Bumpy First Ride

Landing approach at Saint Auban

Today was my first sailplane lesson and it was the first (of many, I'm sure) example of the differences between learning paragliding and gliding. 

In paragliding, your first flights are generally solo and in very benign conditions. Your launch might be a bit dicey, but once you are in the air, it is calm. In gliding you start flying tandem and today conditions were pretty epic. Within 5 minutes of take-off, Claude (my instructor) had us wound up very tight in a 5 m/s thermal. Instantly I was flying in conditions I certainly didn't encounter in my first year's paragliding. 

It felt anything but calm and certainly very different from paragliding. A paraglider is 'flexible' and dampens turbulence; a sailplane is rigid and transmits all the bumps directly to the pilot. From that point on I was focusing on keeping my lunch in my stomach.

Higher up, things were a bit calmer and I did a few token maneuvers before Claude landed the machine. 

PS I also felt uncomfortable in my second flight, but since then haven't had any nausea in the air.