First Cross Country
I had just turned 15 years old in 1991, weighed about 87 pounds and had to sit on two barbell weights to get up to the minimum pilot weight in 1-26 #368. However, this was my second-year flying, and I was now really getting the hang of this! I was not only flying the glider well; I was learning how to soar! I had gotten my Bronze Badge and studied cross country flying. I had realized that this presented a whole new world of experiences for me, and I was ready to see what it had to offer. There were some hurdles to overcome…
Central Indiana Soaring Society (CISS)
My home club, CISS was a typical glider club that sees only a few junior members come and go occasionally and had no real policies set towards those members. One policy they did have was that in order to take a club ship cross country, you had to have your license. Well, this put me in a pickle, because I was not yet old enough to get my license. I had just completed my 8th-grade year which had some speech classes and felt I was ready to give a pitch to the board of directors as to why an exception should be made to this rule for me. I stood up in front of all those adults and asked for permission to take the glider out. It was granted provided I did the other two requirements for the Silver Badge first, followed by the Cross Country of 50Km. According to my logbooks, the next week I knocked out the altitude gain, (3,281 feet) and the five-hour flight in two separate flights. I had now met all the requirements; I was ready to go!
Flight Instructor Preparation
The day had finally come! All the soundings made it look like a reasonable soaring day. My flight instructor, Don Reid sat down with me to go over the 34NM route I would take from Terry Airport to Shelbyville airport. He had come prepared with a Xeroxed copy of a sectional chart that looked something like this:
Don told me that it would be simple: Just follow the 465 beltway around to 74 and then follow that to Shelbyville. Don did forget one minor detail in this description: I had never operated a motor vehicle on the roads in my life. Nor had I ever paid any attention to how the interstate system worked. I just followed the line he traced on the chart with my eyes and guessed I would be able to figure it out later. What I did not realize was the number of interstates that run into and out of the Indianapolis beltway. I65, I70, I69, and I74!
Time to Go!
I took off and caught a couple of good thermals right away, then proceeded to head South East. Right away, I snatched a glimpse of the beltway and begun to follow it around. Soon enough I found myself on the South East side of Indianapolis. Here, I74 (The road I was supposed to follow) and I65 merge very closely. I chose the one that looked the most like what I thought matched up on my sectional chart. I did not choose the correct one. Pretty soon, I recognized none of the landmarks on my Xeroxed chart. I kept following the road south hoping I would reconnect and recognize something. In actuality, I had flown off my chart. Soon enough, I saw a large airport that I recognized had a control tower. Having no clue where I was, I decided that the safest bet would be to go ahead and land.
The Landing
Having an old crystal radio with five channels, none of which were the unknown tower frequency or 121.5, I flew overhead the tower rocking my wings. I soon got a green light gun signal from the tower, flew a nice pattern and landed. After I got out of the glider, I pushed it off the side of the runway and began the long walk to the FBO. When I poked my head in, I asked the age-old cross-country pilot question: “Where am I”? The man inside responded, “You are at Bakalar, and the man in the tower would like to speak with you”.
Talk to Tower
As I trudged up the many, many, many steps of the old WWII tower, I wondered what was in store for me. I also wondered where the heck Bakalar was, as I had never heard of it. It turns out, Bakalar was the name of the old Air Force Base I had landed on in Columbus, Indiana. Anyway, as I knocked on the tower door the man inside signaled me to open it. As all 87 pounds of me stepped inside he exclaimed: “Was that YOU flying that glider?!” I replied that it was me, and he said, “Hang on”. Then, he picked up the phone and dialed what I can only assume was the FAA and said, “Never mind, no need to come out here, it’s just a kid”. After this phone call, he turned back to me and asked, “Is there anyone you would like to call?”
I replied, “Yes, I would like to call my mom please”.
Lessons
After a phone call to my worried mother, and her picking herself up off of the floor at having to retrieve me at a place so far away, the paperwork was submitted to complete my silver badge. After all, I had flown over twice the distance required for the badge, even if I did land at the wrong airport. I have found in my glider education that there are two types of instructors required for flying gliders. One type can teach you how to fly well, the other type can teach you how to soar. Don Reid was both. Without his encouragement, I would have never taken those first steps away from the airfield. It does not take much to kick your young birds out of the nest, or away from the home tree, and I encourage everyone to try some sort of cross-country some time in their soaring experience. Even if the sectional was a Xerox, I still wouldn’t change a thing about that flight and the lessons I was taught.
Mitch Hudson has been avidly flying gliders since he was 14 years old. He is a retired Air Force Navigator who also has hobbies of exercising his ATP rating to fly regional jets around the country and using his A&P rating to keep all matter of flying machines in the air. Mitch has flown more regional and national soaring contests than he cares to count and has crewed at two World Gliding Championships. He and his wife live in Colorado, keep a hangar in Moriarty, New Mexico, and flies happily with whichever club will put up with him.
