He had come upon it by accident. Out cycling around the Lincolnshire Wolds one summer Sunday about four miles from the village where he lived, he had been startled by the sudden appearance of a glider surging up from behind a clump of trees. Intrigued, he had pedalled towards it. Closer he could see the cable pulling the glider higher and higher, climbing into the sky at an angle of about forty-five degrees. But how? And where? The how was a winch attached to the end of a converted double-decker bus and the where was a disused Lincolnshire airfield which the glider club had rescued and resuscitated. Instead of the Lancaster bombers blundering down the runways and lifting reluctantly into the air, now the silent, ethereal bird-like craft skimmed smoothly across the grass and soared upwards into the sky. Mike Harland had leant across his handlebars and stared, open-mouthed and fascinated. He was back the following weekend determined to get a flight.
