Today, for the first time in my life, I actually went up in a glider. Not a hang glider, but one of those things that looks like a plane, but there's no engine in it. And no, I wasn't piloting it.
My dad started taking lessons two years ago at the Toronto Soaring Club; he's even one of the handful of super-keen club members who keeps a trailer at the airfield so that he can camp out overnight if he wants to. Anyway, I'd never been out there before today, and agreed to take a flight.
For me, flying in a glider (those in the know refer to it as "soaring" to differentiate themselves from the maniacs who strap themselves to oversized kites and jump off cliffs) is equal parts "wow, this is neat!" and "oh my god, I'm going to barf!" I enjoy thrill rides (roller coasters and the like), but I also get motion sickness very easily -- I was one of those people who got ill during The Blair Witch Project. You can appreciate my predicament.
So we're going up behind the tow plane, and I find my brain starting to spool ahead. After all, it's been a few days since I've blogged and at least now I have something to write about that doesn't consist of linkage or my latest psuedo-personality test result. In a goofy bit of time/place dissonance, I find myself thinking about how I will document my experience before I've even had it.
As any good Zen practitioner (or Jedi) will tell you, it's important to keep your mind in the present moment. Well, once we get up to 2,000 feet and the tow-rope is let loose, all thoughts of future authoring fade from my mind. Instead, my thoughts are "wow, look at the view!" and "uh-oh, I'm not feeling so good".
Dave, my pilot (my dad declined taking me up himself), is chatting with me about air speed and the pinging sound coming from the instrument panel that tells us how quickly we're gaining or losing in altitude. He also points out to me various landmarks. When I'm not looking at the landmarks or the other aircraft in the distance, I'm looking at the barf bag in the side pocket by my seat.
Because there is no engine on a glider, one must rely on rising columns of warm air to help keep oneself airborne. Columns, being vertical and not horizontal, require one to stay in them by spiralling instead of flying in a straight line. We do a lot of spiralling. I am getting queasier by the second.
Still, the small portion of my brain which isn't concentrating on keeping my lunch down is having fun. I can appreciate the sun, the quiet, and the sense of freedom. Sometimes it almost feels like we're hardly moving at all, but are just suspended in space.
Dave then asks me if I'd like to try some "simple aerobatic manouevres". My brain is thinking "yeah, cool!" and my stomach is screaming "nooooooooooo!". My mouth is closer to my brain than my stomach, and agrees. We go into a very steep banked turn. Then we do a spiralling nosedive. The ground looks very interesting when it's twirling around directly in front of you.
We continue swooping around in the sky and I can feel that metallic taste creeping into my mouth which signals that some vomiting is imminent. Dave asks me if I'd like to try the controls myself. I decline. However, since I'm sitting in the front seat, I do have to work the radio and tell the airfield that we're on our way back. I manage to stammer whatever wacked-out flyboy jargon Dave tells me to say without incident.
Finally, we're back on the ground. The sweet, sweet ground. I wobble out of the cockpit and stagger across the field. My innards eventually stop wobbling of their own accord.
I can now safely cross out another item on the lifetime "to-do" list. I might even go again sometime. But not without taking lots and lots of dramamine first.
