Flying days



This plane was totalled in a hard landing

  One of the things I always wanted to do growing up was learn to fly sailplanes. Some people call these aircraft 'gliders' but they are really sailplanes. A glider can not stay aloft on its own and will only loose altitude. The space shuttle was an example of a glider. When returning from space it was landing and that was all it could do. A sailplane can use different types of air conditions to remain aloft and gain altitude. Sailplanes can fly as long as the pilot can endure it. There have been records set with pilots flying for more than 24 hours, but you have to sleep and eat and other things, so the endurance of the pilot is the limiting factor.


A 1-26, the type of plane I flew most of the time

  When you learn to fly, you fly training aircraft first, two seaters. After you are signed off to solo, you can move to a single seater. Once I received my solo certificate, I started to fly the 1-26. This plane is 20 feet long, about 3 feet wide and has a 40 foot wing span. It weights about 350 pounds and can carry a pilot up to 230 pounds. It is small, I just fit in it, my head was almost on the canopy and there was little leg room. It was almost to small. But this plane was a great plane to fly, lots of fun, aerobatic and just a joy to fly.


What it is like to fly a single seat

 One of the more interesting places to fly is at Torry Pines California in San Diego. This stretch of beach has a 300 foot near vertical cliff which generates a good lift when the wind is blowing. The view is great, you can fly out over the ocean and do 'beach runs', drop down and skim the water at 100 mph. The only thing is that the launch is tricky as is the landing. I saw a couple of accidents on take off and landing here. But it is worth the risk, it isn't that much of a risk over other locations. The one bad thing is that Torry will no longer be a flying sight, the University has built several buildings that restrict flying at the location, so the sight is basically closed. This is a historic location for flight, Lindbergh flew from the strip and many sailplane records were set there as well.

I haven't flown in a while, but I remember those days of flying at the base of clouds, doing stalls and skimming the edge of a mountain side. I would like to do it again.