Mike Bellomo. 2006

Peter, you asked me to write a few paragraphs on my gliding experience the other day.

I guess it started out a good flight.. until we were about 2500 feet, when we (actually, Les did the deciding) decided that we had better continue upward until 3500 feet. We released, and he had me head for a cloud directly behind us to try soaring. Although this shouldn’t have been a difficult task... Flying with all the turbulence was quite hard. When we finally got just underneath the NW side of the cloud, there wasn’t any lift. So we tried another cloud a bit closer towards the airfield (we were drifting kind of far from the place). Once we reached the underside of the cloud, we flew over a few weak spots of lift. but not much. Then the variometer shot up as we flew over the plant a little south (East?) of the airfield. Catching the lift off of that we reached 3000 feet again, thanks to Les’ expertise in sharp turns.

I think after that he was showing me how to do the circuit for landing. Then that’s when we hit the rotor... in any case we lost all trace of lift and started plummeting towards the ground, and ill tell you, it really makes you feel the weight of the glider beneath you. So les took control and banked into the nearest strip on the left of us, but first warned me that we might be landing in the paddock straight ahead of us. But I guess all in all he somehow managed to scramble into the strip, and after a tricky landing during which I think both of us were pretty freaked out... most likely me more than him, we made it safely onto the airfield.

Still quite windy on the ground, he had me stay in the glider until you towed us down to the other end of the runway. When we go there, it was interesting, when he faced the glider into the wind, he had me balance the glider without the wings touching the ground. It worked fairly well until the wind finally died down just enough for the support for the wings to disappear.

Mike Bellomo.  2006