Adventure: Gliding
Soar above the mountains in a glider.
Nothing clears your head like an adventure you’ve never attempted before. Just ask Peter van Noord, who soared above the mountains in a glider.
Gliding 101
There are gliding clubs countrywide – visit www.cgc.org.za/learn.htm for more information. At the Cape Gliding Club at Worcester you can go up in a glider in two ways:
WINCH LAUNCH: A winch on the other side of the runway reels you up. You leave the ground within metres and climb at a gradient of 60º, similar to a kite. The flight lasts approximately six
minutes and costs R200.
AEROTOW LAUNCH: A single-prop aircraft tows you towards the mountains. The flight lasts about half an hour and costs R700. Contact: www.cgc.org.za
Up, up and away
The single-prop plane towing our glider heads straight for the mountain peak – the one that the guys on the ground just referred to as “Vic Peak”. Then, suddenly, the tow rope is dropped. The aircraft ahead turns sharply right, but the two of us in the glider push on in the wind. On our own. Without an engine.
A close call
It’s a thrilling sensation. The meter on the left-hand side of the dashboard shows that we are 3000 feet above the ground, and the one next to it shows we are approaching the mountain at 100km/h. (It feels more like 400km/h…) But it’s the reading second from the right that first plants a seed of doubt in my mind, and is now starting to concern me: We’re descending at a rate of 2 m per second – and we’re heading for the mountain. The rocks are starting to become a little too clear for my liking – if I look closely, I’m sure I’ll be able to spot a puff adder lying in a sunny spot. Just when I think I’m about to see my life flash before my eyes, Nico le Roux, the pilot sitting behind me, steers
to the right and the left armpit of the fibreglass structure in which we’re sitting seems to brush over the mountain top.
“Are you okay?” Nico asks.
“Couldn’t be better!” I reply.
Because now I’m experiencing what I’ve eagerly been looking forward to:
Free as a bird
You can feel how the wind that spills over Queen Victoria Peak from the north-west becomes a cushion underneath the glider. You watch as the meter shows how the aircraft has begun to climb at 3 m per second. This is how a bird must feel...For a full 29 minutes we soar on the north-westerly wind up Queen Victoria Peak, down Queen Victoria Peak, four times. Descend a little, soar a little. In
the distance, the late-afternoon sun dances over Worcester. I’m mesmerised by the world around me: I can see Brandvlei Dam. Towards the west, the mountains soften with glowing rays of light that add colour to the haziness. And in the south-west a secluded valley appears with a neat patchwork
of green farmlands. Beautiful. And all the while you hear only the rush of the wind in your ears. You don’t even need a microphone or headphones to talk to the pilot. Then, all the time searching for pockets of warm air to get another lift, we make our way back to the Worcester Flying Club, where the next member of the Cape Gliding Club is waiting to be taken up into the air. By the time the two runways one tarred and the other gravel appear, I have begun to believe the guys who told me exactly how safe this kind of flight is. The blue ASK13 glider was built in 1970. It has more than a million kilometres on the clock and has landed safely more than 30000 times. We land smoothly and taxi to a halt within seconds. What a wonderful adventure!
Take it from a pro
The group of gliding fanatics can’t wait to hear what the novice thought of the experience. It’s
as if they are just as passionate about sharing their hobby with others as they are about gliding
themselves.
There’s Erwin Focé, a fruit farmer from De Doorns who is the duty pilot today; Ari Cotton, a computer specialist from Durbanville; Cornelius von der Heyden, an anaesthetist from Welgemoed; and André Leeb du Toit from Fish Hoek, who’s been gliding for 53 years and now works as an instructor at the club. I also meet Horst Mücke from Oakdale, Bellville, who rides around the airfield on his bicycle and chats to everyone he meets. He tells me that he first started gliding 65 years ago, at the age of 15… But these days the doctors give him a hard time, he says; so he just comes to watch, he and his “baby”, a French poodle the size of a young calf. These guys have learnt to watch the mountains and the clouds with a keen eye, always in search of lenticular cumulus clouds, which form “waves” above the mountain peaks, allowing pilots to glide distances of up to 3000 km (and up to 15 000 m high, the same height as a commercial Boeing!). Some of the guys here have flown to George and back, even to Trawal and back – about 700 km! And when the air currents “run out”, you simply look for a level field and set down.
I'll be back
I know I’ll be back at the Cape Gliding Club. And next time I won’t be spooked by a wind that bends the grass. I’m more likely to identify with the sticker on the mobile control tower: “If God had intended
for man to FLY, he would have given him more MONEY.” Because I think I’m hooked.
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