Being Upside Down, On Top Of The World
On the very first day of our road trip, my little 1988 Honda Prelude blew up. So there were a few activities on our itinerary that we needed to forego, for budget's sake.. and the glider flight in Omarama was almost one of them. We planned around it and cut a couple of other things out instead, and I'm so glad we did! Flying a glider is one of the coolest things I've ever done, and doing aerobatics in one is easily the coolest.
Gliders work in the same way as birds of prey. They use thermals to climb higher and higher. What is a thermal, you may ask? A thermal is essentially an updraft. The sun heats patches of the earth unevenly, and when the sun heats the earth, it consequently heats the air directly above. We know that hot air rises because it expands and becomes less dense than the cooler air above it. This is what causes the updraft, and the air only stops rising when it cools to the same temperature as the surrounding air. Have you ever wondered why birds like vultures and hawks fly in circles? It's not because they're circling their prey. They find these thermals, and circling in the thermal allows them to use the updraft to climb higher and higher in elevation. Gliders do the same exact thing, so take some dramamine if you get sick easily!
Quinton and I were in two different gliders, each of us in the front of a two-seater glider, with and experience pilot in the seat behind. Each of our gliders were attached to different tug planes, and we were pulled into the air within minutes of each other. We had both originally planned on doing 30 minute flights, but 20 minutes in, I extended to an hour. Dan, who was my pilot, radioed to Quinton and told them that we were extending, but it sounded like they were having a bit of trouble finding a thermal to stay in the air, so we assumed that they were going back to the airfield to land, and swapped the radio station.
It didn't take long for us to find a sweet thermal, and next thing I know, we were over 8,000 feet above the ground! Dan promised a bit of aerobatics, and he didn't disappoint! Holy shit! Just imagine... you're flying normally, then you're taking a huge dip, suddenly you are flipping upside-down, you see the horizon disappearing as the sky opens up to you, you are completely weightless, then the horizon comes back up again, and you're back to flying normally. It all happens so slow! It's as if time slows down for you while you are looping. Even someone with the wildest imagination could not fathom the exhilarating feeling of doing loops and quarter clovers in that glider.
(Because I recorded the videos on my little iPhone, I can't edit the video format. So I just uploaded two videos..)
After a bit of fun, he turned the controls over to me, and I was able to fly around and do a few turns! Freaking awesome!
We glided over peaks of mountains and dove close to the hills effortlessly. When we turned back for the airfield towards the end of our flight, we see another glider doing aerobatics. We turn the radio back, and it's Quinton in their glider! They ended up extending their flight as well, and I was able to capture one of the loops they did.
It was such an amazing experience, and I regret that I have such mediocre iPhone footage. These don't do any justice.
