Gliding

 

 

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds, – and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless falls of air...
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, nor eer eagle flew –
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high, untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God

 

A Little Bit About Me & Gliding

I am a member of Kent Gliding Club which is based near Challock. It's a small gliding airfield on top of the North Downs, near Ashford in Kent.

I have a strong passion for flying and am driven by flying cross country (often abbreviated to XC), preferably at speed. My next goals are:

To achieve a Diamond Distance, which involves a flights of > 500km

done :-) Learn to run the ridge from Challock to Maidstone (see interesting flights button below!!!)

A long distance personal goal flight - something like Kent to Cornwall, or South Coast to somewhere up blummin North, like the kind of distance/record flights in the 50's in the USA.

I guess I may find time to attempt a high climb, Gold or Diamond Height, if I can organise myself.

To achieve > 100kph average XC speed

To listen to & learn from my informal mentor - yup, he knows who he is :-) and from my highly experienced CFI Pete.

 

Update Jul 2010

A rather poor season so far for those of us flying from Kent. I have been fortunate to complete and enjoy my Assistant Instructors course and am now free to begin instructing at Challock, something I've looked forward to. I aim to fly longer flights this year instead of getting back to the airfield after 90 mins but I also aim to have a go at the fast 100km @ > 100kph. I'm also watching for a 1st attempt at a 500km Diamond flight, though probably from Cambridge GC.

 

Update Dec 2009

Well it's interesting looking back on the above. I didn't manage a 500km attempt this year, just didn't find a day that was good enough for an attempt from Challock. I did manage to fly the ridge a number of times and took the 2009 Ridge Run Trophy for a double out & return of 106km at an average speed of 123km/hr. It was the most intense flight of my life demanding so much concentration. I did attempt a Gold height but failed to find enough at the top of a strong thermal in Australia to climb the last few feet. I didn't manage > 100km/hr, so I have a few unfulfilled ambitions to carry into 2010 and I am really looking forward to the start of the new season.

 

History     Photos  
Gliding Logbook (under construction)   My SZD-55 (coming soon)
IGC Files (coming soon)   Interesting Flights  

 

 

 

 

  

High Flight

Written by John Gillespie Magee, a pilot with the Royal Canadian Air Force in the Second World War. He came to Britain, flew in a Spitfire squadron, and was killed at the age of nineteen on 11 December 1941 during a training flight from the airfield near Scopwick. Born in Shanghai of an American father and an English mother who were missionaries. He was educated at Rugby and at school in Connecticut. The sonnet was written on the back of a letter to his parents which stated, `I am enclosing a verse I wrote the other day. It started at 30,000 feet, and was finished soon after I landed.' According to the Library of Congress book, Respectfully Quoted, the poem came to the attention of the Librarian of Congress, Archibald MacLeish, who acclaimed Magee as the first poet of the war.

 

 

 

A Brief Personal History

1979 - My first gliding experience was whilst I was in the RAF in Shropshire. I had a few flights and didn't achieve much except stalling a T21 off the top of a winch launch which earned the comment 'One take-off, not much fun!' and later on a comment about 'very high standard of natural ability' - I wonder what happened to that!

Sep 2003 - I restarted after hiking across a field near Ashford in Kent and looking up at gliders circling in a thermal above the field. I just knew right there and then that I would fly, a long held dream since childhood.

Coincidentally, 11th of September was the day I took to the air once again at Challock on top of the North Downs and loved every moment. My instructors were Andy Beatty, Pete Carpenter & Joe Janzo quickly followed by many others. After only 44 flights I strapped myself into one of the club K21's subconsciously but on checking with the rear seat found it empty - my first solo on a cold 1st of November, less than two short months after starting my 'mission'.

It was a straight forward flight, take-off, leap up & down against the straps whooping for a moment before the cold realization that now there was no-one in the rear seat to hand over those 'difficult' moments to. Hmmm, I had to do this all myself and do it perfectly. I did, I managed a reasonable circuit and a well held off landing, I was over the moon, elated beyond belief, solo at last, a dream come true.

 

Page last edited Jul 2010