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‘It was a special moment when I was allowed to fly solo’

Apr 18, 2018

It was the moment Brian had been waiting for. The moment he could fly solo. Source: Pixabay

I suppose every one of us has a memory of a truly momentous instance in our lives, something that may not have changed our lives at all, but it gave, and still gives that tickle down the spine or a smile to the face, or even, if the big moment was an unhappy one, a tear to the eye. That big moment can happen anywhere and at any time; you usually have little control over it and it’s often brought on by someone else’s actions, rather than through any planning of your own. Some of us, perhaps luckier than the rest, may have more than one ‘special’ moment, but I believe even those people will have one extra special incident, to cherish for the rest of their lives.

I’m not thinking about the ‘ordinary’ special moments, great as they may be too — the day you first met your future husband/wife, the day you got married, or the day you were given the rise that put you on a thousand a year, when £20 a week meant you had made it! All of us, I’m sure, can relate to many moments like that, they’re really a natural part of life, the little ‘hotspots’ that help to make the rest of a fairly dreary existence worthwhile.

No the ‘momentous instance’ doesn’t need to involve bravery, high intelligence, super fitness or anything like that, it just has to be special to you, an accomplishment usually, that you were and are proud of, something you like to be able to bring up casually in normal conversation, because you can’t help thinking others might be thrilled with it too and possibly even admire you a little for it.

This of course, brings me to my special moment, which was when I went solo! I was a glider pilot for many years, in my younger days, but when you first join a gliding club, the first thing you have to do is learn to fly (obviously!). It takes an average of about 65 launches (flights) to become anything like skilful, hours spent with an instructor being taught all the basics of flying, taking off, landing, stalling, spinning, using thermals, and many other skills, all of which I learned with gusto, over a period of about 10 months, until I was proficient at all of them. That was when MY special moment arrived!

One sunny Saturday afternoon, when I had already had a flight with my instructor, I was resting against the bonnet of my car having a quiet sandwich and a cup of tea, when our CFI (chief flying instructor), strolled up to me and said, “Can you come over here with me for a moment, Brian?” — A question I could be asked at any time when there was a glider to be moved or something. All innocence, I walked with him to the launch point at the end of the runway of the old RAF airfield we flew from, and he turned to me, pointed to a small single seater glider, and said “Climb in here mate, you’re going solo!”

The next thing I can remember, as I came out of shock, was that I was sitting in a completely strange aircraft, with the canopy closed, making the standard signals to the ground crew, to get me off the ground. They quickly attached the cable under the nose of the plane, signalled all was okay, and before I knew it I was being towed at a rate of knots by a truck way off down the runway. Luckily, the CFI was right, I was ready to go solo, because all my training now clicked in and I automatically pulled back on the joy-stick and swiftly climbed to 1,200 feet. So tense was I at the situation I was in that I now developed severe cramp in my left leg, causing me agonising pain for most of the flight, but up there you are truly on your own, so I just had to ‘grin and bear it’ as I completed my first circuit and managed to get the plane back down, in the right place and not bent.

That was the most thrilling and scary moment I have ever experienced in my life, but wonderful too — because I survived it. I went on to experience many years of fun, and sometimes thrilling flying, though I was never able to capture that one moment of going solo again — it was unique and couldn’t be repeated. I’m sure there are many old glider pilots reading this, who feel exactly the way that I do.