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Sh*t!
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Well, what a jolly interesting flight I had today! I had intended
to fly solo, although Zebedee the insect managed to hitch a ride by
attaching
himself firmly to the outside of the canopy. All went well to start with and,
although the ground-run was longer than normal behind Sisteron's low-power
tug, I was quite happy to pop into the air by the end of the hard strip on
36. The tug staggered into the air a few seconds later and, despite the
proximity of the end of the airfield, all seemed well with the world.
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Hitchhiker
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Imagine my consternation, then, when I saw the rope snaking away
from the tug-end of our all too brief partnership. There passed about two seconds
of disbelief, during which another 30 metres of potential landing area had
been swallowed up, leaving me obliged to embark upon a plan of action. As I drifted over the edge of
the plateau at best glide, I considered carefully my position. Fortunately, (in
keeping, I am sure, with all other diligent Sisteron pilots) I had already taken the
opportunity to examine launch-failure fields during previous launches and
was aware of two possibilities. The one to the left would have required a
120 degree turn which, with only 45 knots on the clock, was definitely not going to
happen. The one to the right needed only a 20 degree turn, so
that was my choice, though I quickly realised that it would be really helpful to clear the intervening
trees first.
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My field, next day
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There followed a shallow dive to pick up speed, a pull to get over the trees,
a push to regain approach speed, a rapid descent towards a short-cropped field
and a pull back on all the levers in order to stop as quickly as possible
before hitting the next, less glider-friendly cropped field. A minor,
low-speed, 90-degree ground-loop concluded my flying activities for the day.
The picture above shows my entry line from the top right to the bottom
centre; the other curved line to the left was our push-back to the grass for
de-rigging.
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Arrival
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The incident had been somewhat stressful and I must report
that it took some time for the shaking to stop. As I clambered out of the
cockpit, I noticed that Zebedee was still there, glued to the outside of the
canopy, no doubt as disappointed as I was in the brevity of the flight. I
called Ariane to let her know what happened, and then examined 220 for
damage. Several
minutes later the CFI turned up to make sure I was not dead, and between us
we formulated a plan. I enlisted the help of Glen Turpin for
the de-rig, and a trio of lovely ladies to supply cold drinks,
dry towels and other assorted comforts and encouragements.
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Examination
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Back at the airfield, Michel, the new club engineer, kindly
examined the glider for us and confirmed that there was no damage to the airframe apart
from a broken undercarriage door. I could sense that today's events
were brewing up nicely into something of a diplomatic incident and, sure
enough, moments later Jean Cosnard (club president) turned up for a
man-to-man chat and a spot of crisis management. He made it clear that the
incident had been the club's responsibility and on behalf of the club
generously offered full reparation for the damage sustained.
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After the dust had settled later that evening, I was touched by the number of pilots who stepped
up to offer their words of comfort and support. The tuggie also made
a point of coming up to apologise and explain why he had felt the need to
dump me in
the poo, although I have to say my personal view was that I had taken similar tows before
which resulted in no more than slightly closer-than-usual looks at the
countryside. He had apparently been spooked by a late drop in airspeed with full tanks.
Ho-hum... So, in summary, today's flight lasted 57 seconds and
contained more excitement per second than I ever want to experience again.
But on the other hand, today hadn't been all bad news; after considering my
account of the day's events, one enthusiastic British
pilot provided much-needed support by informing me gleefully that it had been
a cracking day in the Ecrins...
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