Did I mention the practice flights from the BSF hill that we christened as the "Firing Hill or Bullet Hill"? Perhaps I did not. That is for another day and time. Now, shall we concentrate on our latest achievement of successfully completing high altitude solo flying? Yes, I suppose you must listen to what I have to say for you have the misfortune of chancing on my blog at this opportune moment.
Take off at roughly 1100metres above sea level and landing at 450 metres above sea level. Need I say more? Indeed I must. Yelagiri came to our rescue while Nandi repeatedly played spoil sport with the weather. One weekend saw us getting up at absurd morning hour to set off on the drive to Yelagiri. The highway is brilliant I might add, letting one cover over 150kms in less than two hours in the morning when traffic is sparse.
Saturday was not a very good start. My tandem flight with Vrata was barely ten minutes while Bharat and Naveen had both managed 45min+ tandems from Nandi2. I was not very happy with my short flight. The tandem glider it seems is a beast to control. You need to really pull at the brakes with all your might and even then the glider responds slowly and almost in protest. The landing happened right in the middle of thorny brush and Vrata happily used me as a cushion and got away unscathed. :)
The evening saw us waiting for the winds to settle down from the Hanuman takeoff but to no avail. I spent the time catching up on some reading of Ashok Banker's Ramayana Book4.
On Saturday night, I was still not sure whether I was ready for my solo the next morning given that my tandem was of a very short duration. However, I decided to take the "leap of faith" alone the next morning since I was fresh from a good sleep the previous night.
Wiggling into the harness proved a challenge on my first solo flight. I finally gave up and decided to fly standing. Landing went more or less according to plan with Vrata guiding me on the radio. Didn't really enjoy much of the first flight since there was a lot going on through my head at the time. We came back to RK take off in the afternoon for a second flight. This time, once in the air, I let go of the brakes and pulled myself into the harness with both my hands. (Its really amazing to see that the glider which can be packed into a backpack can actually carry your weight in the air while holding rock steady. You really begin to appreciate the engineering marvel. ) After that, it was really smooth sailing. I turned back to catch a view of the Yelagiri range which I am told extends for about 8kms from one end to the other. It was really a sight to behold. I was flying at the level of the mountains and from up there and close, you could see that the mountain was really lush green and beautiful as compared to the hazy brownish green look that you get when you look at it from the ground. Up there in the air, everything is very calm and pleasant and you can hear the whishing sound of the air through your glider. I only wished that I could ridge soar, so that I could stay up in the air for about an hour. Impatience, my lad. All in due course of time. Landing went well again with me landing on my feet after completing a couple of eights above the landing site.
The third flight in the evening happened in low winds. The landing site was much further than the previous sites and the lack of wind meant that I sank faster than I expected. This meant I could not reach the designated landing site and my landing turned out to be less than perfect. :P However, its all part of the learning experience I guess and I escaped unharmed.
Vrata says that we graduated to the flying club with "flying colours". Personally, I think there is quite some way to go before we perfect the landing approach. Take off seems like child's play now in comparison. But I guess thats only because I have now had seven take offs while I have only done two proper landing approaches. I guess I can maintain a flight log now. I could probably log about 50 minutes of flying time total in the book now. :P
By the way, Bharat gets adventurous on his second solo flight and gets a in-flight video. This is a must see!
To sign off, I must say that I have always been a little scared of heights and overcoming this fear was indeed an "uplifting" experience (and how!) and memories I will cherish for a very long time to come.
Thanks to Vrata, Rajesh and Robin for helping make my dream successful. And of course Bharath for learning with me and also for taking my videos.
