My Airplane Glider Ride

This morning I drove out to McMinnville, to an airfield run by Cascade Soaring. I had an 11 a.m. appointment for an airplane glider ride.

This is the "tower" for their airfield:


This was the airplane that towed the glider up into the airspace (aka "sky"):


You can see the pilot in there. She was nice. The guy who piloted my glider was an old curmudgeon named Joe. His second sentence to me today was "who told you you had a ride out here at eleven a.m.?" He told me to come over to his mud-battered car because "there's all kinds of papers 'n' shit you gotta sign." He had me sign one thing, that's it.

Here's the little area where I waited for them to ready the planes:


Joe left to go do something for a moment, and when he came back he barked at me, "You gotta stay behind the orange plastic fence!" I said, "Okay."

He softened a little and said, "I didn't tell ya that." Pause. "But then I didn't figure you'd go wandering around on your own."

Ha! My wandering around had taken me all of about six feet past the orange fence. He wouldn't let me take my camera up in the glider. That was a disappointment. He told me it was because too many people had scratched the inside of the plastic cockpit cover with their cameras. I said, "Aw, c'mon, I can be a good boy!" But he wasn't buying it.

Here's Joe and his mute (and possibly deaf) pal, fetching the glider from the fleet:


Here are the tow ropes that tethered us to the plane on the way up:


Here's the plane we glid through the air in:


The cockpit:


I sat behind Joe. Because I weigh more than him, although apparently not by much. The ride itself was great. Beautiful, serene, etc. Great views of Yamhill Valley acreage. I didn't say much. Joe didn't either. By the end of it he was much friendlier and joking around with me. He told me if I lost a couple of pounds I could go up in the other glider and sit in the front. "How much is a couple?" I asked. "Three or four," he said.