Wasserkuppe Glider Ride & Sommerrodelbahn

On Sunday we headed up to the Wasserkuppe. This hill situated near the town of Fulda sits 950 meters above sea level. It is a perfect place to go gliding. My friend used to take glider rides here when he was the radar site commander. When it was my turn to go he told the glider pilot that I was a Naval Aviator. The guy's mouth dropped and he started asking a bunch of questions about how many hours and night traps. We walked over to the glider and he handed me the parachute and that was it. I strapped the chute on and climbed in and buckled up. The only thing he mentioned were a few of the instruments. This definitely wasn't America because if it had been I would have had to do ground school and sign insurance forms and all of that. We just strapped in and hooked up and off we went. The flight was supposed to be for 30 minutes. We initially climbed up to 400 meters above the field and then he let me fly for about a minute. After that we transited to the other side of the hill to see if we could get higher. That didn't work out so we headed back to the original spot. It was a beautiful day but the conditions weren't great for gliding. So at the end of my flight we were down at 220 meters and the pilot said I could fly until we reached 200 meters. At that point we would have to head in to land. Well after watching what he did for the previous 30 minutes I tried my best glider piloting. Well we ended up climbing up to 380 meters until the lifts dissipated. So 15 minutes later we hit 200 and he took the controls and brought us in. It was amazing and great to be back in the air. Following the flight we went to the sommerrodelbahn which is a dry luge used throughout Germany. We took about 4 runs down the hill with my friends grandsons riding with their Mother and Father and Oma and Opa. It was a nice long ride with pretty good speed at times. Total fun. Again you could tell it wasn't America as there was no protection or safety brief or anything. It was just great.