started to drop off. Suddenly the whole glider

pitched forward, there was a huge noise of

wind rush and from the front seat I had an

excellent view of the ground rushing towards

us! As calm and smooth as you like, Guy

pulled us out of the dive, and peace and quiet

returned to the cockpit. That was a hair-raising,

rollercoaster stunt that had made me feel I was

going to throw up – not the sort of thing you

want to repeat in a hurry, except that I did. Of

course I wanted to do it again. Diving towards

the ground like that was a fantastic feeling –

raw speed and a real element of danger – but

ultimately you are in control and if you do

everything right you come out of it unscathed.

It doesn’t get much better than that, does it?

Then Guy told me it was my turn to try a stall,

and I almost changed my mind. You can’t back

down from a challenge, though, can you? So

I took the controls and pulled the nose up.

Actually, I pulled the nose up a bit sharpish

and we stalled even more spectacularly,

dropping into the dive far more suddenly than

I expected, but I followed Guy’s instructions

and we gently pulled out.

From the moment a glider is release by its tow

plane, it starts to lose height, unless the pilot

can use an area of warm rising air, a thermal, to

soar upwards. Generally, once you are down to

around 800 feet (250 metres) it’s time to land.

Guy, however, is one of only a handful of glider

pilots skilled enough to be allowed to ‘buzz’ the

runway at a height of only five feet (1.5 metres)

and a speed of up to 130 mph. I couldn’t stop

grinning. I had never been that fast, that close

to the ground, without an engine, and walked

away with no broken bones!

Having picked up so much speed diving

towards the runway, Guy was able to climb

away from the runway in a banking turn

and then bring us in for a proper landing.

Back on the ground, he was actually very

complimentary about my flying, telling the

rest of our crew that I had ‘fantastic hand-eye

co-ordination’ and that I had ‘picked up

everything really quickly, demonstrating that

he could keep the aircraft under control’.

I was chuffed with Guy’s assessment, but flying

the glider had raised a few concerns about

taking control of an HPA. In the glider I was

able to control it using my hands and feet while

sitting comfortably strapped into a seat. I was

able to see all around me, keep my eye on the

horizon and even look at the instruments to

check that I was flying straight and level while

we were sailing around the sky.

From what I had seen of HPAs up to that point,

my feet would be on bicycle pedals, not rudder

pedals, and checking the horizon and operating

aircraft controls wasn’t going to be easy while

pedalling like billy-o. I guess that’s why more

people have been to the moon than have

flown HPAs.

Above: The glider’s
controls were quite
sensitive, but once I
started to get the hang of
things I was having a ball!

Following page: The view

from the cockpit was out

of this world.

COME FLY WITH ME   91