There are some times when you are flying when you wish you were down on the ground. Well Saturday was one of those times! The forecast was excellent ... a ridge of high pressure building light winds from 0 to 5,000 feet, visibility 30km plus ... just perfect!
Unfortunately, it wasn't. The temperature on the ground was 24C at 11:00am and that should have been a warning sign. Anyway, after the usual thorough pre-flight, I took off from the small grass strip and before I got to 500ft, I was pushed up in the air by a thermal and climbing at over 1,500ft per minute. As I got to 300ft, I started to throttle back, but I was still going up like a rocket. I levelled off at 1,000 ft and that is when it all started to happen.
All of a sudden the starboard wing lifted the aircraft into a roll of 45 degrees: a quick snatch of the aileron brought it back to level, but within a few seconds it did it again, and then without any warning, the microlight dropped 200ft as I was lifted out of my seat and hit my head on the crossbar in the roof of the cockpit. That was it, I'd had enough and wanted to be back on the ground.
I had to endure another five minutes of the invisible hand throwing me around the sky, until I had flown around the circuit into the final approach to land. And then I saw a jogger running along the middle of the runway about half way down its length! I had no choice, but to do a low pass over the strip to get their attention and go around for another landing attempt! Another five minutes riding the Big One!!
I finally made it down on the ground and breathed a long sigh of relief as I shutdown the engine. On the ground it was a beautiful summers day, but in the air in a microlight weighing less than 380 kilograms, I was thrown around like a feather in a thunderstorm!
The culprits? Thermals!
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