Gliding In Blue Skies And Fluffy Clouds

Once you have experienced soaring across your local countryside in a modern performance glider, you are going to wonder why nobody had ever told you about how awesome it actually is!

What I love most is taking off from our airfield near Cambridge and setting off on a cross country task that keeps me aloft for 5-6 hours and covers a couple of hundred miles - and all that without an engine!

Can you imagine how weird it is to be circling in a thermal, going up and up and up with each turn and then as you are looking out you see a large bird flying opposite to you doing the same. Sometimes they seem to get spooked and suddenly turn off and fly away, other times they'll stay with you and then you know that you must have really found the best part of that upward current.

Another thing that entertains me is flying around the skies late afternoon as the rest of the world is bumper to bumper in rush hour traffic. I watch like an eagle as I peer down from above with not a whisper except for the whistle of the wind going by. I push my stick forward and accelerate to 120mph and smile at the thought of all that freedom and empty space.

But that's for you to experience perhaps - now I'm back at our airfield, I bank my aircraft over at an angle no powered aircraft pilot would dare to do, I level off and pull out some airbrake. Gently does it and another perfect landing back where I started first thing this morning.

Now that's what I call pleasure!