When people gather in the Bow Valley for the annual Festival of Eagles, almost without exception they ooh and aah as they watch the mighty birds of prey riding the thermals high above Canmore.
Catherine Van Dorsten knows just how those birds feel.
While many valley residents spent their summer recreating at various locations, Van Dorsten, an 878 Banff/Canmore Squadron flight sergeant, spent almost seven weeks at the Gimli Cadet Flying Training Center in Manitoba earning her glider pilot’s wings.
The high point, of course, came when, like the eagles, she ventured into the skies for the first time solo – with no instructor with her in the cockpit of the Schweizer 2-33 she’d been training in.
“I was really happy on my own,” she said. “I felt so free. It was fun; there was nobody talking to you and I felt very much in control. It was definitely everything I thought it would be.”
Prior to travelling to Gimli, Van Dorsten spent more than four months working on ground school (weather, theory of aviation, types of aircraft, etc.), she also had to write a Transport Canada exam and go through an interview process in Red Deer to be chosen as one of 60 cadets for scholarships from across Western Canada.
Van Dorsten in now 16, and joined 878 when she was 12.
Prior to the Gimli experience, she’d been in a glider a couple of times as part of air cadet training – but enough to whet her appetite for the freedom gliding.
“As part of cadets, it let us see what it was like and see if you wanted to do the training,” she said.
Having decided to work toward her glider wings, she completed the process, headed for Gimli and made 30 flights (usually about 15 to 20 minutes duration) with an instructor; after being hauled into the blue by a towplane.
Instructors at Gimli, she said, had all been through the air cadet program prior.
After her initial solo, Van Dorsten completed another 19 solo excursions, which after being towed to 2,000 feet, allowed a view of Winnipeg to the south.
Training was contained within an airspace near Gimli, with takeoffs and landings made on a grass strip.
With her glider wings now gracing her uniform tunic, Van Dorsten has set her sights on a power pilot scholarship.
She plans to teach gliding theory to other cadets and study on Tuesdays, taking part in the regular 878 Wednesday parade night and hoping to eventually earn a scholarship at a training location in Medicine Hat, Saskatchewan or Manitoba again.
The Air Cadet League of Canada, Alberta Provincial Committee owns a fleet of four gliders and four tow planes, as well as a winch launch system which they use to facilitate familiarization flights for cadets across Alberta every spring and fall.
