For my 30th birthday last year Akhlaq got me a voucher with Activity Superstore for an “Introduction to gliding, with a winch launch.” I wasn’t sure what to expect but I was certainly excited!

Unfortunately it has been surprisingly difficult to get a booking for a spot to glide – you get given a choice of four locations, none of which are even remotely close to London. I actually tried to book in about September at the closest location (still about 60 miles drive away I think) last year but by then apparently there was supposedly no availability until this year! I tried again to book around Feb March time and there was still limited availability, bearing in mind that I could only go on the weekend. In the end the closest location had apparently shut down and the next best availability was Dover! In what turned out to be an over 2.5 hour drive. Lucky Akhlaq volunteered to drive me there … not sure how I would have got there otherwise.

The Channel Gliding Club is situated within the private estate Waldershare Park of the Earl of Guilford. Tom Tom wasn’t actually sure where we were showing us in a field but we finally got there. At the very least this gave me something to discuss and pass time with one of the members of the club. Can’t remember exactly what we talked about but it was something along the lines of hunting, the Earl’s son and making sure you got out of the way of their guns and dogs!

Fair to say that the members who run the Channel Gliding Club are not running a professional venture but are clearly in it for the love of gliding. I know this purely because one of the members, the only lady that I could see, took one of the two-seater gliders up and didn’t come down for surely more than a couple of hours! This caused quite a delay in those of us waiting to get up into a glider as this meant that only one was available. As a result, even though we got there for about 1.30 for a 2.30 glide I’m certain I didn’t get to go up until about 3.15 and by then the thermals had calmed down and they were rushing us through for our turns. So instead of a 10-15 minute flight I was up there for about 6 minutes. Hmmm.

But gripe over, what was the actual gliding like?

After a pre-flight briefing, which involved strapping on a fairly small parachute (disconcertingly my instructor said it didn’t do much except make sure we were tight and snug in the plane for strapping in!) and going through all the instruments on the panel etc., I was strapped into the glider (with an instructor of course!) The glider is attached to a winch by a cable. I was talking to one of guys about it and he reckons that the cable sits on the bed of a flatbed truck and every time a glider has to be launched they basically step on the accelerator to run the cable. Amazing that the force of this is enough to lift the glider into the air!

We got to about 3,00 feet or metres I think? Can’t remember exactly but it was the highest for the day apparently. We had to search really hard for some thermals and we ended up doing some giant circles. Got to see France across the channel which was exciting – very grateful for the fairly clear day. This is probably the closest I’ve come yet to actually flying – there is no engine and although the rushing air is slightly noisy it is otherwise fairly calm up in the air. I can’t wait to try hand gliding which I think will give me a truer feeling of flying. It was just astonishing to think that I was in a plane which wasn’t powered by anything more than air.