Cast's song may be about experimenting with mind expanding drugs, but there's no room for that sitting in the plane I'd been taught to fly in. In early October I had reported to RAF Cosford to begin the Gliding Scholarship awarded to me, as a senior cadet, with Penkridge Air Training Corps.  I was not yet old enough to drive, but I was old enough to learn how to fly - for free!

The course consisted of two or three ground lessons, usually carried out just before the pre-flight briefing. These would hopefully help teach me all the flying I needed to get to solo standard. I blotted out the real world, as I sought to recall all the tips I had been given, remembering all my lessons and all the demonstrations I'd been shown. I almost forgot to answer the examiner as he got out of the Aircraft with a cheerful "see you in a minute".  The canopy came down and closed around me, it was my turn to go it alone, for the first time.

I ran through the two pages of checks to carry out before I could even start the plane, then switched on, thank God - it had started!  Then for some more checks - hurriedly skipping past the bits on burning aircraft and dead engines!  Some taxiing and a radio call later I was positioned at the

bottom of the runway and now it was up to me to get the £100,000 of plane up into the air, and back down again - WITHOUT breaking it, as it was stressed to me!

In no time I had reached flying speed and felt the aircraft leave the ground. I was over the worst bit - the takeoff - and now I was flying all on my own with no other help.  Talking to a friend who had gone solo before me, he had said that you just seemed to sing to yourself all the way around, and you do, a song just comes into your head, for once you remember all the words and around you go.       

First of all, a turn to the right so that I could head straight back down the right hand side of the runway. I called tower to ask permission to land, and carried on until the runway disappeared behind me. Another radio call and a turn right so I was lined up with the runway, just in time for the tricky bit - the landing. Opening my airbrakes I actually started to come down, 200ft, 100ft, 50ft, 25ft, and then the ground rushed past as I went through the last ten feet of air. A little bump as my wheels connected with the ground once more, and then the engine came to a halt and there was silence.

I had just flown that plane up into the air, moved it around a bit, and then got it down without breaking it or me.  I wasn't even high enough to use my parachute - should I have needed it, and still I felt OK as I got out of the plane and walked back to the tower at the Gliding School.  Both my instructor and my examiner shook my hand, commenting on the fact that the take off was a little rough, but that didn't affect my pass, leaving me with "see, told you it was easy - piece of cake!"

It took me approximately six and a half-hours in the air to go solo. It would have cost me about £450 to do that, but with my scholarship I got it all free.  I'm one of about 50 lucky holders of the Gliding Scholarship in my wing, to date, and there will be many more after me.

Phil Scott