Joe Nimmo and his partner Bethan overcome their nerves to take flight over Oxfordshire during a day of glider lessons

Sitting in the glider cockpit, waiting to be launched hundreds of feet into the sky, I suddenly felt nervous.

A day of lessons for me and my partner Bethan was my idea of an exciting Christmas present – chickening out wasn’t really an option.

Instead I assumed what I hoped was a nonchalant tone and asked Alan, the senior Bicester Gliding Centre instructor seated behind me, if the winch cable ever breaks.

“Sometimes”, he said, and in the next instant we were rocketing across the grass before suddenly pitching up into the air.

With the wind rushing in my ears I stared into the clouds as we climbed higher and higher, before levelling out and and seeming to almost stop and float up there in the sky.

This kind of launch – using a cable reeled in by an engine on the ground – accelerates the glider to 60mph in a mere three seconds and can achieve heights of between 1,200 and 2,000ft, depending on wind speed.

Later I asked Bethan what she thought of her first flight. “Scary,” was her reply.

But we both found within seconds of launching that we experienced something unlike anything we had felt before.

With no engine noise to distract you, there is a wonderful peacefulness and tranquillity to gliding.

From the Bicester airbase where the Windrushers Gilding Club has its home, you can see for miles in every direction.

Oxford Mail:
Bethan gets set to fly

Oxfordshire and its patchwork quilt of different-coloured fields has never looked so beautiful.

And right from my first launch Alan encouraged me to take the controls – reawakening my previous butterflies.

The responsibility you’re entrusted with is hammered home by the phrase used every time it’s your turn to pilot the glider: “You’re in control.”

But once you actually start flying for yourself the experience doesn’t become more frightening, just more real.

You are in control of an actual aircraft that is slicing through the air hundreds of feet above the ground.

You can watch the wings dip as you turn, and see the world spin slowly beneath you.

It might be the most exhilarating feeling I’ve ever had.

The whole flight lasted about 10 to 15 minutes, which was plenty of time to start grasping the dual controls of a joystick in front of you and pedals at your feet.

For anyone not familiar with super-realistic flight simulator video games, the combination of needing to lower your wings and turn with the glider’s tail can be tricky to master at first.

But it doesn’t take long to get the hang of it. “I'd have you taking off and landing within a week,” Alan told Bethan.

The key to flying for longer periods is finding currents of rising air and riding them like huge elevators higher into the sky.

And, as I’m practising, Alan explains that every eventuality or problem that could crop up has been rigorously drilled by the instructors.

Every possible scenario of what could go wrong in the air has been rehearsed, replayed and prepared for, so serious glider accidents are very rare.

The Windrushers have been operating out of Bicester’s airfield since 1956, and the whole place feels warm and welcoming, with a fascinating array of gliders and small aircraft inside the main hanger.

The club’s handbook describes them as being like a family, which is exactly what it seems like.

A half-day course such as this, with three winch launches and a longer tow behind a small plane that can raise the glider to as high as 3,000ft, costs £259.

For more information visit windrushers.org.uk

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