We sent our pupils for a day a week gliding, in the months when the gliding station wasn't very busy.
(Extract from 'State School', by R.F. Mackenzie. Press here for full quote.

School Gliding, the 'Fife Fliers'

Hamish M. Brown goes aloft with Braehead School and writes his impressions.
Photographs from Mr David Scott.

(click any picture for a better resolution larger version)

The heavy doors slide back to reveal a long, gloomy cavern in which silver-scaled monsters lie limp and quiet.

Then the boys and girls surge forward. The spell is broken. The cavern is a long hanger, the monsters sleek gliders lined one behind the other - awkward, for the schools No. 286 lies in mid-line. A wave of direction and the trolley slides under the wheel of the first. Slowly it is pulled sidewards into the open, then the next: a Falke this time, a powered glider with a Volkswagon engine (the same one which recently crossed the Atlantic).

No. 284 was next, the schools Capstan, a stiff, angular craft, lifeless on the trolley, like a bird with cut primaries. Slowly it is pulled out into the open. Someone at each wing, for a strong to gale force wind is blowing off Loch Leven.

The scene is Portmoak, the airfield of the Scottish Gliding Union, lying beside Loch Leven in Fife with the Lomond Hills standing a couple of miles across the rich farmland. The figures, muffled against the cold, were from Auchmuty and Braehead Schools in Fife. At the latter I teach outdoor activities like mountaineering but this was to be a new way of going high.

Every Monday Mr. David Scott and Mr. Douglas Clark are at Portmoak with the school's teenagers: garbed in pilots suits, booted and I almost said spurred, gloved. In winter it is cold work. The north-west wind was bending the hedges and holding the windsock out horizontally. The loch was washed into white horses. People muttered about turbulence, grinning in expectation.

Gliding is very much a team effort right to the moment when you soar off the ground into the blue. The Capstan was wheeled to the end of the runway and held down by heavy tyres. Left alone the wind could flip it away in destructive somersaults. Responsibility starts right away when the hangar doors are slid noisily open.

The checks are gone through, panels opened to see the inards, rudder, ailerons, air brakes pushed this way and that.

A gang came out from the club-house with parachutes slung over their shoulders.

David Scott slipped into his rapidly while helping hands aided me into mine. The perspex canopy was lifted while we climbed in. safety straps pinned us to the bucket seats. The lid closed.

The winch cable was attached under the nose.

'All clear above and behind' 'Take up slack'

'A climbers phrase' I thought in the pause. The winch half a mile away down the track tightened on the cable. The grinning faces had all retreated.

'All out' (not an order to disembark)

'Flat out' might have been better. We shot off down the runway and almost at once rose into the air. The dials spun upwards: the height indicator like a watch with a hour hand pointing to the thousands of feet and the minute hand the hundreds of feet.

The world falls away. The only sound is the rush and the hum of wind over the streamlined body and the quiet commentary of the instructor. The landscape expands, circled mile by mile, till it is map-like and distant strangely familiar, for it is the sort of view as from a high mountain, but what an effortless ascent!

The tow cable falls away, its dark parachute drifting down again to the airfield ready for the next launching. Two gliders were already soaring above one to go up to 20,000 ft., that morning.

'Well go across to the Bishops now'; crab-wise we sidle across the fields.

'Quite a bit of turbulence', but it seemed surprisingly smooth.

'Now watch us climb'.

The uplift caught us, the dials spun again. Four knots the vertical gain! Then at 2,000 ft., the stick was pushed forward. We levelled out.

The snowy cone of Schiehallion could be seen to the north. Dundee appeared on the starboard side beyond the Tay while to port lay the Forth Bridges and Edinburgh. 'Here, you take over' 'Help!'

'Relax. Look at the wing. Now if you push this way it dips. Now the other up it comes. Now try to keep it level. Gently. Now push the stick forward the nose dips. Up again gently. Now try and keep her pointing to Castle Island.'

As well it was dual control. The touch of control is gentle and the feeling is of thrilling calm. Rather like a good ski run, where body and skis become one, so the pilot and the glider he flies is a living unit so different from the machine in the hanger or on the ground.

The winter geese were flying in too fighting against the gale. Over the Lomonds the grass waved in passing lines of bending colour.

Too soon we spun round to race before the wind, a tight turn and the airfield was rushing towards us, the ground wind beating over the hedges rocked us, we bounced on the small wheels and sped over the grass, figures  ran out towards us, catching the wings before they tilted, the canopy was opened.

'Well sir, how did it go?'

'Great! Just great!'

We had lunch in the club-house

Then I went off by car and toiled up the 1,000ft of Bishop Hill to take photographs from there. I could hardly stand in the gale. But it was well worth it.

Snow buntings flew past.

Then a white shape rose from the airfield. Slow, slow it seemed from up there. The parachute fell away. Gradually the glider grew in size till it was swooshing at us, then up and away on the uplift. We exchanged waves and went our ways.

'Lucky boys and girls' I thought as I passed the airfield again.

No. 286 was ready for launching again. I could imagine the conversation.

'All clear above and behind' 'Take up slack' 'All out'

And with a rush another pupil headed into the wide clear sky. Lucky indeed!

Text by Hamish Brown and the photographs of the pupils of Braehead gliding at
Portmoak were donated by Mr David Scott (technical department).

There are some further photographs of the Braehead School pupils gliding at Portmoak here.

This page has been compiled from the Braehead School archive site at http://www.braehead-news.org.uk/ which is a historical archive of the school in Buckhaven, Fife and a tribute to its headmaster, R F MacKenzie, a visionary who clashed often with the establishment but is forever remembered by his pupils.

page last updated on 16th January 2006 ©2002-2006 and the

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