The process keeps repeating itself, no matter how many years the same events recur:
The student who sees the wolf’s ears (because he now feels more or less capable), the giggles and the faces of those around, the instructor’s strange manner, someone coming over taking photographs, odd noises behind, a parachute on the ground, the instructor who doesn’t quite get in… Oh! Oh! At last the instructor says the words: “All on your own…!!!”
Now, suddenly, everything changes. Yes, you laugh, but in that certain way. The responsibility weighs on you and your face turns serious, thoughtful, with a look of concentration. To think we’ve been waiting so long for the moment and now all the doubts set in, but if the instructor says so… well, off you go.
Taking up the slack, on tow, etc… and before you know it you’re in the air with a tingling inside.
Little by little, you regain your calm. Suddenly, “Glider free, thank you”.
And now you do what you had dreamed of for so long. The flight of your life. The air, an aircraft and you. Above all, you. It’s only a few minutes, but they are “your minutes”.
The return to the ground is a piece of cake by now. You put all 5 of your senses into it (because you have no more), you make the best round-out of your life and you let the ASK-13 settle gently onto the runway.
Afterwards, the smile is already ear to ear, everyone congratulates you, more photographs, the instructor “decorates” you and the day ends. But not for you: you carry the memory of this flight inside your head, it doesn’t leave and you don’t want it to; in fact, you keep on flying…
Well. You already know, because many people have told you, that this is not a goal but the beginning of future flights. As your instructor says, now you know how to fly the aircraft; now you have to learn to soar…
Dani, congratulations, once again!!!
