Flying experience

Yes, I gained the impression that the young man had been put in a similar situation due to him completing his allotted training time.

I certainly can't match Andrew's experience but I thoroughly enjoyed my time in gliding before marriage and mortgage tempered my fun. After being hooked by a trial flight at Dunstable with the legendary John Jeffries, my training was in K13s and first solo and early soaring/cross country was in club K18s - although I didn't see them as oddities in any way! My first syndicate glider was another of Andrew's oddities (I can possibly see why as it was one of the last high performance wooden gliders with a V tail, glass fibre cockpit and geodetic construction wings - the spars only extending to the first 8 feet of the wings...but other than heavy ailerons it seemed to work very well, with the proviso that you meticulously checked that the expanding main spar joiner had done its job top and bottom).

I also bought in to a 1935 Rhonbussard, which had the odd feature that you first joined the wings and then lifted the assembly into place to rig it. Somewhat modified by a German university group, it had reduced span ailerons, airbrakes instead of spoilers and a 1 degree twist in the wings - but after fitting large trim tabs was pronounced fit for flight by Cedric Vernon of the BGA Technical Committee (that Andrew's father may have been on?) It was wonderful fun to fly and capable of decent cross country flight on a reasonable day.

I then bought a share in an ASW 20L (although I much preferred it as a 15M glider and rarely fitted the tip extensions) which got me to Gold Distance/Diamond Goal although several trips to Shobdon and the Black Mountains never produced the hoped for Gold Height - but provided some rather exciting memories of cloud descents and small fields in compensation.

I did some instructing in K13s, K21s and occasionally in a K7 and flew quite a variety of other gliders - the jewel in the crown being given the opportunity to fly the most beautifully engineered Swiss Moswey IV - the polished aluminium fittings and intricate control linkages would have delighted any model engineer!

I never moved to power flying although I have been lucky enough to get a little stick time on various Cubs, Chipmunks, a Tiger Moth, Beech Kingair and memorably, a couple of trips from Luton to Glasgow via East Midlands in the front of an Air Atlantique Dakota - with a little flying time on the way. Oh, and not forgetting a couple of hours on a Super Falke motor glider during my instructors course and the trial lesson in a Grumman Traveler which started it all...

P.S. Fancy meeting you here Mr. Duncker!

Edited By Martin Harris 9 on 21/01/2019 01:35:01

Cornish J the friends that I made while hang gliding who died did not die in hang gliders 3 were killed in microlight accidents and one in a glider.

Bob Harrison was badly hurt when his high performance paraglider clapped hands at 50 ft.

Hang gliding has a reasonably good safety record with one or two fatalities a year with about half being avoidable accidents like the guy who failed to clip in.

My life insurance premium stayed the same the caveat was that I could not fly experimental gliders.

My luck was starting to fly just when they were making gliders stronger and carrying out pitch stability testing. as high performance hang gliders ride the edge of being divergent in pitch. Also we had good instructors, a formal training scheme and the dangers of thunderstorms gust fronts and cliff edge rotors were all taught.

I just loved thr freedom of it all. The fact that you flew like superman was also part of the exileration.

Been there, done that. I had a motorbike when I was in the 6th form. I sold it when I left home after school and took up gliding, much to my mums relief as gliding was much safer in her view. Mind you my bike was a BSA Bantam, so it never got fast enough to be thrilling, just dangerous. And this was in the 1970s, so no training, I just put L plates on and wobbled off down the public roads.

Andrew

Way before i could finally afford PPL lessons I fancied gliding and went to Dunstable (late 70's I think) but I was too tall and try as they might to get me into a glider as soon as the lid went down all I could see was my own gusset. They suggested the hang gliding club on the cliff. Back then it was a few enthusiasts standing around with anemometers and if they judged the wind was right someone jumped off. Again in that era the only hang-glider that could take my weight was a double. Membership was fluid ..as in death and injury so a steady stream of secondhand gliders but none for my weight and I gave up waiting. 20 yrs later I had the income for fixed wing. That finally lapsed when I remodelled my clinic and went way, way over budget and had to cut back.

Gentlemen,

Thank you for the responces, I was still doing an engineering apprenticeship when I did my ATC gliding course and couldnt afford to take gliding up as a hobby and by the time I was 23 I got married and by 28 we had our daughter, that and the usual mortgage etc brought a halt to any further thoughts. Years later we used to go to a gliding club near home, Sudbury to watch the gliders on a Sunday and if they were short handed they would ask if I would help move the gliders around and this usually lead to a thank you flight and an aero tow.

Over the years I have never said no to a ride in an aircraft and with the ATC air experience flights and flying in Airliners etc I have managed to ride in 37 different types, my most exiting flight was flying from and back to a little farmers airfield near Nayland close to Colchester, the aircraft was a Rallye and the runway started on the top of a hill on the flat, the aircraft was taxied to the hedge and turned round, the pilot then opened the throttle full holding on the brakes then he released them and we rolled forward for a few yards when the ground dropped away and we ran down the hill and took off clearing some power lines at the bottom of the hill, he then took a ride around the area and after a while we then returned but this time we had to land going up the slope which meant as you approached the runway you were looking at the hill in front of you, when we landed the pilot then had to open the throttle to increase the revs to pull the plane up the hill to the top to park on the flat again, if you got it wrong it involved a farmers tractor to tow you up to the top.

Martin P

Apologies for a 2nd post but as the thread is "Flying experience" another, non-ATC, civil flight, later in life is remembered. Business required regular trips from MIA to Brussels and one night myself & colleague were booked to return to Manchester with SABENA (aka Same Awful Bloody Experience Never Again). The 737 had just lifted off when there was a loud bang & judder. The captain announced "some problem and we would return to Brussels after we'd flown around to dump fuel". After 20 or so minutes we made several low passes over the now closed airport with the undercarriage down. Next from the captain "Seems one of the starboard tyres on our landing gear has disintegrated on take off and we're going to do an emergency landing". As all adopted the crash position my now very stressed colleague said "how many wheels on each side does this have?" I thought it best to say 4 !
As we gingerly touched down with all the fire trucks trying to keep pace, the remaining starboard tyre blew and the aircraft slewed around. Once down the emergency 'shutes there were some very relieved passengers with no doubt reclosed anal sphincters. Apart from the uneventful replacement flight, that was the last time I'd fly with SABENA.

My Airline experience is no where near as bad but I used to fly regularly to Dublin for work and on one return trip home I boarded a delayed Friday night flight back home on a Ryanair BAC1-11, we were all aboard and the aircraft was pushed back to start the engines but they couldnt get the right hand engine to light up so an engineer appeared with a step ladder and proceeded to remove covers for a fiddle, he gave the crew a thumbs up and they tried again but they had to call for an airstart, the said truck arrived and was connected up and they got the engine running so covers back on, second engine started and we were ready to go, by this time there were several engineers stood by the right wing tip and as we went to move one of them stepped forward and in full view of all of the passengers on the right side placed one hand on the wing and with the other made the sign of the cross on his chest, I've never heard a passenger area go so quiet so quickly, we took off and returned back to Stansted with no further problems.

As an ATC Cadet we were on our summer camp at RAF Colegne and our air experience flight was from RAF Lynham aboard a Bristol Brittannia, the aircraft had come off the maintenance line so this was a check flight, we took off to fly the coast line all the way up to Prestwick and then come down the east coast we got as far Prestwick and the crew announced we were going straight back to Lynham as they had a problem, whilst they were telling us this they shut the starboard side inner engine, we arrived back to find every ambulance, fire engine and other vehicles waiting at the end of the runway for us to land and some of us noticed why as when the undercarriage and flaps were lowered gallons of oil flowed out because of a leak.

For us cadets it was such fun

Martin P