Bandit Flight, Summer '99
On the Field

From the scorching heat to the bitter cold, RGS'99 was always at Innisfail launching gliders... well, at least Bandit Flight was (I know, I love bitter inner rivalry). The bagged "lunches" (we actually ate them for supper) were disgusting, but we had them day after day. We watched as the Bandit Flight progress line matched the "overdrive" line (while the Apache line started to slope down), and before we knew it, we were all pilots.        Here we are after our first evening of gliding. The bus was almost an hour late that day. It was the day Officer Cadet Cavoukian became a 2nd Lieutenant. It was also the day we met the notorious "Nazi" bus driver. Ask me if you really want to know the story... and yes, we have to wear those hats.        Our fleet of Belanca Scouts and Schweizer 2-33A's. Actually, we had five towplanes and seven gliders. The others were just probably in maintenance.          Here I am on my first solo. The radio would fall out of it's pocket about ten seconds after this picture was taken, and it's batteries died right after, leaving me with no way of communicating to the tower. The clouds in the background are the type that signifies good thermals, and there were many of them. It's too bad I wasn't allowed to thermal.        This is me after my first solo. The winds changed while I was in flight, and caused me to land outside of the aircraft's safety limits. As my reward for not wrecking the glider, I got to ride home in a tow plane instead of a bus.        This was taken after the last flight was flown. Notice how everyone in this picture is a pilot.