Gliding and Blueberry Muffins

View looking over the left wing of the glider at around 2,600 feet.

Last weekend I went up in a glider. It was so exciting that I just had to share, even though it has nothing to do with food. Well, that's not completely true. My friends shared their amazing sandwiches (I must get the recipe) and I shared some blueberry muffins (recipe at end of post). See? I did make it food related.

Kitchen Chick's Great Gliding Adventure
The plane is very small, with absurdly long thin wings. We used a small tractor to tow it down to the end of the grassy runway. At least one person has the "walk the wing" to keep it moving straight. The runway is a former strip of farm land embedded in the middle of a working farm.

You do multiple checks of the plane. A complete inside and outside visual check over when you take the plane out of the hanger, and more checks when you ready the plane for take-off. The belt is a four-point harness. A two-seater glider has identical controls for both seats. I just had to keep my hands off of them. (And keep my knee from knocking the canopy release, too.)

Everything was going fine until we closed the hatch, and it hit me this was real. I was going to go up in the air with just a thin shell around me and those long delicate wings keeping us aloft. Then the tow pilot got the go signal. The grass goes rushing a scant foot below your butt as the tow plane drags you down the grass runway...

I have a fear of rollercoasters, so I'm sad to say I panicked. "I'm scared, I'm scared, I'm scared," I cried all down the runway. My friend and dear pilot tried to make it easier for me by lifting the plane earlier than it was ready, which actually made a bumpier take off than normal, and then we were in the air. At first just a foot or two off the ground. It's surreal. The lift is completely silent. The only noise is the tow plane up ahead and, in this case, the passenger trying to not panic (saying, now, "Breath, breath, look at the horizon, breath...") and the pilot trying to keep her calm. The grass is rushing, rushing, rushing silently past. And then the tow plane lifts and we are pulled into the air. It's a tiny bit bumpy ("keep breathing") as we pass through patches of warm lifting air and cold sinking air. (Photo: being towed into the sky. Click for larger image.)

As I suspected would happen, once in the air I felt fine. It was only the take off that was scary. And then there would be a landing, but that would come later. I would worry about that when it was time.

At last at some 2,600 plus feet the pilot released the cable and there is this moment of utter weightlessness as the glider goes from being pulled to flying on its own. You can see the tow plane angling off to the left in this photo. (Click on it for a larger image.)

It's so quiet. No engines roaring. Just the cold wind rushing in through the vent. And the plane, with its long thin wings, is suspended on air, moving ghostly quiet over the landscape.

So we sought out thermals (I turn out to be pretty good at picking good clouds) to climb higher. Our "vario", the vertical speed indicator, gave audio feedback, with an increasing pitch when we were rising and a deepinging pitch when we were sinking, so we flew though promising areas listening for a rising pitch. When you find a thermal, you turn in circles like a corkscrew to stay in the thermal and it lifts you up. These were small thermals, so we were practically spinning in place. The world turned and turned around us, the horizon canted at an angle, farm fields and roads sliding past our view. After a while of spinning I started to get motion sick. That surprised me because I've never been motion sick on a commercial jet.

I think if I were piloting I probably wouldn't get sick, just like I don't get motion sick if I'm driving but I can get motion sick under the right conditions if someone else is driving. I guess that's incentive to learn how to fly.

We got somewhere over 3,500 feet, but the clouds were a bit low so we couldn't go much higher. It's against the regs to enter clouds in a glider. When the cloud seemed too close we would leave the thermal and glide. We'd pass through areas of "sink" and our altitude would drop. When sinking, you push the nose down to go faster because you want to pass through the "sink" as quickly as possible to get to another area of lift.

It was a crappy day for gliding — lots of haze high overhead which prevents good thermals from building — but we managed to stay up over 1.5 hours. We were the queens of lift. All the guys were watching us, and "the girls" beat them all. We stayed up longer and went higher than anyone else that day. We only came down because my nausea wasn't clearing up.

The landing was a bit scary, but less than the take off. The pilot adjusts her speed and altitude (while the passenger holds her breath), and you drop until the grass is racing below you. One more drop and the wheel touches and you roll until you can't keep the wings level and one touches the ground. Then you stop fairly quickly. At some point the rear wheel must touch too. The landing wasn't very bumpy at all. Good landing.

We went up a second time. She wanted to fly more, and I had to see if I could not panic during take-off. The take-off was smoother and faster, and I was much calmer. (Just a few "Whoa, whoa!" and lots of deep breathing.) We were in a big gap between the coulds, nothing close enough to try, and couldn't find much lift under the hazy sky at all, so we were down on the ground again in short order.

Blueberry Muffins From Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything.  This is a great cookbook. A modernized version of "Joy of Cooking". I've really been enjoying trying the recipes and reading the very accessible explanations of different foods and cooking techniques.

Makes about 8 large or 12 medium muffins.

3 Tbs melted butter or canola oil
2 cups all purpose flour (or 1 cup all purpose and 1 cup whole wheat)
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 Tbs baking powder
1 egg
1 cup milk plus more if needed
1/2 tsp lemon zest (nice with blueberries but not required)
1 cup blueberries (fresh preferable, but if you use frozen do not defrost them)

Generously grease a muffin tin with butter. I used a Chicago metallic muffing pan that makes 12 "normal" sized muffins.

Mix dry ingredients.  In separate bowl, beat with egg and milk and butter and zest.  Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour wet mixture into it. Combine quickly with large spoon or rubber spatula. Stir or fold instead of beating and stop when all ingredients are moistened. Add blueberries last. Batter should be lumpy and thick, but moist.

Spoon batter into muffin tins about 2/3 full, handling batter as little as possible.  You can fill them higher if you want bigger muffins.  Make sure to put 1/4 cup water in any unused cups.

Bake 20-30 minutes until nicely browned and toothpick inserted in middle of a muffin comes out clean (not counting blueberry juice).  (It's worth checking for doneness at 20.) Remove from oven and let rest five minute before removing from the muffin tin. 

Comments

[Barbara]

nice description. Thanks very much.

Hugs.

[Stefanie]

That is SO cool! Did you go somewhere here in MI? (I know there is one not too far from me down in Gregory). My husband flies...not gliders though. Those pesky things called ultralights. He loves it. I am going to share this with him. He'll get a kick out of it!

[Kitchen Chick]

Barb: Thank you for taking up into the sky. (Next season's goal: conquer lift-off panic!)

Stefani: We were out near Manchester.

It was an unforgettable experience. I don't really have to time to take on yet another activity, but I'm thinking about taking a few lessons to get a taste. And apparently some people have really strung out their lessons over a long time period.

[Stefanie]

That's so cool! We live in Chelsea and my relatives live literally a few houses down from the airport in Gregory that does glider stuff all day long. The kids love to watch it. Hubby wishes he could fly out of Rosettie's airport right there on 52 between Chelsea and Manchester instead of where he does now. How exciting!

[Kitchen Chick]

Rosettie's would be a bit of a drive for you, wouldn't it. It's a very small, mowed out of the middle of farmer's fields kind of "airport".

[Stefanie]

Nope, not far at all. I think it's just over 8 miles from our house. My husband actually flies out of Air Rahe (I think that's how you spell it) and that's all the way down in Petersburg MI. Which is like exit 5 down 23 south. Quite a hike. He's always looking locally because he hates driving the hour to get down there.