Flying high

When I was 21 years old I applied to become a pilot in the military, the Norwegian Royal Air Force to be more exact. I was lucky to pass loads of tests and interviews and was one out of 20 that got sent to actual pilot training at Værnes outside of Trondheim. The training was at the same time a selection process so people got sent home if progress wasn't at desired level. The pilot school was to start January 1992 and I had the previous autumn off. I decided to go back-packing for some months and ended up in New Zealand at the end of the trip. I took a few glider plane lessons with the purpose of getting some flying experience and in particular practising landing. I had been tipped off that landing your plane is the part of flying one typically struggles with in the beginning. I discovered pretty fast that knowing when to start flattening out from the approach to the air field wasn't that easy. I once got a new instructor on board that had misunderstood my level. She let me land the plane without herself touching the stick. I'll be honest. It was a pretty hard hit. Luckily we landed on grass and I think the plane survived. On next round she didn't let go of the stick.

In the pilot school I got to fly 30 hours in a one propeller Saab Safari trainer including two rides on my own circling the air field doing touch and goes. On a day in May 1992 we were seven students left and the management decided it was my and another guy's turn to leave the school. His name was by the way also Jan Arne. A funny coincidence as I think he was the first other Jan Arne I've ever met. After we left, the five remaining students got sent to US for further training. I was naturally disappointed then but afterwards I was actually relieved. The flying part was fun enough but I was close to a very long career in the military and most likely on a military base on the outskirts of Norway. It was one of those major turning points in life. I became an engineer instead.

We have a friend who's into flying gliders and is even an instructor. Last Sunday he took me flying. The air field is located in an area called Teisko roughly 50km north of Tampere. We got towed up by a propeller plane, released at 500m and had a one hour long flight. It was great to be up there again, 17 years since last time. Gliders are really a nice way of flying. No noise from any motor and you gain height by finding thermals, warm raising air. There is a lot of skill and experience needed in finding those. During the one hour flight we had, a junior pilot had done three flights.

I was also flying high on Wednesday last week, but more mentally. I went to see Finland-Germany, football world-cup qualifier in Helsinki with another friend of mine. 37000 people showed up at the Olympic stadium and made a great atmosphere. Finland has a new coach and we were a bit uncertain what he actually stands for. We were impressed as Finland did an amazing game. Good football and they were in lead three times. Germany however managed to equalise them all and the score ended up being 3-3.