AN adventurous 83-year-old grandmother has taken to the sky for her first flight in a glider.

Joan Leonard’s family treated her to the high-flying experience for her 83rd birthday after she had previously enjoyed hot air balloon flights in the UK and abroad.

Mrs Leonard has travelled widely since the death of her husband, visiting Russia twice, China, the Middle East, South Africa and the 15th-century Peruvian Inca site of Macchu Picchu.

Being strapped into the front seat of a two-man glider and towed sky high from the Essex and Suffolk Gliding Club, Wormingford, was a real thrill – good enough to warrant a return trip to next year, Mrs Leonard said.

She added: “I loved it. I’d love to do it again, perhaps when I am 84.

“It was different from going up in a balloon – I enjoyed the glider more.”

She said climbing at 45 degrees to reach a height of nearly 2,000 feet, the acceleration of the glider’s take-off, was like a racing car going from zero to 60 in about 2.5 seconds.

Mrs Leonard, of Plum Lane, Bardfield Saling, said the views she experienced from up above Essex and into Suffolk during the 15-minute flight were impressive.

Dick Skinner, spokesman for the gliding club, said Mrs Leonard was the club’s second oldest glider.

Ken Taylor, from Tollesbury, who is now in his mid-eighties, had started an aerobatics course with the club, aged 82.