I landed, Innes came over and gave me a hearty slap on the back, grinning a worrying looking smile. “You weigh about 85 kilo’s don’t you Taff? It’s just that I’ve just had this rather sweet little glider brought in, in part exchange for a new one, I could do you a deal,” he said all innocently.
Monday morning saw me expertly and intensely lying to my bank manager as to the reason I needed an overdraft. (I work in mental health, and mental health work is all about sincerity. Once you can fake that, you’ve got it made.)
Then came the final written exam for my pilots licence. I’d spent so much time swatting up for it, my mind was ablaze with useful information, but also a load of extraneous useless information I’d memorised “just in case”. I flew through it, not a problem.
Only at the end of it Innes said, “well you’ve all passed, apart from Taff.”
I nearly wept. Then he says; “I’ll leave it to the group to decide though
if I should allow the daft Welsh git the chance to redeem himself. Who thinks I
should let Taff have the second chance to WRITE HIS BLOODY
I was now a club pilot!
Of course reading this you may think that training is a complete pain, both emotionally and physically. You may think it’s nothing but a hardship, you may think it’s all expense.
And you’d be wrong.
I haven’t told you about my first top landing, where I touched delicately down at the back of the take-off zone, walked my still inflated glider to the front, waited for two minutes while holding it steady above my head, and took off in a smooth and controlled manner. It was so good that Innes didn’t bother taking the mickey out of me for the rest of the day. (Please don’t ask about my second and third top landings though.)
I haven’t told you about the many, many, days spent with good fun people, all enjoying the hill, the countryside, the learning, the flying, the banter.
And most of all I haven’t told you about the wonder of each new learning experience, the rewarding feeling of mastering of a new skill, the incredible life affirming joy of each new flight, the satisfaction of the whole experience.
Of course, once you have qualified, things only get more life changing. Be warned, you may never be the same again. (Mind you, I wasn’t the same before.)
Dedicated with great respect to Innes
Powell of