Fresh from a great Easter Course, but still no solo's yet, Steve and Chris sneak back to the Soaring Centre (oh, didn't we tell the rest of you? Oops, sorry!) with the intention of finally cracking this flying lark.

Four people from Coventry Uni are having their gliding week, so we wander into the briefing room to announce our presence. Mick, the Instructor, asks us what we want to do. ''Solo!'' Chris and myself immediately cry.

Before long we are unpacking the hangar yet again, eager to return to the skies. Unfortunately, despite the gorgeous weather which the Cov people were enjoying immensely, we both try our utmost to keep out of the blue stuff. Chris spends the day breaking cables and never manages to reach more than 400 ft, whereas I take every opportunity to spin, spiral dive and stall my way back to the ground. It's all good fun, but not what we really want to do!

In the evening, we all go down to the pub for a meal (and a few drinks, of course) before heading back to the club house and discussing the finer points of table traversing with the sweet and innocent Coventry lot.

Day two, morning, and the weather is looking great again. Is this really April? Anyway, out come the gliders for soaring (Cov) or plummeting out of the sky (us) again. Rory, our instructor, decides to be very evil and tells the winch driver to cut the power on my launch, without bothering to let me know. An oversight, I'm sure? And then we try a high speed stall with yaw, which flips the glider on it's back. Rory enjoys those. So do I!

Chris does much the same, progressing ever closer to that fateful moment we both want so much. A moment which, I'm happy to say, finally comes when Rory says to me ''Ok, you don't need me anymore!'' Gulp. I guess this is it.

Delirious with excitement, I complete the pre-flight checks, close the canopy and have the cable attached. Up slack! Then something goes wrong with the winch, launch aborted! Argh! Try again.

This time, everything goes smoothly. Pull off from the winch, fly around. Wheee! This is fun! Glider feels light though... oh yeah, nobody in the back. Wheee!

After landing in one piece, and on the right field, up I go again for a brilliant 25 mins off the winch. A and B badges completed on the same day! Result!

Onto the final day, and for all my good luck Chris has an equal amount of bad. After my one solo flight of the day, the winch suffers a breakdown (which, before you ask, is coincidental and entirely unrelated to my dodgy launches) which means neither of us can solo from then on. Despite that, we enjoy some aerotowing on a busy club day, the highlight for me being formation flying with a recently renovated 1960's Dart.

Update:

Just over a week later, Chris returns to the Club to have another attempt, and his tenacity is rewarded with a solo flight on the 16th April 2003!

Mission Accomplished.

Photos

-Steve