My path to Pilot

This post is quite late, but I have recently gotten the inspiration to re-continue this effort. So I'll try to catch up on what I've done so far this year. Date: March 2013 I didn't fly at all in the winter. After the season ended in November the winter began setting in and no training took place. I was happy doing lots of other things in the cold weather. But once March hit and things began warming up, I did get back out for some scooter towing. In fact that first day was surprisingly good! I had 5 tows that day, the first 4 of which were good landing practice and short flights. I quickly realized the effect that even four months can have on your landing abilities. I had one real bad landing that was a belly landing and a sudden whack that resulted in a slightly sprained elbow. Despite that, I quickly gained some confidence back and on the 5th flight, I found some nicely workable lift and ended up soaring for over an hour! I climbed in a few separate thermals and enjoy...

I've returned to the blog now because I wanted to write something about my trip to the Tennessee Tree Toppers Team Challenge. I attended as a free flyer (non-competitor) since I'm still H2 and since I couldn't get enough time off to stay for the whole week. I arrived on Friday night near midnight and slept in the Clubhouse bunks. When I got up in the morning I got a chance to see the spectacular view off the great big wooden circular launch ramp. At some point late that morning people started talking about the conditions. They were surprising good. I don't think many people expected good conditions after the rain they had the day before and the low clouds building over head, but the wind was blowing strait in at 12 mph or so and the valley floor was illuminated in sunshine. The first few launches I got to see off the ridge were tandems. And by the time I had my glider setup and preflighted, I missed the first solo pilot launch that day. My fellow Ohio Flyer Michal ...

I've been neglecting this blog for a few months now. It's not that I haven't been flying either, I'm still recording and editing together clips of my flights but I've been "too busy" to get on here and put some thoughts down. I think the best way for me to catch up is just to point to a few videos on my Youtube channel: Now that I look at the videos, I've realized I've broken my record. I've missed one day. I'm sure I have video from day 34, but that was probably the day I had a few poor landings and got frustrated. If I remember correctly I turtled the glider when I landed off balance and ground looped in a small headwind for instance. I've also been neglecting this writing because I wanted to change the way I do this blog. I've seen a few other pilots who release videos often (relate2, and LAGlide on Youtube) set themselves up with a microphone and record themselves talking in flight. I like this idea and think I could illumi...

Casual day at Wesmar this weekend. It was actually something of a Fly In and a birthday celebration for a number of club pilots so there was a gathering all weekend. I was busy on Saturday but went out on Sunday to try to fly. The weather looked great in the morning, and Larry W. had a decent flight early on, but the conditions deteriorated to marginal. And in fact it was literally marginal since you could draw a line right down the middle of the sky and to the north, there was a dense field cumulonimbus clouds popping up and to the south, clear sky and high cirrus clouds. So we were right on the margin. My big goal for the day was just to get some more time on the new harness. I have been making adjustments to the shoulders to try and get a good feeling but it always felt slightly small when I put my feet in the boot. However, it was mostly just the 1 inch thick block of foam in the boot that was restricting my shoulder room. Removing the block gave me too much room. Now I have to g...

Finally, the harness I ordered arrived! Frank was Aerotowing on Sunday so a number of people came out to take advantage of the fantastic weather. It was also the first opportunity I have had to fly my brand new Moyes Contour Harness. I have to admit I wanted to just jump right in and Aerotow on the new Harness but everyone advised against it. And I agreed that it would be sensible to get some scooter towing in on the new harness first. This meant that I sat around all day and watched everyone get 3+ hour flights off Aerotow while I waited for the scooter to be brought out. That was hard to do. So, the Contour harness: It's a single suspension harness, which means it has a back-plate in which the main riser can slide back and forth. This also means that you can hang with your bodies center of mass (about at your belly button) either fore or aft of the hang point. If you have the slider all the way forward, your center of mass is behind the hang point and you tilt upright so that...

Last Weekend I had 3 great Aerotow flights. They were great primarily because I've finally figured out my launches, but one of them also led to a 1 hour flight playing around in decent lift. The first tow on Saturday started off with my typical poor launch. I have had this tendency to leave the cart and dip back down, sometimes touching my wheels to the ground, and sometimes my feet hit the cart as it starts lagging behind me. Some people thought I was leaving the cart early and getting hit by a tail wind or something but as I saw this over and over we scratched that idea. It turns out that I have a tendency to pull in immediately after leaving the cart, and I end up diving the glider after lifting off. Of course I'm not doing this intentionally, I think it's caused by how I'm sitting in the cart, how far off I am from trim position, and my experience scooter towing. While scooter towing I end up applying a lot of bar pressure (pulling in) in order to control my cli...