Out of the Egg: ab initio flight instruction 'back in the day'

摘要

"Hold your altitude! SIX FEET! Hold it, hold it, you incompetent moron. Watch my 'bats' and KEEP THOSE BLASTED WINGS LEVEL OR I'LL HAVE YOUR GUTS FOR GARTERS!!!" My instructor is perched uncomfortably in the back of the Jeep as it bounds across the grass at RNAS Culham, near Oxford, H.M.S. "Hornbill," yelling instructions over a megaphone across the 50 ft separating us - 50 ft of tow wire. We are graduating after about six hours of instruction and haranguing from just sitting there on that tiny plywood "seat" in the Dagling Primary Glider - facing into the wind, keeping the wings level, rocking the "aircraft" on its skid in pitch, rolling and yawing it with stick and rudder - to actually flying it. For me, it IS a lifelong dream made real.