Showing posts with label flying. Show all posts
Showing posts with label flying. Show all posts

19 July 1998

Hot air balloon flight in Belgium


Today I flew in an hot air balloon for the first time! Got up before dawn and drove to Viller la Ville, just outside Brussels. It is mandatory to fly in the early hours of the morning or late in the afternoon, when the air is calm. Otherwise the big and not at all aerodynamic shape of the balloon would be dangerously buffeted by the hot air of Summer thermal currents.

We we welcomed by the organizers with some hot coffee and started getting the balloon ready. The huge canvas was slowly filled with hot air by a huge fan. As the sun rose above the horizon, we (half a dozen of us) got into the big basket with our pilot.

As he fired the gas burners into the balloon we slowly lifted off. Soon afterwards the barely perceptible wind started pushing our aircraft over the Belgian fields. Down below, a car was following us, taking instructions from the pilot as to which road or path to follow to better stay close to our flight path and be ready for our recovery. (Note added in 2012: there were no GPS then, so this was the only way for the car to know where to go in order to follow the balloon as closely as possible.)

We gained altitude up to some five hundred meters. It was, needless to say, an exhilarating experience. A few times we flew pretty close to the tree tops of some hills, but when this happens the pilot fired the reassuring burners, the air in the balloon heats up and the craft moved safely up in the sky. The morning air was comfortably cool in our faces.

After about half an hour we began our descent. The pilot let the air cool inside the balloon and the aircraft moved slowly downward in a gentle glide. As we approached touch-down he instructed us to brace. Just before hitting the vegetable field he fired the burner one last time to soften our impact with the ground. As the basket hit the soil it ground to a halt and slowly tilted forward until it fell to its side. I feared for my camera but it all went well.

After disembarking amongst the inevitable excitement we got into the recovery vehicles and drove back to base camp, where a bottle of cool champagne was waiting!

Well done European Balloon Corporation! Hope to fly with you again soon.

22 October 1997

Stopover in Hong Kong on the way to Australia


Cathay pacific offers me a day room at the hotel by the airport. Landing at this airport is an experience in itself. As we approach in the early morning hours it is still pitch dark. I can see the bright lights of the bustling city, which has just reverted to China a few weeks ago, in stark contrast with the black background of the mainland. During the final approach the  pilot comes on the intercom and advises that he is going to switch off the main cabin lights so we can see better outside. A few minutes later I understand why. The plane comes in low literally between rows of high rise buildings! You can almost see inside the bedrooms of the apartments as he makes a precise landing in the narrow strip of reclaimed land in Kowloon bay!

01 September 1996

Book Review/Recensione: I was Amelia Earhart, by Jane Mendelsohn, ****

Recensione in italiano di seguito

From the New York Times, 3 July 1937



Synopsis

A fictitious account of Amelia Earhart's last flight, with flashbacks to her childhood and difficult marriage. Amelia and her raffish, drunken navigator, Noonan, crash-land on a desert island. They fight, touch madness and finally fall in love, before taking off again on only half a tank of petrol.


21 May 1992

Diploma di C d'Argento in aliante

Oggi ho conseguito il Diploma di C d'argento in aliante. Le insegne sono denominate C perché in passato il brevetto di volo a vela era denominato "brevetto C".



Brevetto fregiato di insegna C d'argento per il pilota che ha raggiunto i seguenti obiettivi nell'ambito di due soli voli:
- Permanenza in volo per almeno 5 ore consecutive calcolate dall'orario dello sgancio in quota
- Effettuazione di un trasferimento di almeno 50 km
- Guadagno quota dal punto di sgancio di almeno 1000 metri (lo sgancio deve essere effettuato ad una quota massima di 500 metri sul punto di partenza).

Eccolo!





09 May 1992

Stage aliante a Rieti


Vignetta disegnata da un collega pilota di aliante che fa il caricaturista di professione. Io sono quello in basso a destra, pelato e con la barba. Infatti nel corso di questo stage sono atterrato una volta senza carrello!

06 January 1991

Decollo in aliante monoposto

Oggi l'istruttore Pace mi autorizza al decollo in monoposto. Il mio primo volo con un monoposto. Un aliante monoposto è un po' una Formula 1 del volo, tutt'altro volare che i biposto usati finora per la scuola ed i voli turistici. È come avere le ali attaccate alle spalle.

Uso il DG-100 I-LUKO dell'aeroclub. Tempo calmo, volo tranquillo attorno all'aeroporto di Rieti, tutto normale, eppure indimenticabile. 

02 September 1990

Volo n. 64 - Esame per il brevetto di volo in aliante

Oggi ho passato l'esame pratico di volo a vela! Sgancio a 1000 metri, 18 minuti sul PICK (un ASK-21 del club) con l'istruttore Cattani. È fatta!

16 June 1990

Decollo in aliante

Oggi è la prima volta che vado in volo da solo, sempre sul biposto scuola, I-PICK, l'ASK-21 su cui da un anno sto imparanto ad andare in volo. Condizioni ideali, vento calmo. Faccio comunque  un paio di voli di controllo con l'istruttore, ormai vado senza problemi. Poi poco prima del tramonto è il momento. Aldini avverte la torre che c'è un "decollo" (primo volo da solo per un nuovo pilota) e il fido I-BOLK comincia a trainarmi.

08 October 1989

Inizio corso di volo in aliante

Non mi ricordo bene perché ho iniziato a volare in aliante. Non c'era un progetto, un obiettivo. Qualche anno fa avevo pensato di volare in deltaplano, ma poi mi ero convinto, chissà perché, che fosse troppo pericoloso ed allo stesso tempo limitato nelle prestazioni. Invece un aliante è un vero aereo. Non sono molto convinto che questo ragionamento abbia molto senso, anche il parapendio, che è ancora più limitato nelle prestazioni di un deltaplano, può dare grandi soddisfazioni. In un certo senso, anzi, più il mezzo è piccolo, limitato, più si è simili a veri volatili! Con un deltaplano si può andare più lenti e più vicino alla terra rispetto ad un aliante, e con un parapendio ancora di più rispetto ad un deltaplano.

Comunque sia eccomi qui, oggi si comincia, al secondo tentativo. La prima volta che sono andato all'aeroclub di Rieti con due amici pure intenzionati a brevettarsi, abbiamo trovato tutto chiuso, c'era un nebbione fitto sulla valle e non volava nessuno. Era qualche settimana fa, e finì tutto con una gran magnata al ristorante del "Nido del Corvo", a Greccio, sui monti che spero presto sorvolerò con le mie ali silenziose...



Idee di lettura sul volo a vela qui su Amazon.



30 May 1980

Air ticket no, train ticket yes

Back in Warsaw Ann and Cathy want to buy airplane tickets to go to Krakow. Cathy has not been there and Ann wants to show the beautiful city to her. But to buy an airplane ticket in Poland, even a domestic flight ticket, you need a passport. Or at least foreigners need a passport. However we don't have our passports as they are currently with the police to extend, yet one more time, our visas. So no tickets. We drive to the railway station, where they can buy a train ticket to Krakow, for which you don't need a passport. Oh well, they'll enjoy the landscape more.

To celebrate their accomplishment we go all together to the Winiarna, on the Rynek Starego Miasta, the central market square of the capital. The choice of wines is average but prices, for us, are very low even for imported Italian and French wines.

An ice cream at the Victoria hotel concludes the morning. A couple of drunkards are hanging out by the hotel gate and they offer to wash our car while we lick our ice creams, whch we readily accept. Giallina badly needs a good clean after the adventure in Mazuria.

Ice cream leads to tea at Borzena's. Her mother insists that we have lunch there but we don't want to take advantage one more time of their hospitality, which we know costs them very dear. This time, somehow, we are able to extricate ourselves. Back home, easy afternoon of rest.

Dinner with Andrew and Romek at the Baziliszek restaurant. These dinners at expensive (for the locals) restaurants have become so routine that I have almost completely ceased feeling ashamed about it. I felt even a bit guilty in the beginning, but that went away quickly.

17 May 1980

Flying back and meet Cathy

In the morning another tour of the city with Ann. Juwenalia still ongoing, but somehow not so sparkling. They just don't seem excited and are not so exciting.

Antonov 24, made in USSR
At 3:00pm departure back to Warsaw, by plane. It is a Soviet-made aircraft, quite spartan and noisy. Service aboard is basic, to put it mildly. There is a smoking section of the cabin and a non-smoking, but the funny thing is that they are not positioned forward and back of the aircraft like in most airlines. Usually I try to get a seat as far forward in the cabin so as to be away from the smokers, except that if you are too far forward and it is a small aircraft you end up just behind the smokers of business class.

But here smokers and non-smokers are assigned to the left and right of the aisle. With the obvious result that all non-smokers receive generous wafts of smoke no matter where they are seated.

In Warsaw we meet Cathy, Ann's friend who will be traveling with us for the rest of our stay in Eastern Europe and then back to Italy.

In the evening dinner at Marian and Ewa's, where I meet Simona, the wife of my cousin Nicola, a surgeon who is here for a medical conference. It is always very instructive to spend time with them, we always learn a lot about Poland.

Marian and Ewa