The Chronicles of Travelling Steve

Friday, June 01, 2007

Soaring

We were over at our friends Kim & Ryan's place for dinner on a Friday night and somewhere along the way Ryan asked if I wanted to go flying the next day. He'd recently joined the Edmonton Soaring Club and was going out for some instructional flights. They had offers for what are called "fam flights" which is basically a joy ride where a qualified pilot takes you up in the glider for a flight for about half an hour. Having grown up devouring Biggles and always being interested in planes and flight I jumped on the chance and went out to the aerodrome at Chipman the next day.


My first glider flight

All it took was 30 minutes soaring above the prairies in the brilliant spring sunshine, twisting around trying to find thermals, silently swooping above the farms for me to be completely and utterly hooked. There was a really good atmosphere out at the club, everyone pitching in helping the planes get ready to be towed up, people noting down the times that people took off and landed and a general happiness to be outside enjoying the weather but more importantly to be experiencing it first hand up in the air. By the end of the day I knew I wasn't going to be playing much golf that summer and a week later I was a member of the club and taking my first baby steps towards becoming a glider pilot myself.


The view out the front of the cockpit on tow. That's the towplane, a Pawnee Piper

There are a few photos from the 2007 season up on Flickr, hopefully I'll be getting a lot more next season along with a chance to go solo and eventually get my own license to fly!