I do not think I will ever forget the day that I took my last flight with the Air Cadets organization. After a year as gliding ground crew, two years as familiarization pilot, a year as glider instructor, and at four years as a ground school instructor, the time finally came when I had to say goodbye. It was one of those things with budget cutbacks ... I was told that I was welcome to stay but I would have to put in more volunteer hours that I just didn't have.

So finally the last day of the spring gliding season came around, and I was on the crew list. I wish I could say that I spent the whole day in the pilot's seat, but as an instructor that is rarely the case. I took a couple of the familiarizat-ion pilots up for currency check rides. That's more of a formality than any-thing _ I had flown several times with each of them, and I knew they were both top-notch, so it was pretty uneventful.

It was a pretty nice day, with a few clouds around 3000 feet (well above our practice altitude), but otherwise sunny. Most of the day I spent as Launch Con-trol Officer, which might sound impressive, but it doesn't involve much other than supervising all the flight operations, making sure we don't have gliders landing on top of towplanes (for example). One of those things that isn't terribly exciting, but needs to be done by one of the more experienced people.

As the day wound down, I became a little melancholy, desperately trying to remember everything that happened. Somehow I didn't think that I would ever return to this organization. (I still plan to keep up my gliding especially, but probably not there.) I had had a lot of good times, but it was time to leave.

I watched as I saw two of the pilots negotiating over who would take which flight, and I knew exactly what they were doing. Each of them wanted to have the ubiquitous "hangar flight," or last flight of the day. The great thing about hangar flight is that there isn't anyone else waiting to take up the glider, so you get to practice your thermalling and stay up as long as you like (well, maybe not that long).

I smiled at these two, because I remembered doing that when I was in their shoes. But what I will never forget is the look of disappointment in their eyes when Gordon Beech had to explain to them that neither of them could have the hangar flight, because he wanted one last flight with me (I was his student instructor a year before). Ya gotta like it when people pull strings for you!

Well, I had been getting a little tired, but now I was wide awake and sitting in that aircraft before you could say "how do you do." I hadn't said anything all day about it, but instantly everyone knew that this was my last day, and suddenly I was being treated like some kind of a king. The crew switched brought out a clean tow rope, and seemed to make a special effort to conduct the pre-launch ceremony tidily, professionally, and efficiently. And then we were away.

At 500 feet, mischief got the better of me, and I started to box the tow. This just means that you put the glider into each of the four corners of the allowable towing "box." Upper left, then lower left, under the slipstream through low-tow position to the lower right, upper right, and back to the normal high-tow position. Usually this is done as a training exercise for students to practice their control while on tow, and it means a little extra work for the tow pilot, but I just did it for fun.

We reached our release altitude at 2000 feet, but I hung on because our tow pilot, Capt. Bob Lewis (also one of the best instructors I've ever met), didn't level out. (We don't release from an aero tow unless the towplane is flying straight and level.) I figured this meant he wanted to take me higher, so I wasn't about to complain. We didn't see anything resembling a nice release position until 3500 feet, so I took this as a hint and released.

Gord let me fly for most of the time. I pulled into a light buffet-stall, then crossed the controls and turned it into a half-rotation aileron spin. I was kind of pleased; it was a pretty good one. After scooting around for a little while, impatience got the better of him, and he asked me for control.

Nose straight down, airspeed up to 100 MPH. Pull back, not too hard, but enough so we are pointed almost straight up without too much speed loss. Full aileron and rudder to the left. The ground spins clockwise and appears quickly in front of us. Reverse controls, level out, pull back again. Same thing to the right, then point the nose towards the sky to recover some of our lost altitude.

"Not too bad!" he said. "Two wing-overs and we only lost 400 feet!" Not too bad indeed.

I took over for the rest of the flight. I didn't pull off anything quite so impressive (that's all everyone was talking about on the ground when we landed ...) but I enjoyed it all nonetheless. But then again, you could put me in a glider with my hands tied behind my back with someone else flying, and I'd still love every minute of it.

My landing wasn't that great, but looking back, I might have just been over-critical of my own flying. (That happens when you have to be critical of other people's flying, I suppose.) I chatted with the other officers while the younger crew staff tied down the gliders and packed everything up. I always wondered what officers "chatted" about off in their own little corner of the tie-down area, and the truth is we were just shooting the breeze. As we walked over to the hangar, I took a last look back at three years' worth of unforgettable memories.

And after a quick debriefing, they took treated me to a pint. Kind of makes you wish that every day was your last day ...