By:Kathryn
Drury A
warm, dry wind blows constantly here at the foot of the Waianae mountain
range, on Oahu’s North Shore. Despite the palm trees, Dillingham
Airfield seems more like a country airport; with small tin buildings
squatting under a sky the color of faded denim. There’s a sense of
timelessness here, with a hangar near the airstrip proclaiming FIGHTERTOWN
in graying paint and a mysterious concrete bunker tucked into the mountain
– remnants of the area’s military past. A bleached-out, once-red
windsock stands stiff in the constant breeze; above, the air is caught by
hang-gliders, twin-engine airplanes, skydivers, and glider planes. The
gliders are surprisingly beautiful. Like some huge, prehistoric seagull,
they elegantly and soundlessly loop on giant wings. In
the shimmer of midday heat, Bill Star, a redheaded man in a striped
referee shirt bounds around, greeting tourists, answering the ever-ringing
phone, handing out lychees, shaking hands - and occasionally sitting back
down with the reporter here to interview him about his business, The
Original Glider Rides. Mr. Bill, as everyone calls him, received his
moniker sometime in the mid-1980s, when someone penciled in a respectful
“Mr.” before his name on a tin sign. In
1970, Mr. Bill and business partner, Sam Bleadon, bought a small glider
operation on the North Shore. At the time, rides were only $10. The strip
was little except koa bushes. “All the gliders parked right there in the
shrubbery,” he explains. “We had a lean-to for people to wait under
and I used my Chrysler Newport as the office.” Gliders,
sometimes called soar planes or sail planes, are small, light aircraft
that have no engines. What you’ll notice first, though, is the
oversized, long, skinny wings, which gives gliders a bird-like
maneuverability. They usually carry two people and are made of fiberglass
or aluminum. Mr. Bill employs a roster of 15 FAA-licensed pilots, most of
whom work two to three days a week and none who earn enough to call this
their sole gig. Flying a glider takes a bit of practice, Mr. Bill
explains. “The mentality in flying a plane with an engine is to stay the
heck away from the mountain. But with a glider, you tuck into the ridge,
getting as close as possible. You need to get the lift and find the
thermals to ride on. You watch the clouds, the birds, and see what’s
happening.” Clouds? Birds? Isn’t this all a little primitive? Mr. Bill
laughs. “On the dashboard you’ve got gauges for your airspeed, a
compass, an altimeter, oh, and a clock. He assures me, gliders are safer
than driving. “The most dangerous part of your trip was driving on the
H-1 to get here.” Dillingham
Airfield is an aviator’s dream. With a runway 9,000 feet long, it’s
also blessed with an ideal environment
for flying gliders: The steady trade-winds mean a good eight to ten
hours a day of lift, and only 20 days
a year are unflyable – and that’s on account of too much, not too
little, air movement. Visibility is typically forty miles. The
majority of Mr. Bill’s clients are tourists, or kamaaina who come with their
visiting friends. Through the years, his gliders have served as an
airborne wedding chapel, as well as hosted a Navy reenlistment ceremony. There
are few requirements for riding in a glider. “We’ve been doing this
for 33 years and found anyone can do it,” he says. “Quadriplegics can
do this – you just have to be a little more careful with the
merchandise. We prop shorter people and children up with pillows. Little
kids are fine. In fact, I’d earlier seen a small, bonneted tot looking
completely nonplussed as she departed the glider, waving goodbye to the
staff. Which doesn’t mean it’s dull; there’s also an aerobatic route
offered, for which you’ll need to wear a parachute - just in case. “Gliders
are the purest form of flying,” muses Nabile, a pilot who has worked
with Mr. Bill on and off since 1977. “I have the license to fly 747s and
flew 707s with TWA for years. But I like working here because I get to
deal with people who are euphoric. They are on vacation, relaxed and in a
good mood to begin with, and then we give them this incredible
experience.” He continues, “I also like flying gliders because they
are so quiet; with no engine, there’s no constant hum or any smell of
fuel.” Ready
to try the experience for my-self, I climb into the glider, a
forty-year-old Schweizer made in Elmira, New York. Don, the company’s
chief pilot, has on no shoes and what appears to be a (clean) diaper
wrapped around his head to guard against the sun.
He waves, with an enormous hand, to our tow plane pilot – a guy
called The Beav – and straps me into the front of the glider. “A fine
line?” he jokes, offering me the rope that tethers us to the plane. He
closes the clear bubble top and we taxi very briefly. We’re being pulled
up to the mountain range in search of lift. There’s a bit of a jolt when
the rope releases and then we’re on our own. It’s quiet, with just the
sounds of the wind, and surprisingly smooth. The
best part of the experience is definitely the view: almost 360 degrees of
scenery. From up here, the coastal ocean has many incarnations, with
different depths showing up in aqua, teal, and navy. You can easily see
through the water to the coral formations below, or swoop down to watch a
sailboat as it bobs along the waves. On land, an emerald checkerboard of
fields-taro, coffee and alfalfa-stretches toward the sun. Horse trails can
be seen snaking up the mountain. Up a little higher,
we see the domes of the U.S. Air Force satellite tracking station,
gleaming white globes bulging out from the vegetation. Despite the bright
sunshine, the interior of the glider gets progressively chillier as we
ascend to 3,700 feet. Don
shows me how to steer the glider, which uses controls consisting of
exactly one stick, which you gently pull back, forward or side to side.
“Gently, gently, like you’re a teenager and sneaking an arm around
your date,” Don says, as I, shaking, make my first right turn. I
get more confident once I realize how stable the glider actually is. But
Don decides to give me a little thrill and tips the nose of the glider
down. We plunge, and it feels exactly like I’m on a roller coaster
barreling down the first hill. Rushing towards the sea at 120 miles an
hour, I’m laughing half in delight and half in total fear. But Don is
calm as anything and gracefully lands us on the runway. I climb out,
amazed at all that we’d done in twenty short minutes. What a ride. |