Sandy's first (unpowered) flight.

Sequence works from the bottom up.

On the way to the airfield he said: 'I've overcome my fear of heights gran!"
I almost screeched to a halt. 'You had a fear of heights and you let me buy you a voucher for a gliding lesson?!!!'
'Oh yeah. But I'm OK now. Really!'

He was VERY excited - and also nervous - during what seemed to me to be an interminable wait for the tow plane pilot to get back from a domestic duty, and other planes to land. The instructor, ex-RAF, was brilliant, cheery, oozing inspiring confidence and enthusiasm. He taught Sanders the controls and proceedure whilst they waited. Sanders got pinker and pinker. I got very windblown and admired the scenery - and the ever changing cloudscape.

Then the tow pilot arrived (at least they weren't being winched up.. that is really hard to watch) got through the check in the ex-RAF Chipmunk (Supermunk) tug, and suddenly everything was Go. They were off. They were a foot off the ground, higher at first than the tow-plane then levelling out together and getting higher until they were nearly into the clouds. The tow line dropped and the plane disappeared. They circled in front of the dark underside of a cumulous cloud for a while then they too disappeared. For twenty minutes, or a hundred years, I stared up at the sky which seemed to change all the time. Could that be good? When they, at last, reappeared and approached for landing they were doing a lot of banking and - wobbling? but the landing looked smooth enough.

The recovery landrover gave me a lift down to meet them. Sandy was ecstatic. Wanted to go up again. Hasn't stopped talking about it. He's saving up for a glider.

The instructor said with a certain careful blandness: 'Conditions were interesting up there,' shooting a look at a colleague that told me Sanders had had a more exciting flight than normal. I was right about the changing clouds. Conditions included thermals that suddenly cut out and a 'wave' that gives the same effect as being in a boat on a choppy sea. A blustery wind was an additional factor.

Wouldn't have suited granny.