Photographing at 3 G
OK, so the the 3 G only lasted about 15 seconds and I admit I wasn’t thinking of photographing at that moment. In fact I was concentrating on holding my head up and wasn’t thinking of anything… And boy, my idea of gliding as a relaxed and low-adrenalin sport evaporated quickly through that small fresh-air-window.
Please don’t laugh! In the movies one only sees gliders smoothly and silently sailing through the air, but in fact the start is pretty damn steep and the circles within a thermal are very tight. The feeling is nothing like comfortably jetting in a commercial airplane; gliding is flying “unplugged” and feeling every bump along the ride. But it’s also a great source of adrenalin and pure fun, especially for the environmentally-minded.
Since I didn’t know what to expect, I only had a small digicam with me, and during the flight I somehow “forgot” that I had it with me. I only took about 5 pictures before the half hour was over and we started our descent. The pilot asked me how I was doing and upon answering “fine, it’s great up here” he took the glider onto several steep arcs and one very tight turn. Afterwards he told me, it must have been around 3 G’s. Boy-oh-boy!
Anyhow, I guess I’ll be going back to Aukrug again, but shall be wearing a black T-shirt next time. If you look in the lower-left corner of the photo above, you’ll see my red-blue-white striped shirt. And I will be bringing my dSLR with me. There is not very much space in the cockpit of a glider, so if you are thinking of doing something similar yourself, forget about the D700 with 24-70 or 5DmkII and 24-105 and take something smaller instead.