Houston glider pilot's pastime a record-breaker
HOUSTON
Yet today the 66-year-old retired English teacher living in the
Heights is pushing herself beyond any mountain summit.
That's why she became a sky sailor of sorts, eventually flying
to a place where no woman has gone before. The flight that drew
worldwide attention was when she navigated her glider about 269
miles on one trip -- the first woman to go that far while making
three turns in a PW-5 glider.
Her sleek, motorless glider with the 45-foot wingspan made that
seven-hour journey powered only by the air beneath its wings. It
mimics the flight of circling hawks or buzzards that often like to
fly on her wing tips.
Paget's record flight on Aug. 8 was validated recently by the
Federation Aeronautique International in Paris, which has
recognized aviators such as Charles Lindbergh. Then Paget's aerial
exploit was honored just a few weeks ago at the Soaring Society of
America's national convention in Little Rock, Ark.
She said she could have pinched herself as she watched the
realization of her dream.
"Soaring gets you in tune with nature and the enormous power of
it," she said. "Like the movie Titanic you get this feeling that
you can rule the world."
As a young girl, whenever she climbed to the pinnacle of a
mountain like Pikes Peak in Colorado with her father, she always
imagined flying off into the sky.
She knew there had to be an easier way to view mountaintops than
making grueling climbs in severe weather.
So when the youngest of her two daughters left home for college,
she took the flying lessons that she had always wanted.
The then-47-year-old was still teaching English at Spring High
School. But while she loved reading, she wasn't a typical bookworm
who enjoyed sitting on the sidelines. She craved adventure.
So Paget felt hopeful on that August morning when she climbed
inside the cramped cockpit, which is about the size of a go-cart,
to attempt the world record.
After being towed on a rope by a plane to an altitude of 2,000
feet, she was cut loose and sailed into the blue sky. From that
instant, she had to artfully maneuver the stick and rudder with her
hands and feet to catch "lifts" from columns of warm air.
"If you just lean a little, you can alter your course," she
explained. "It's like using your knees to guide a horse."
Sustaining such a long trip for so many hours requires a lot of
expertise, said her husband, Glenn Giddens, a retired control
systems engineer and glider instructor. And this trip would have
some daunting moments.
First, she almost aborted when she spotted an ominous
thunderstorm. Another glider pilot, who had been flying at her
side, had already retreated to the grassy landing field near Waller
where they had started.
Paget knew those dark clouds could suck out all the thermal
power needed for soaring. But the storm line appeared to stop
moving a few miles before reaching her. "It looked frozen. So I
decided to keep going," she said.
It was a good decision as she soared along her course, making
her three turns near Madisonville, Wallis and Bryan. But on the
last leg, she headed into a strong, 20-knot headwind that cut her
speed from 65 miles per hour to 25.
"I radioed that I may not make it back," she said, believing
she might be forced to make an emergency landing.
Her husband recalled how she had once landed on the city dump in
Killeen after she couldn't get around Fort Hood's restricted
airspace.
Now the sun was lower in the sky, which meant she also had fewer
thermal lifts. Her craft started dropping closer and closer to the
patchwork landscape underneath her.
But the glider never slipped lower than 1,400 feet before
returning to the starting point at Waller.
Setting that record, she said, wasn't nearly as difficult as the
average day she spent in a classroom for 29 years.
But the trip had its own challenges, lasting seven hours with no
rest stops or bathroom facilities on board.
How did she handle it?
"Depends," she said.