My path to Pilot

We had a half day today at Wes/Mar. It was cold and overcast with a chance of some precipitation. On my way there I saw some light snow falling but when I pulled up Noel, Matt, and Mike were all there setting up gliders to fly. I got out the Northwing Horizon again and flew it for the second time. I do like that glider. I think it looks amazing with Red, Yellow and Blue underside and White top. It also feels great in the air. Now that I've been seriously considering buying a glider I've started thinking about how to actually make a decision. I've done some reading on a few different gliders that I figured would be in my skill range and pretty much across the board the reviews are good. I didn't really see much difference in customer reviews between the Northwing Horizion, Airborne Sting, or the Wills Wing Sport 2. And anyways I don't think reading reviews is nearly enough to make a decision. I want to see and feel and fly the glider I'm buying. So I think I...

I made a visit to California this weekend to visit relatives in the San Fransisco Bay area. After hearing so much about Fort Funston and the Hang Gliding community there in SF I decided to take a day and go flying. Specifically, I wanted to work on foot launching since I have so few hills here in Ohio. I made contact with an instructor via the USHPA website and scheduled a day of lesson on Saturday at Ed Levin Park. The Park is great because it's got large wide open lawns and a mountainside with established launches at a bunch of different altitudes. So it's perfect for practicing skills. I think it is often soarable but the forecast for Saturday was very light winds and slightly overcast. I met John Simpson at the park in the morning and we set up and got started working on foot launches from 50 feet. From this launch I practiced executing a strong run downhill in light conditions. John expected the wind to change from south-south-west to more northerly and sure enough it ...

This Saturday was another relatively warm and sunny day with a gentle breeze to tow in. When I got to the training field John asked what glider I wanted to fly. I haven't had a choice before, I've always just flown the Falcon. Here's what I know about gliders: The Falcon 170 that I am used to flying is a single surface low performance glider that is designed to be exceptionally easy to turn and land. As you increase the performance of the glider, for example by adding a second surface (to the underside of the wing and enclosing the sail frame) you often have to sacrifice in other areas, such as responsiveness in handling or landing characteristics. I often hear people talk about the "flare window" getting smaller for high performance gliders. The flare window is that ideal moment to flare in order to come to a complete stop for a no-step landing. So when John started talking about trying a different glider, I was concerned that a higher performing glider would giv...

There was strong weather on Saturday, but Sunday looked good for towing (at least until the rain was supposed to show up). After sharing my earlier videos with some other pilots online they had a bunch of criticisms for me. Some of the concerns they had included flying without wheels on the glider, how slowly I seemed to be flying, how I didn't seem to ever have a flight plan, how I was progressing too quickly, and how I didn't have the fundamentals down and was being reckless. I was kinda blown away. Personally, I've felt comfortable, in control, and I've been having a huge amount of fun. In any case, if an experienced pilot gives me feedback I'm going to carefully consider it. So I went to the training field with a number of these things in mind to work on. First was experiencing a wider range of speed in the glider. If I have been flying too slowly I want to be able to recognize that for myself. So I want to become familiar with all the different speeds. Flyi...

    The weather forecast clearly showed winds that would be too strong to tow in, but they were nearly perfect (strength and direction) for the local ridge soaring site. So the plan was to spend the day at the ridge, and look for an opportunity for a few of us students to do our first foot launch/ridge soaring flight. Greg and Noel, both recent H2's, were here for their first ridge flights too.     We met at Wesmar (the training field) and packed up the gliders to take to the ridge. On the way to the ridge, I took the Hang 2 written test. I passed! I primarily missed questions about airspace and sectional maps, but also a question about how quickly high performance gliders turn when compared to beginner/intermediate gliders. I will submit my paperwork to USHPA this week to officially become a Novice Hang Glider pilot.      Once we got to the ridge the conditions really did look perfect. They were a little bit stronger than I had ever...

Another excellent weekend weather forecast! I showed up Saturday morning with some good ideas about what I wanted to work on: Landings, and smooth control. I think the calm conditions helped quite a bit in the smooth control department so I had a bunch of what I thought were gentle and controlled flights. Occasionally though, I would get a little bit of rough air and I would find myself over correcting and oscillating again. As for landings I think I made a huge improvement by the end of the day on Saturday. I'm more reliably rounding off the approach and timing an aggressive flair in order to put my feet down with minimal ground speed. Landing into a nice steady breeze helped too though! I was also able to progress from straight flights to boxing the field (making a series of 90 degree turns to fly around the perimeter of the field) and setup for a landing into the wind. Once though, I misinterpreted the wind-Tee and thought that it was pointing in the direction the wind was b...

     The weather for this weekend looked great, but I decided to split my time between Climbing rock in Kentucky and flying the glider in Ohio so I only got 1 day this weekend. It was a real good day and John had a 6 tandem flights scheduled so a bunch of local pilots came out to get aero-tows too. Best flight was 3 hours or more and at one point there were 4 gliders working the same lift (another awesome sight for a beginner like me and also excellent motivation to keep the training sessions frequent). Some day I hope to add myself to the gaggle of gliders on a soaring day.      My training flights were good. After looking at last weeks video and taking the advice of my instructor and a couple of other pilots my goal was to focus on only making small corrections in order to avoid the oscillations I was getting last time from making large corrections repeatedly. I also wanted to work on my approach and landing. I still tend to approach at near t...

    The forecast for this weekend looked great and John expected to get 2 good days of weather to train in. Since the training field is an hour and twenty minute drive I have to get up at 6:00 am in order to be there at the field ready to go at 8. But on Saturday morning, I didn't wake up until 8:00 am. Apparently I set my alarm for 6:00 pm instead of 6:00 am. Oh well, I got a slightly late start but it turns out I wasn't the only one running late.      The first few flights of the day I took on the 220 Condor, the Wills Wing training glider I used on day 1. It's large and slow and responds slowly to pilot input which makes it perfect for beginners. My first few flights were really painful though. I used the same training harness I did on day 1, but this time it felt awful, the leg straps didn't fit right and there was a stiff seam right at my belt line that was pressing hard on my stomach when I hung in it. So I don't remember too much about the firs...

This weekend was supposed to be my second training session but the sunny, calm, and clear weather we had last week apparently isn't the norm in Ohio so Saturday ended up being too windy to train. According to John, my instructor, the weather on Sunday looked promising for some new novice (H2) pilots to get a chance to do their first foot launch from the local ridge at Richmond Dales. I thought it would be cool to meet some of the experienced pilots and watch them fly so I went down too. Even with an early start, the wind was pretty gusty and wasn't blowing strait into the launch which would make a foot launch more difficult. One pilot did find a calm enough window to launch in and around noon he had a 15 minute flight on the ridge. It was my first time watching someone foot launch in person and he made it look easy. Although, I was later told he was one of the local legends and pretty much everything he did would look easy. While I didn't get to touch a hang glider today, I...

     The school nearest me is Wings to Fly ltd which conducts training at a grass airfield about an hour and half away from Dayton. My first day of Training was Sunday, Oct. 9. There were other students already at the airfield when I arrived at 8:00am. One of whom was camping out between weekend training days. In the future I'll probably try to use both days during the weekend for training and maybe I'll start camping out too!      After some paperwork and choosing a training harness John Alden, the instructor, immediately jumped in with a bunch of information for me in order to bring me up to speed. He talked about the gliders, how they work, and how they are controlled. There were 2 training hang gliders which are designed to be easiest for a beginner to use: The Wills Wing Condor 330 and the Condor 225 (330, and 225 square feet of surface are). Since that morning had essential zero wind, John had me use the 330 since its enormous surface area...

     While I do find my work interesting and really get immense satisfaction from the task of engineering solutions to complicated problems, and also plan on being an Engineer for life, I sort of think of work as a means to an end. There are many different things that I dream about doing and feel the only way I'll be able to do them all is to keep a good job that will give me the opportunities. I wish I was a Shaun White, or a Tony Hawk, or a Tiger Woods and was talented enough to pursue the one thing I loved above all others. But I feel I don't have the skill (or maybe the courage to try) to do that. Instead I decided I could use my interest in math and the sciences to enable me to pursue my favorite pastimes.      Anyway, after recently starting this new job and leaving behind my friends and family and moving from the deserts of New Mexico to the humid continental zones of Ohio I decided to use some of my free time to pursue a new in...