Bruce Greeff writes
Just to make you jealous - look at our weather...
http://www.weathersa.co.za/glider/Ci...mages/lf14.gif
http://www.weathersa.co.za/glider/images/-2727.gif

And I'm sitting at my desk not flying.

Grrrr

Though, looking on the bright side, there are two advantages to our
English weather ...

First, even in the absence of soaring conditions, our club flies three
days a week through the winter as long as the weather is flyable. Being
an ex-MOD aerodrome, they have the advantage of a long runway which
means the winch gets us up to a respectable height.

It strikes me that this means that across the winter, the tendency for
the gliders to come down as soon as they've gone up means that I should
get lots of launches and lots of landings. As landing is the main thing
that currently freaks me out, it follows that it can only be a good
thing that I'll get a lot of practice at it!

Second is purely selfish. One of the three flying days is a Wednesday.
My office is about a mile from the airfield. One of the privileges of my
position means that I can steal off every once in a while if I want to,
so a Wednesday afternoon in the air isn't totally out of the question,
but as often as not the work schedule or other demands will mean that
the odds are most likely that I can't.

So, on a day like today when I'm desk-bound, the crappy weather means
that I don't have to stare out my office window in blatant jealousy,
watching the sailplanes thermalling overhead, thinking "It should be me
up there!"

Okay, so the second reason is more the justification of the desperate
than anything else. Maybe I should follow through on Mike's suggestion
and move to Oz. Can't pretend it isn't the first time I've considered it
g

Last thing. Thanks for all the suggestions and advice regarding my two
newbie questions. As it happens, got home last night to find that the
club's secretary had processed my membership application and my pilot's
logbook had arrived (I have a logbook! I'm almost embarrassed at how
pleased I am with that simple, trivial fact). With it came a load of
reading material, included amongst which was the BGA's Elementry Gliding
book.

So I spent the evening greedily digesting its contents. Odd thing.
Having grown up on computer games through the 80's and 90's and with a
sideline fascination with flight, I have a fairly intuitive grasp (in
theory, at least) of what the basic surface controls of an aircraft to
its attitude, what a stall entails, etc.

Aside from getting used to the weight of the stick and the effects of
motion, oh, and grappling with the co-ordination of airleons (which I
evidently cannot spell yet) and rudder, in practice the whole thing
seemed fairly simple.

As fascinating as it is to grapple with the theoretical concepts of lift
and drag when explained in terms of the pure physics (pure to an
absolute layman, at least) as in the BGA's book, I found my whole
'intuitive' grasp of the flight thing suddenly getting very muddled. And
it still feels a little woolly this morning.

Nothing that won't get rattled back into shape and perspective with more
reading and even more practice ... But it's an odd change in
perspective. I had approached the whole learning to glide thing as a
means to an end, the end obviously being solo and whatever further
opportunities getting there opened.

I'd actually forgotten the thrill and rewards that come from the
challenge of learning something so absolutely new. The only thing I can
compare it to were the first half a dozen hours of leaning to ride a
motorbike, or perhaps, before that and to a lesser extent, drive a car.
I live a fairly interesting life, so most days I have something 'new' to
grapple with. But it strikes me that in the majority of cases, the
'learning something new' is actually just the transfer and
re-application of already existing skills and knowledge. This is proving
to be quite different.

Anyway, I talk too much. For which I apologise. Put it down to the
barely contained enthusiasm of an absolute beginner. I'm sure it'll wear
off. Or at least become a little more self-contained!

--
Bill Gribble