Rosemarie Hempel is intently examining the clear, sunny skies. “Wonderful weather for flying,” says the 78-year-old from Strausberg, a town east of Berlin.
Then she tows the small ultra-light aircraft Ikarus C 42 from the hangar. She estimates that visibility today will be at least 20 kilometres. “Sunshine, clouds, thermals – everything you need for a perfect flight,” she says, getting excited.
It’s something that Hans-Juergen Herget, a flying student, is also hoping for when he takes off in the two-seater with veteran flight instructor Hempel.
But for now, it’s safety before pleasure. The 62-year-old circles the single-propeller plane and checks it, both inside and out – oil temperature, gas pedal, cockpit instruments, and other checklist items – while Hempel carefully watches him.
Herget says he likes his instructor very much, both as a person and for her expertise. He takes his seat, puts on his headphones, starts the engine and then starts to taxi to the runway of the airfield at Eggersdorf, just beyond Berlin’s eastern city limits.
“Rosi has flying in her blood,” says Walter Wagner, another pilot who is washing his plane outside the hangar, with unmistakeable admiration in his voice.
Wagner has just taken the small plane for its first flight after the winter break – with Hempel seated next to him, as it’s required by law to have an instructor if a pilot hasn’t flown for a long period.
Hempel spent the flight keeping an eye on Wagner to make sure he could still handle a plane. “You simply feel safer with her,” he says. That she herself is still fit enough to fly has recently been confirmed by a flight medical doctor (all pilots must report to one regularly).
“I don’t feel 78. And I haven’t been sick a day in my life,” says Hempel. The idea of quitting has never crossed her mind, she says, quietly adding that without flying, something important would be missing in her life.
It was together with her husband Werner that she set up the Maerkische Schweiz Flying School after the German reunification in 1990. Last year, she was faced with the death of her longtime partner, whom she had met through flying.
“He was always my idol. It’s difficult without him,” she says.
After losing him, she doesn’t want to lose flying too – something she learned at the age of 17, out of curiosity.
“Back then it was a man’s domain. But I also wanted to do it,” she say. And she did it so well that during her sports education studies in the 1970s, she was a member of the East German national gliding team.
She says that as a flight instructor, almost all of her nearly 700 pupils have been men. Between 1964 and 1988, she taught gliding, and afterwards branched out into ultra-light aircraft.
“Gliding is very time-consuming, because the fliers have to be towed up into the air. That’s why I don’t do it any more,” she says. But teaching is still an important aspect of flying for Hempel, who has flown over half of Europe and even parts of Africa.
“At 600 to 1,000 metres altitude, Brandenburg with its many waterways and diverse landscape is the prettiest place from up above,” she says about the region that surrounds Berlin.
Hempel says it is not any spine-tingling excitement she’s after. She puts a great deal of emphasis on safety, and would not attempt to fly in a thunderstorm.
“Then you should stay on the ground and not tempt fate,” she says. Likewise, “buffeting winds” as well as low-lying clouds and visibility of under five kilometres are not suitable conditions for flying. Beyond this, every pilot must know that after three or four hours it is absolutely time to re-fuel.
“I know that Rosi had a sound training and so she is not exactly susceptible to accidents,” says flight pupil Herget. Even in tight situations, his teacher is “calm personified,” he says.
Flying students must as a rule undergo 35 hours’ instruction. “Some already have it down after 30 hours, but others only after 40 hours. Each one is different,” says Hempel, who currently has four pupils under her wing, so to speak.
The most tricky parts to master are the take-offs and landings, especially in certain weather conditions, but in the end it is purely a matter of practice. Hempel says being careful all her life has paid off. “Otherwise I wouldn’t be around any more,” she says drily. – DPA


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