
Demon kindly organised a ride for me last Friday with Big-G out to the dam, via Sue's and back. Now I'd never been in what seemed at first to me to be a type of motorised sled hung under a great big bloody wing, so here are the impressions of a complete neophyte who has never been close to one of these things before (although I've thrown myself off Vic Falls bridge, out of blikkies with a parachute and so forth before):
The overwhelming sense I was left with was that this is the closest man will ever get to being a bird; it's the closest he will ever come to "natural" flying. Period.
The first thing that surprised me was the size of the wing on the trike. I never realised they were so big.
When we took off I was surprised at how much thrust seemed to come off what I perceived as a relatively small engine (4 stroke Rotax), bearing in mind I'm used to thinking in multiples of 100's of hp in cars. But I was suprised at how quiet the engine was.
To be honest, I found the intial bit of turbulence on take off a shade disconcerting (not frightening) but settled down pretty quickly. We ran low and fast over some hills and then a tight right bank after dropping into a kloof-like area. That raised my hair a little!

Friday night I flew all night with my eyes closed. Saturday morning, all I wanted was to find my way into the air again.
