Winter Gliding

The rain had stopped earlier in the day, but it left a solid cloud deck at about 1000 feet. The tow pilot and ride pilot were sitting in front of the heater, swapping lies when a paying customer walked in! How much for one of them glider rides, he asked? The owner knew it wasn’t wise to attempt flight under the existing weather conditions, but turning down a paying customer in the dead of winter was hard to do. Fifty bucks and we’ll give it our best shot. On the ride out to the 2-32 in the golf cart, the pilots agreed they’d back off on the power below cloud ceiling and give the customer about a 10 minute flight. They towed from the intersection on 30, but shortly after passing the end of the runway, both ships disappeared into the clouds..........still on tow!

The ride pilot released immediately and turned left to get some separation from the Pawnee, then waited for the ground to reappear, hoping the wings would be more or less level when they became VFR, again! As they exited the cloud, the wings were level, but they were headed straight for the rotating beacon tower! Another left turn avoided hitting the tower and put them more or less lined up to land back on the ramp. Touched down and rolled up to the intersection they had departed from, not more than :02 minutes ago!

The customer was white as a ghost and had large wet spot in his trousers as the owner cheerfully asked, “ would you like to go, again�? Speechless, he only shook his head and ran for his car!

🤑JJ