Swenson is seventy-four, with a silver mustache and a well-upholstered body, and has been piloting gliders since he was thirty. Today’s flight would be his eight-thousand-eight-hundred-and-sixty-third, but that hardly made it predictable. “Forecasts are forecasts,” he said. “Most of the time, they don’t even get them right the day after.” Our previous day’s flight had been cancelled because of dangerous winds. Did today’s conditions worry him? “The answer to that is no,” he said. “As a soaring pilot, this is the kind of stuff that can get you really excited. Just think about water. If we’re out on the ocean in a sailboat, and there are these little waves and everything’s nice, and all of a sudden there’s this great big wave coming through, the experienced captain will go, ‘Rogue wave!’ It’s just part of the deal. ‘That scared the shit out of me!’ Part of the deal.”
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