The rumours are true. I have been spending time at Camphill Gliding Club. It was Walter Neumarks fault. It all started when I decided I had to try and find a way of doing more flying. Many of you will know that for health reasons I have not been able to fly abroad much in the last four years and you will also know how restricting British weather can be. Health reasons also prevent me from doing hang-gliding. (They're too ****** heavy!)

I started looking at various other forms of aviation and Walter pointed out an article in which Ann Welch compares different soaring machines and their pros and cons. The key was accessability which depends on cost, availability of flying sites, training, etc. There are machines called 'ultralight sailplanes' becoming available that are basically described as having an unladen weight of less than 100kg. These 'microlight sailplanes' are launched either by a 'Koch' type winch or aerotowing by microlight. It seemed that to have access to these I would have to have at least the 'stick and rudder' skills of a sailplane pilot.

With winter being what it is for paraglider pilots and repeated nagging from Walter I decided that I would have to give sailplanes a go. I went to Camphill one windy Sunday to find out some facts and before I knew it I was being strapped in for a trial lesson. I have had glider flights before before but my main memories of them are being squashed into a tiny cockpit with my head banging on the canopy all the time. This was different. I was in a relatively spacious and comfortable cockpit with a good view. Previous flights I have had have been aerotows but I don't know what could have prepared me for the winch launch. Perhaps being fired out of a cannon. One second I was sitting quietly on the ground and the next I was pressed into the seat and hurtling towards the clouds with my ears popping. I got my breath back near the top of the tow and the next thing was to find the horizon. To me it seemed to be nearly at right angles to the fuselage but soon returned to normal as the pilot, a nice lady called Chris, put the nose down before releasing the tow.

The trouble with already being a pilot of a sort is that you want to do everything at once including steering, keeping lookout and finding lift. Chris had other ideas and demonstrated the controls one at a time flying the downwind leg along the ridge. She let me do a turn and fly the upwind leg and we gyrated back trying, rather unsuccessfully, to make a bit of string blow straight along the canopy by using the rudder pedals. After a few trips up and down the ridge, with me more interested in wandering off into the wave than chasing bits of string, it was time to land. We came around the circuit and with the aid of the airbrakes we plunged remarkably steeply towards the airfield before flaring to a smooth landing.

I think I was impressed. At least, I've been out there a number of times since. Pushing gliders about at unearthly hours in the mornings, driving tractors all day whilst watching the paragliders flying on Rushup and occasionally getting the chance to chase bits of string with the rudder pedals. It takes a lot of people to keep gliders going up. People to operate the winches, pull the lines out with a tractor, tow the gliders about with tractors, launch marshall, launch logger, someone to run with the wingtips and instructors. If you think hang-gliding and paragliding need commitment try spending some time at Camphill! The plus side is that a well organised training system exists with very experienced instructors. The two seat fibreglass Puchacz trainers are robust and efficient and have five (yes five!) wheels to cope with various forms of training abuse. As with any high aspect ratio aircraft they require co-ordination of stick and rudder which I am finding frustratingly difficult to learn. It remains to be seen whether I have the patience to master it, but during the winter I won't miss any cross country flying while I try and learn. By the way, if you are gale hanging in your supine harness in front of Camphill winch on a hang-glider, just remember who might be bringing half a ton of glider with a broken steel cable down on you at sixty knots.