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Scott pulled hard on the right
control tube. The glider began a slow turn as they flew toward
the thermal. The beeping continued as the glider turned tight
circles.
"We're inside the thermal and gaining altitude. This
is about as close as the hawks will let us fly to them. We'll
stay in this pattern until we reach the bottom of the cloud.
That is the highest we can fly. Notice we're higher than where
we took off." A long moment of silence ensued. She's
awfully quiet. I hope she's not about to go nuts about heights.
Scott looked over his shoulder at Suzy. "You don't seem
very excited."
"I'm just nervous. How stable this piece of aluminum?"
"Don't worry, anyone can fly a glider. Even a sack of
potatoes can do it." Scott pushed against the right down
tube, and thrust himself and Suzy around to face the back
of the glider. "If I let go, it will fly itself with
us just hanging here."
"What are you doing?" She screamed.
"It's on autopilot. Relax and go with the flow. The Zen
of flight."
"Turn us around!"
Scott moved his foot and spun them back around to face forward.
"Better?"
"This isn't what I expected."
"What did you expect?"
"I'm here because my friend gave me a tandem flight."
Suzy took a deep breath and continued. "I came to get
my mind off my problems."
"And those problems would be . . .?" Let me guess,
he walked out on you, just like Amber did to me. Did someone
really say at launch that the shuttle got hit?
Suzy hesitated, then said, "I was engaged. He was a jerk.
He charged up my credit cards and skipped town days before
the wedding. Now I'm stuck with his bills and may have to
declare bankruptcy because I can't dig my self out of debt.
Katharine said flying might take my mind off him for a while."
Scott scanned the horizon. "At this rate, you're not
going to accomplish what you came here for, but I think I
can fix that."
"How?" Suzy asked.
"Because you're still thinking about him while we're
flying." Scott took a final look around the glider, and
pulled the control bar in past his knees. "Most people
on their first hang glide flight can't think about anything
but landing." The craft dove for the ground. Suzy screamed.
At 1,000 feet, Scott rolled the glider into a loop-de-loop
roll. The wind grew quiet as the glider nearly stalled upside
down. Then it tipped forward and again dove toward the ground.
"That's loop-de-loop number one. Here comes number two."
He again pushed the control bar from his knees over his head.
He heard Suzy take a sharp breath.
Scott felt a four-G pull as the glider carved out of the second
loop and saw the green fields were closer than before. "Here
comes the hard part," he said, "loop-de-loop number
three. I think we have enough altitude and speed left."
"Noooooo!" Suzy wailed as she clenched his chest
tighter.
Scott pushed the control bar above his head a third time.
Suzy screamed louder as the glider rolled over the top and
back. Scott turned hard to the right and leveled the wings.
"That triple loop-de-loop won me a couple of aerobatics
championships," he said confidently.
 
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