The gliding club at the university of Warwick had a couple of spare places on one of their week-long courses, and so me and a couple of friends jumped at the opportunity. I have never flown anything before, and only seen gliders a few times before in my life, so I was a complete novice.
We arrived late at night on the Sunday and ate pizza which we had bought along the way. Our accommodation was quite small, but clean and cosy.

We were up early on the Monday morning, and were given a short briefing before going out onto the airfield. We got the gliders out of the hangers, and went though the daily inspection routine. There had been quite a lot of rain, and so the field was very wet, making winch launches hard. The 8mm steel winch cables rub along the ground until the glider is in the air, and they take gauges our of of the field if it is wet. We got a few flights in after we were aero-toed up to around 2000 feet. Initially, the instructor does everything and they encouraged us to follow through on the controls, but once stable and happy, they gave us control and told us what to do.
Like driving for the first time, there is a lot of things to do, lots of things to watch and coordinated movements needed, which of course were not forthcoming in the first few flights. Flight simulators and flying games on the computer might give some help, but when you are up in the air you can’t press ‘esc’ and restart. There is however the big red ‘eject’ lever and the parachute strapped to your back which I’d really rather not use.

The second day we were determined to get more flying in, and got up fairly early to achieve that. We had lots of flights, and most of the winch and landing was done by the instructor, but much of the flying was done by us, which was really exciting. One flight which I had lasted 45 minutes, which for a glider and a novice is quite an achievement. It was mainly due to luck as I kept flying into thermals and had realised by this stage what they felt like, and made the most of them. I didn’t know how to find them, but knew what to do when one found me. Each glider was equipped with an electronic vario which measures your rate of ascent or decent. When you are going up (i.e. have found a thermal) it beaps with a high pitch, and when you are sinking it has a low beep. This help you know when you are in rising or sinking air, although because it has a second or so delay, it is perhaps to trust your feelings when the wind plays with your wings.

By Wednesday we had really gotten the hang of how the airfield ran, and were pretty efficient at getting in the gliders and setting them off. On the airfield everyone mucked in, and was doing whatever needed doing. This included fetching the gliders with the tractor after they had landed, pressing buttons in the bogie box to tell the winch driver to set off, keeping the flying log and running with the gliders until they were going fast enough for the pilot to keep them level.
The pilot relies on the airflow over the wings and onto the ailerons in order to keep the plane level. At low windspeeds, the airflow is not sufficient and so someone has to run along the field with the glider to keep it level for a few seconds until the windspeed is high enough. This is also why you always set off and land into the wind.
We got lots of flying in, but the flights were only around five minutes because we struggled to get much height off the winch. It was however excellent circuit training and allowed us to make quite a few take offs and landings, which by this stage we were doing on our own with some verbal assistance (and the occasional manual intervention when we lost coordination!).

The forecast for Thursday was not great, and so we woke cautiously expecting to look our of the window, see the rain and go back to sleep. however, the sun was shining and despite a bit of headwind it looked like the rain might stay off for a few hours. We got back onto the airfield, got the gliders out and started flying. Around dinner time it started raining a little, so we packed up and had lunch. The rain had eventually come a few hours late then expected, and didn’t show any signs of stopping so after lunch we went bowling.
Malcolm kindly looked on the internet and found us a bowling place in a nearby town, which was exactly that: a bowling place. They were a retailer which sold bowling balls, skittles and other bowling items, but didn’t have an alley. They were however kind enough to point us in the general direction of a bowling alley. We thought that an industrial park was a strange place for a bowling place. The moral of that story is never trust what you read on the internet!
Bowling was good fun, and I managed not to lose every game. We were joined by beastie the sheep, who unfortunately decided to get partially undressed and now needs some attention from a sewing kit. After restocking at Sainsburys on the way home, we ate food and watched Borat. The food was good, and I’ll pass judgement on Borat.

Friday was expected to be too wet and windy to fly, and was exactly that. The windsock was almost blown off its pole, and the anemometer was fluctuating a lot around 30 knots. We went though lots of theory sessions and after lunch decided to go home.
Having done a lot of flying on very little theory, doing the theory lessons made a lot of sense and in many cases made the penny drop. for example, why you really want to hit the ground when you are still going fast, and why the windspeed is really important.

It was brilliant but hectic week, and pushing gliders round is hard work. Being outside for 8 hours a day is brilliant, but it makes you tired and feel windswept. Concentrating on flying whilst being at awe of the surroundings take its toll too! by the end of the week we were all pretty tired, and after a few games of pool and pints in Rootes bar we went our separate ways.

Gliding is a great but expensive hobby, and I would love to have the opportunity to do it again if my wallet and time permits.