It was an awesome Birthday present.
I flew in bright yellow, two seat training glider and I got the front seat under an absolutely spotless clear canopy. I rode some (I noticed the great views and took a few pictures) and I flew some (I didn’t notice much except the position of the horizon as I banked and worked to “keep the nose up”). The trainer/pilot was great. He was tour guide, coach, teacher, and cheerleader.

First a walk through of all the controls. At first glance it all looks very simple but there is a lot of stuff to remember and to keep coordinated.
#1 The big red knob: the tow rope release…I got to do that part-when he told me to.
#2 Pedals and a center stick (that work together) to turn and control nose up/nose down
#3 The all important piece of red yarn on a stick – the attitude indicator
#4 Altimeter…not that I could do much about that except watch it go up with the tow then down as we glided
#5 Lift or decent indicator…it was all decent for us, no thermals to be found today

I felt a bit intimidated by it all by the time we climbed in, buckled the harness, and latched the canopy. He handled the takeoff up and climb to 4000 feet. I pulled the towline release and he handled the first couple passes. By then, I was feeling pretty comfortable and ready to give flying a try. Really cool. I never quite got the hang of the coordination of the pedals and stick but I did ok. He didn’t have to jump in and save us or anything……
The weather here this time of year is pretty vanilla for gliders, hardly any thermals. We didn’t catch any so the flight was sort of short, 26 minutes. I am not sure how my stomach would have liked the mini elevator rides of the thermals anyway. In any event, that will have to wait until some other time. He says April, May, and June have the best thermals but low winds and that is perfect glider weather.