Well, in his glider obviously.
He actually wanted to become a pilot. So his dad arranged a couple of flying lessons in a sailplane. Jago got hooked on it for many years but it’s a time consuming hobby. It was a bit difficult to combine it with family life so he gave up on it for a couple of years. But then he got a present from his wife: one day of gliding. He immediately got hooked again, attained all necessary licenses and ever since that day you can find him at the airport almost every weekend.
In order to fly such a plane a whole team of people needs to pitch in. There is quite a lot to it. Winch operators, people who handle the cables, you name it. But when all that work is done and you’re up in the air you just forget about all the hassle.
“Within a minute you’re up” says Jago “And then it’s a matter of using the thermal. Like an eagle. If you master that, you just hop from cloud to cloud and stay in the air for many hours. But you must keep in mind that around 8 pm the thermal dissappears. So by that time you need to be close to the airport to land your plane. Or be prepared to land somewhere else. But then a whole team needs to come and pick you up. That’s not an ideal situation.”
Last year Jago got himself into such a “not ideal situation”. “The weather looked fine and I made a plan to do a so-called” overland “of more than 300 km. From De Peel Air Base via BorkenBerge in Germany to Lemelerveld in Overijssel and then back to De Peel. From Germany I flew back to the Netherlands heading for Lemelerveld, but I quickly figured out the thermal there would not be enough. So I directed the plane towards De Peel, only to find there was a huge rain shower. Then I realized I would not make it to the airport on time. That was quite exiting since I was a long way from home and now I suddenly had to find an alternative landing spot. I had never done that before! Lucky for me I found a nicely mowed field where I could land the plane. And then my comrades picked me up.”
Jago is a member of Zweefvliegclub Eindhovense Studenten. He meets a lot of international students there and according to him, mingling with other cultures is just the icing on the cake.
