Night Flying at Leszno

I recently came across this story, from my 2003 trip to Poland:

After three and a half weeks in Poland, I finally got to go flying. Although I wasn’t able to stay up very long, the flight represented a lot of “firsts” for me. It was my first Wilga tow, my first Bocian flight and my first lesson in a language other than English.

Oh yes, it was also my first flight at night.

We all have stories about landing a little after sunset, but this was definitely a different experience. Night glider flying is fairly common in Poland, and the Leszno Gliding School had no trouble booking introductory lessons in the two-seater Bocian throughout the contest. Flying began every night at 9.30pm and ended around 3am.

When my turn came, the ground crew helped me strap in and explained that my instructor knew a few words of German, but no English. My German vocabulary is slightly larger than my Polish vocabulary, which is non-existent. So, Wir sprechen Deutsch.

Both the towplane and glider had position lights, of course, but the secret to success in this operation is a bright blue LED flashlight that the instructor carries. When the instructor wants to make a point, he shines a narrow beam of light on one of the instruments on the student’s panel, while describing what is wrong with the reading on that particular instrument. The light, which is on only briefly, completely blinds the front seat pilot. Then it goes out, and it’s a race between recovery of night vision and the fading of the fluorescent needles on the instrument.

I don’t remember the take-off, but the tow was quite interesting. As long as there was a little bit of apparent motion of the Wilga, it was easy to keep station. However, if the towplane ever stopped moving in front of me, its relatively dim lights disappeared against the background lights of downtown Leszno. If you think about it, this problem is self-correcting.

Off tow, flying around was fairly straightforward. Occasionally there would be a blue flash accompanied by the word “achtsig” from the back seat. For a few seconds, the only visible object in the world would be a fuzzy airspeed needle. I never was able to read the numbers on that dial.

Eventually, I heard “zwei hunnert” a couple of times, and I knew that the altimeter was about to be illuminated. Sure enough, the altimeter exploded in blue and my brain was left with the image of the big hand pointing to a 2.

At 200 meters you enter the pattern. The instructor took over on base leg and made a beautiful approach and landing. I have no idea what he was using as a visual reference for the flare. We rolled right up to the launch point, next to a kerosene-fuelled smokepot.

I got out, shook hands with my instructor, and decided that I’ll stick to day flying from now on.