This 'aint no rollercoaster.

The Plexiglas magnified the cockpit to the point that upon sitting, my temples were instantly drenched in running lines and droplets of sweat. I could see that Vilhelm as well was quite warm, as his hair was sparkling from the water that had made its way to the top of each follicle; after all, this was his second time around. He'd been sitting behind the yolk for about forty-five minutes now, and was preparing to take for 'round two'.

I heard the gun of the engine as the low-winged, propeller plane made its way down the length of the cracked runway; pulling us behind it. There was a slight tug on the rope--it wasn’t as jerky or as rough as I had anticipated. We got into the air first because our glider is of a lighter weight than the motored plane. Vilhelm was calmly and smoothly using both feet and hands to control the movement of the glider as we began to lift up into the air. Nothing was hydraulic and it was all mechanical; whenever Vilhelm wanted to open up a flap on a wing to create some more air resistance, I heard a "Thruump, chink, chink" sound. It was almost as if he was locking and unlocking a steel gate by sliding a bolt lock through a series of concentric circles. I could feel the pedals being pushed both the right and the left, helping him control the trajectory of flight. Numerous times it seemed as if the nose of the glider was pointing straight down into the ground, giving me the feeling that at any moment we would surely crash, head first, smashing into pieces. Luckily, none of my worst imaginings took place.

Finally the plane got off the runway and instantly banked towards the right. Our goal was a series of cumulous clouds that had a dark-blue bottom. Vilhelm explained to me that the 'Terminky' under the bottom of those clouds should be good for a flight. A glider is like a large albatross in the air. It sits on air currents and very gracefully cuts through rough opposing headwinds with its long wingspan; however, for this to happen, the glider must be taken up to an altitude of around 1,000 meters, where it is able to get into the upward-moving air flow caused by the development of clouds: when the ground is warm and the sky is quite cold, the warmer air from the ground begins to instantly shoot upward to fill the void in the sky where the temperature is cooler; creating a series of fairly-narrow pillars of quickly-rising wind. If the day is just right, Vilhelm will release the rope and let the glider free-fall for about five seconds, upon which, it should catch a 'Terminka' and begin to steadily gains altitude of about three meters per second. The glider must be steered in a circular pattern as it quickly ascends to the base of the cloud, where the pilot is told to then quickly take the nose done, move to another cloud and start the process again--a glider is not suppose to, in any circumstance, venture into a cloud, as this can be very dangerous; disorienting the pilot and forcing him to fly 'by instruments'. (Vilhelm tells me that sometimes he'll take a jaunt into a cloud, but only for a few minutes and shoot back down--but it's a secret; no one’s supposed to know).

We were attached to the plane for about ten minutes, as we both were making our ascent towards the clouds. Vilhelm was optimistic that the dark-blue bottoms were a sure sign that the location there would be excellent for a flight. At minute intervals, the propeller plane would rise another fifty meters, gunning its engine, and tugging us along behind it. My ears began to feel the pressure as we climbed, and I could hear the wind rustling through the small air holes in our canopy. The whole glider seemed as if it would be ripped apart by the wind. I could feel the fuselage shake and rattle as we went higher and the air streams became stronger. If I told you I wasn't a little nervous, I'd be lying. The countryside below us stretched out into farm fields and villages dotted with beige-red roofs of the the country houses. I could see the hills and the Orlicky Mountians way off in the distance. There was a tractor tilling his field, and another farm machine bailing grass. I could still make out the cars and the major thoroughfares; the Czech Republic spread out into a series of green, brown and yellow rectangles. It was quite breathtaking.

I turned my head up to look straight above us, and was shocked to see how close we had come to the base of a cloud. I was watching Vilhelm, as he was repeatedly looking at the sky trying to figure out which cloud offered us the best chance to find a reliable and quick-moving upstream. It was a bit like surfing I have to admit: constantly waiting for the right time and never being quite sure if you were going to catch the wind or not. When we got to an altitude of 1,000 meters, I heard a large metallic snapping sound, as Vilhelm pulled the large, centrally-located, yellow lever, releasing us from our connection to the plane. In an instant, things got very quiet. It was as if we were in equilibrium. We weren't moving. We were just floating. Suddenly the nose of the glider shot straight down giving us a clear view of the earth below us, and descended...rapidly (Imagine a rollercoaster at the crest of the first hill. The time where it waits for gravity to take it down the remainder of the track is exactly how this felt). My heart rate shot up a few beats as we free-fell, then suddenly, the glider straightened out and we began to cruise at an altitude of about 900 meters. The teriminka was weak; we weren’t going to be able to make it to the top. And, to make matters worse, we didn't count on the fact that we would be flying directly into a strong headwind. Our glider was being pushed around quite a bit, and I could see Vilhelm nervously shooting glances out both sides of the cockpit attempting to locate the airport (later on, I would learn that there was a real sense of danger, as Vilhelm was fairly certain that due to the strong winds we weren't going to be able to ride the weak stream back the airport; he had to, sadly, begin to make his return after only five minutes of unassisted flight).

For me, it was an unbelievable experience. I was watching our speed, how quickly we were losing altitude, what direction we were going, and, of course, I made sure to take in all the wonderful sightlines from the sky. After about seven minutes, Vilhelm asked me if he could try a little trick. Not really understanding what he said, I replied, "JO!". In an instant, I felt the yolk get pulled back and saw the nose of the glider go right up into the heavens. Then, he banked the plane to the left, and then quickly whipped the yolk to the right, forcing the nose downwards into a corkscrew. The G-force was at some instances tugging so hard at my body that I felt I'd be ripped from the seat; at other instances, it came in waves of pressure that made my heart feel as if it would thrust into my gut. Through the canopy, the world twirled in a series of greens, browns and blues. I lost sight of the skyline and only saw the magnificent warping and twirling of the ground. And then, just like that, we pulled out and were even. One corkscrew takes off 100 meters of altitude; we were now cruising about 800 to 700 meters. After about one minute, I heard an extremely loud rush of wind from behind my ears, as the plane again shot straight up into the sky. All I could see were the clouds, and I felt like my back was directly parallel with the ground below us. The manual controls of the wings were adjusted, and I saw Vilhlem's shoulders move forward. In an instant, the glider swung down and dropped the nose of the plane straight down, and we began to fall from our height, like a leaf that has just released it's mooring from a branch. This was terrifying, but OH SO MUCH FUN! Vilhelm once again caught us from our fall, found the horizon and made our descent back to the airport.

The landing was much smoother and quicker than I had expected. Upon seeing the glider in the hanger, I was shocked at its small size and how light and flimsy it looked. There were only two wheels on the entire plane; the front one, which is little bit larger than the size of a bicycle training wheel, and the back one, which is literally the size of one of those small, black plastic rollers on a ‘wheelie chair’. How could a glider, going more than 60 km and hour, land on those weaklings? Well, it did. We touched ground in the grassy meadow beside the runway and quickly came to a stop. The glider tilted to the left as the wing scraped into the ground. Vilhelm opened the canopy and we both jumped out. My flight lasted exactly twenty-five minutes--a little too short for Vihlem's liking, but for me, it was truly an experience of a lifetime.