The Picture shows CFI Roger Morrisroe congratulating new member Kerry who re-solo'd at NVGC.
Kerry first went solo after a course at Cambridge GC

What Gliding Means To Me by Kerry Mertz

My first taste of gliding took place on 27th August 2005. I arrived at the Cambridge Gliding Centre for my trial flight with not the faintest idea what a glider was or indeed what it could do. All I knew was that it was giving me a well earned break from being a Mummy to my then 3 and 1 year old daughters.

Following a briefing I was taken to launch point clinging to the back of a golf buggy, wrestled into a parachute and then installed in one of the clubs K21’s.  We took an aerotow to 2000ft and pulled off and then everything went deafly silent, a silence I hadn’t experienced since before my daughters had arrived – it was sheer bliss!!

Upon leaving the airfield that day I found myself gazing wistfully at the launching gliders with the distinct feeling that I needed to come back and do that again, as soon as humanly possible.

In May 2006 I joined an evening flying course and after a few weeks in I managed to persuade my evening instructor to take me flying during the day, it was a Friday. Whilst I waited for him to arrive I sat in the club house chatting with another member. He was having a week off work, “so, how many days of your holiday have you spent here then” I enquired.

“Urmm, let me see, today, yesterday, the day before that, Tuesday, oh and Monday too” he replied.

“This is the problem with gliding, it gets into your blood and under your skin” he added

I paid him lip service, said “yes of course” and nodded in agreement whilst secretly thinking he was several sandwiches short of a picnic.

That day turned out to be one of discovery. I did my first cross-country flight of over an hour (I had no idea they could stay up for that long) and my first foray into aerobatics. We did a few loops and chandelles and it quite literally turned my entire world upside down!

I vividly recollect driving off the airfield that day. I pulled over onto a dirt track across the field from the hanger and sat watching in wonder at the gliders launching and landing. I felt really quite emotional at the prospect of having to leave the field, I even shed a tear. All the while those words from earlier were ringing in my ears, ‘it gets into your blood and under your skin’ and suddenly I understood precisely what he had meant and I realised at that moment I was totally and utterly hooked!!!!

I’ve often tried to rationalise my feelings about gliding and wondered what it is exactly that has me so completely enamoured by the sport. The usual clichés of the feelings of freedom it offers and the escapism of it certainly rings true.  For me though the world just seems like a far more beautiful place from the air, you can’t see any of the bad stuff that’s going on below.

I recently read a copy of Propellerhead and contained within was a very small throw-away comment that upon reading spoke volumes to me and suddenly the compulsion to do this all made sense. The author whilst trying to explain the differences between airspeed and groundspeed offers the following explanation.

‘The point being that the moment you were airborne you ceased to be a part of the landscape and became part of the air blowing across it’.

As soon as I read that line I realised that was it. That is the allure, the reason why I love this so much, in a ‘nutshell’ that is the ‘secret’ of the attraction for me!

Return to Achievements