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 trim speed so if the conditions aren't just right I loose the ability to continue making corrections and sometimes land off balance or let myself get turned into or downwind slightly. I want to be able to pull in a little bit and "fly the glider into ground effect" as my instructor put it. Besides giving me more control, this will let me round off the approach down low and gradually loose speed in order to better time an aggressive flair for a slow and gentle landing.
I had 4 flights in the morning and 2 in the evening. I felt significantly more comfortable on my first few flights and even had one real good landing. My first flight in the evening felt great but apparently the tow line wrapped around the axle of the scooter and resulted in a bad tangle which cut the evening training time short. I think I did make progress with my gentle corrections and straight flight, but I still didn't get consistent landings. I have a bad habit that is sometimes interfering with an otherwise decent landing. In snowboarding, all of the your control over speed comes from your feet and the angle at which you hold the snowboard with respect to the snow. An aggressive stop requires a large angle and means that you have to lean up hill quite a bit to achieve the high angle. So when I round out my glide a little low with my feet within reach of the ground I have the instinct to put my feet out in front of me and slow myself down by sliding over the grass (like a water skier). Besides being a little bit dangerous (I might end up twisting or jamming my ankle on the uneven ground or tufts of grass) it accomplishes the exact opposite of what I need to do in order to execute an aggressive flair and reduce my ground speed for a slow landing, i.e. move my center of mas away from the control bar and increasing the angle of attack of the glider. The one time I actively tried to avoid doing this water skier stop I forgot to put my hands up high on the control bad and wasn't able to make a good flair. So I set the glider down on the wheels and slid across the ground on my belly.
I'm getting close to moving on to prone flying (that is, IF I can get my landing habits right) so John had me try on a few prone harnesses in the simulator in the hanger just to get a size estimate. I'm also about ready to take the Hang 1 written test. Progress is being made!
Here's is the video from day 4:
I think I've made progress controlling the glider and feel a little more confident on landings. Although I still have work to do!
Monday, October 31, 2011
Monday, October 24, 2011
October 22-23
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 first flight except that it hurt a lot and I think I had a poor landing. However I did bring my Go Pro helmet camera with me so I did get the flight on camera (Check the video out at the bottom of the post or in the sidebar). I was able to make some small adjustments to the harness and eventually did get a few comfortable flights in. It may have just been the steady and gentle breeze but I had an easy time keeping the glider on a straight path. At noon, John had 2 tandem customers to take on flights and there were a number of other glider pilots here to take aero tows, so the beginners training session ended around noon and we watched the Dragonfly ultralight aircraft tow the hang gliders into the air.
One of the experienced pilots there had a top of the line performance glider (Wills Wing T2C) and John talked with us beginners about the difference between a glider like that and our training gliders. Shape, drag reduction, handling characteristics, and more. It was very interesting. We also got a chance to help some other pilots cart launch for full length tows. When the winch is pulling a glider into the air with max tension on the line, the glider climbs amazingly fast. That must a ride.
When we resumed training John gave me the task of manually releasing myself from the tow. I would have to make sure the glider was steady and flying straight before I did and maintain control afterwards. I would tow up to a certain height and pull the barrel release on my bridal then glide down to the ground and make a landing. I had a few poor landings where I either flared late or didn't get my feet running under me so I had to land on the wheels of the glider. On the other hand I also had a few that I felt were good, they weren't no step landings but I came in straight and steady and landed running on my feet and caught the glider on my shoulders. I think in all I had 6 flights on Saturday.
On Sunday, I had a good early start and met Adam and Mike when I pulled up. The three of us started flying right away after getting harnesses and warming up. Again, I was flying the 220 Condor. The breeze was slightly stronger on Sunday than it was on Saturday but it was steady. My first flight was straight and comfortable and I even had a pretty good landing. The second flight was similar and John put targets out there for me to shoot for. On one of these spot landing attempts I was focusing on aiming and forgot to release, that meant that I overshot the landing targets by 25 feet or so but otherwise I flew directly over it. Also, since I was showing consistently straight flights and landing under control, John said I should start using the 170 Falcon. It's a smaller wing, so it flies faster but it's significantly more responsive and "behaves the way a glider should behave".
The biggest difference I noticed on the Falcon was that the control bar is a slightly different shape and sits farther away from me. So it felt completely different. I also noticed that the small movements I made actually mattered in this glider. It turned sharper and needed more constant (or more precise) handling. After trying to land at trim speed and coming in slow and mushy, stumbling, and then nose bonking. John said that I should start working on intentionally speeding up as I approached the ground. Trim speed is only slightly faster than stall speed and isn't the right speed to be landing at. So if I pull in slightly and then "round out" by relaxing to trim only when I get to 2 feet off the ground, then fly parallel to the ground and let the glider slowly loose speed, I'll have much better control when landing. I think in the training glider I've been approaching the ground at a steady angle from 25 feet up, and then flaring when my feet are within reach of the ground. So the "rounding out" part is something important to work on.
I think in total I had 7 tows on Sunday. But Sunday ended up being a short day, we only trained until 3:00pm!
Check out the video of this weekend:
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 first flight except that it hurt a lot and I think I had a poor landing. However I did bring my Go Pro helmet camera with me so I did get the flight on camera (Check the video out at the bottom of the post or in the sidebar). I was able to make some small adjustments to the harness and eventually did get a few comfortable flights in. It may have just been the steady and gentle breeze but I had an easy time keeping the glider on a straight path. At noon, John had 2 tandem customers to take on flights and there were a number of other glider pilots here to take aero tows, so the beginners training session ended around noon and we watched the Dragonfly ultralight aircraft tow the hang gliders into the air.
One of the experienced pilots there had a top of the line performance glider (Wills Wing T2C) and John talked with us beginners about the difference between a glider like that and our training gliders. Shape, drag reduction, handling characteristics, and more. It was very interesting. We also got a chance to help some other pilots cart launch for full length tows. When the winch is pulling a glider into the air with max tension on the line, the glider climbs amazingly fast. That must a ride.
When we resumed training John gave me the task of manually releasing myself from the tow. I would have to make sure the glider was steady and flying straight before I did and maintain control afterwards. I would tow up to a certain height and pull the barrel release on my bridal then glide down to the ground and make a landing. I had a few poor landings where I either flared late or didn't get my feet running under me so I had to land on the wheels of the glider. On the other hand I also had a few that I felt were good, they weren't no step landings but I came in straight and steady and landed running on my feet and caught the glider on my shoulders. I think in all I had 6 flights on Saturday.
On Sunday, I had a good early start and met Adam and Mike when I pulled up. The three of us started flying right away after getting harnesses and warming up. Again, I was flying the 220 Condor. The breeze was slightly stronger on Sunday than it was on Saturday but it was steady. My first flight was straight and comfortable and I even had a pretty good landing. The second flight was similar and John put targets out there for me to shoot for. On one of these spot landing attempts I was focusing on aiming and forgot to release, that meant that I overshot the landing targets by 25 feet or so but otherwise I flew directly over it. Also, since I was showing consistently straight flights and landing under control, John said I should start using the 170 Falcon. It's a smaller wing, so it flies faster but it's significantly more responsive and "behaves the way a glider should behave".
The biggest difference I noticed on the Falcon was that the control bar is a slightly different shape and sits farther away from me. So it felt completely different. I also noticed that the small movements I made actually mattered in this glider. It turned sharper and needed more constant (or more precise) handling. After trying to land at trim speed and coming in slow and mushy, stumbling, and then nose bonking. John said that I should start working on intentionally speeding up as I approached the ground. Trim speed is only slightly faster than stall speed and isn't the right speed to be landing at. So if I pull in slightly and then "round out" by relaxing to trim only when I get to 2 feet off the ground, then fly parallel to the ground and let the glider slowly loose speed, I'll have much better control when landing. I think in the training glider I've been approaching the ground at a steady angle from 25 feet up, and then flaring when my feet are within reach of the ground. So the "rounding out" part is something important to work on.
I think in total I had 7 tows on Sunday. But Sunday ended up being a short day, we only trained until 3:00pm!
Check out the video of this weekend:
Monday, October 17, 2011
October 15-16
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 enjoyed seeing how the local pilots do their thing at the ridge and I did get to meet a number of them. I'm eager to get some solid consecutive training weekends in so that I can progress enough to join them for these ridge sessions.
Monday, October 10, 2011
October 9
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 would be ideal for a beginner in zero wind. Some head wind is desirable since lift is dependent on the speed of the air over the wings and not the speed of the glider over the ground. When there is a head wind, I wont have to run as fast along the ground to get enough air speed to feel the glider lift up off my shoulders. But in this case, zero wind meant the larger glider would be better (since lift also depends on the size of the wing).
The first exercise was just what I mentioned above, lifting the glider up and supporting it's weight on my shoulders and running along the ground. As I ran, the air moving over the wing lifted it up and off my shoulders.
The next step in my training was just a more powerful version of the running-along-the-ground-exercise. This time instead of my legs generating the air speed needed to lift the glider wing, a winch generates the air speed necessary to lift the glider plus me by pulling a cable attached to the front of my harness. In this way John was able to pull me along at just the right speed to generate lift and keep me 5-10 feet off the ground. This gave me the chance to start learning to steer the glider left and right and speeding up and slowing down. And as I made progress each flight, the winch would pull harder and faster generating more lift and taking me higher in to the sky. By the end of the day I might have been 60 feet in the air and gliding a few hundred feet.
These tow exercises introduced me to foot launching (to some degree), steering by properly shifting my center of mass, loosing speed and altitude by controlling the angle of attack of the glider, and also landing. My first few short and low tows I felt like I landed great. I stayed on my feet and caught the glider on my shoulders and set it down on the ground gently. But as the tows increased in height and length and I started moving faster I had to learn to loose all that speed before I landed. Sometimes I had to resort to landing on the wheels of the glider and sliding for some distance before coming to a stop.
My unconscious reaction while flying was to grip the down-tubes tightly and pull them in close to my chest. This meant that I was almost always causing the glider to fly downward which means I'm gaining speed as I try to land. It was very difficult for me to get myself to relax in the air. The gliders are engineered to be stable in pitch and pretty much fly themselves. If I relaxed and let the glider fly with the angle of attack it wanted, I would slow down (or climb higher if the tow winch was still pulling on me). Instead I was pulling in on the control bar forcing the glider to fly faster and forcing John (using the winch) to pull on me harder in order to force me to gain altitude.
There were three of us students working on these exercises and one other that was more advanced and was working on much longer solo flights at a higher altitude. For his launches, he would be set up on a cart in flight position and would be towed much faster along the ground so that he climbed hundreds of feet up. I can't wait until I get to that level, but I've got a lot to learn about controlling my flights and landings first.
During lunch we watched the advanced student, the instructor, and also an experience pilot take full length tows. One was able to find enough lift in the somewhat turbulent air to get his flight to last for 10 minutes or so. It was the best flight of the day. Since us beginners weren't experienced enough to fly in the stronger wind conditions of midday we helped with the ground handling, setup, and launch of the other pilots just as they helped us setup and prepare for our low tows. There is plenty to learn about ground handling, launch procedures, and safe practices, so watching the experienced pilots was still a good use of time.
I got 6 winch tows before lunch some of which were good straight flights, a few of them had good, soft, controlled landings too. After lunch it was down to just 1 other student and me. We took turns taking flights and must have gotten 8-10 flights before we had to close down at around 6:00 pm. It was a fantastic time. I've gotten a very small taste of the hang gliding experience I want. And I now have a clear direction to pursue it.
I'm going to try to get back to the training field for at least 1 day each weekend in order to keep building my piloting skills and learn more about hang gliding.
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 would be ideal for a beginner in zero wind. Some head wind is desirable since lift is dependent on the speed of the air over the wings and not the speed of the glider over the ground. When there is a head wind, I wont have to run as fast along the ground to get enough air speed to feel the glider lift up off my shoulders. But in this case, zero wind meant the larger glider would be better (since lift also depends on the size of the wing).
The first exercise was just what I mentioned above, lifting the glider up and supporting it's weight on my shoulders and running along the ground. As I ran, the air moving over the wing lifted it up and off my shoulders.
The next step in my training was just a more powerful version of the running-along-the-ground-exercise. This time instead of my legs generating the air speed needed to lift the glider wing, a winch generates the air speed necessary to lift the glider plus me by pulling a cable attached to the front of my harness. In this way John was able to pull me along at just the right speed to generate lift and keep me 5-10 feet off the ground. This gave me the chance to start learning to steer the glider left and right and speeding up and slowing down. And as I made progress each flight, the winch would pull harder and faster generating more lift and taking me higher in to the sky. By the end of the day I might have been 60 feet in the air and gliding a few hundred feet.
These tow exercises introduced me to foot launching (to some degree), steering by properly shifting my center of mass, loosing speed and altitude by controlling the angle of attack of the glider, and also landing. My first few short and low tows I felt like I landed great. I stayed on my feet and caught the glider on my shoulders and set it down on the ground gently. But as the tows increased in height and length and I started moving faster I had to learn to loose all that speed before I landed. Sometimes I had to resort to landing on the wheels of the glider and sliding for some distance before coming to a stop.
My unconscious reaction while flying was to grip the down-tubes tightly and pull them in close to my chest. This meant that I was almost always causing the glider to fly downward which means I'm gaining speed as I try to land. It was very difficult for me to get myself to relax in the air. The gliders are engineered to be stable in pitch and pretty much fly themselves. If I relaxed and let the glider fly with the angle of attack it wanted, I would slow down (or climb higher if the tow winch was still pulling on me). Instead I was pulling in on the control bar forcing the glider to fly faster and forcing John (using the winch) to pull on me harder in order to force me to gain altitude.
There were three of us students working on these exercises and one other that was more advanced and was working on much longer solo flights at a higher altitude. For his launches, he would be set up on a cart in flight position and would be towed much faster along the ground so that he climbed hundreds of feet up. I can't wait until I get to that level, but I've got a lot to learn about controlling my flights and landings first.
During lunch we watched the advanced student, the instructor, and also an experience pilot take full length tows. One was able to find enough lift in the somewhat turbulent air to get his flight to last for 10 minutes or so. It was the best flight of the day. Since us beginners weren't experienced enough to fly in the stronger wind conditions of midday we helped with the ground handling, setup, and launch of the other pilots just as they helped us setup and prepare for our low tows. There is plenty to learn about ground handling, launch procedures, and safe practices, so watching the experienced pilots was still a good use of time.
I got 6 winch tows before lunch some of which were good straight flights, a few of them had good, soft, controlled landings too. After lunch it was down to just 1 other student and me. We took turns taking flights and must have gotten 8-10 flights before we had to close down at around 6:00 pm. It was a fantastic time. I've gotten a very small taste of the hang gliding experience I want. And I now have a clear direction to pursue it.
I'm going to try to get back to the training field for at least 1 day each weekend in order to keep building my piloting skills and learn more about hang gliding.
Introduction
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 interest. Aviation. This makes sense since I am now living in Dayton, Ohio where the Wright brothers grew up and even developed many of the designs that eventually led to the first powered flight in North Carolina. But Aviation is often (and certainly was to me) associated with high costs and a lots of training. And this is for good reason. But there are lots of different forms of aviation and one in particular that looked like the best option for me: Hang gliding. Defined as foot launched personal powerless aviation, hang gliding is often described as the closest thing to flying like a bird. Since you are hanging in a strong harness beneath a flexible wing and every movement you make effects the flight of the glider you don't get the mechanical feeling of steering something through the sky like you would sitting in a cockpit, instead it’s as if you have wings attached to your back (Or so they say. I haven't experienced it quite yet).
Although I've never written a blog before, I hope to keep this updated (mostly for personal reasons) while I pursue my ambitions to become a hang gliding pilot and describe how I went from dreamer on the ground to qualified pilot. I also have some long term goals that I plan on pursuing. I want to return home to New Mexico and see some of the world class soaring sites over the deserts that I grew up in. There's Dry Canyon in Alamogordo, Windy Point outside of Ruidoso, Sandia Crest in Albuquerque, and even a few places I've hiked, driven, and snowboarded through in Colorado. Eventually with the right training and development of my skills I hope to be qualified to fly at some of these difficult but beautiful sites. Based on my conversations with the instructor, these goals I've set for myself are likely to take a year or more if I'm able to fly regularly. If I can't fly regularly it's likely to take much longer. So this will be a test of my determination to accomplish something completely new to me.
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 interest. Aviation. This makes sense since I am now living in Dayton, Ohio where the Wright brothers grew up and even developed many of the designs that eventually led to the first powered flight in North Carolina. But Aviation is often (and certainly was to me) associated with high costs and a lots of training. And this is for good reason. But there are lots of different forms of aviation and one in particular that looked like the best option for me: Hang gliding. Defined as foot launched personal powerless aviation, hang gliding is often described as the closest thing to flying like a bird. Since you are hanging in a strong harness beneath a flexible wing and every movement you make effects the flight of the glider you don't get the mechanical feeling of steering something through the sky like you would sitting in a cockpit, instead it’s as if you have wings attached to your back (Or so they say. I haven't experienced it quite yet).
Although I've never written a blog before, I hope to keep this updated (mostly for personal reasons) while I pursue my ambitions to become a hang gliding pilot and describe how I went from dreamer on the ground to qualified pilot. I also have some long term goals that I plan on pursuing. I want to return home to New Mexico and see some of the world class soaring sites over the deserts that I grew up in. There's Dry Canyon in Alamogordo, Windy Point outside of Ruidoso, Sandia Crest in Albuquerque, and even a few places I've hiked, driven, and snowboarded through in Colorado. Eventually with the right training and development of my skills I hope to be qualified to fly at some of these difficult but beautiful sites. Based on my conversations with the instructor, these goals I've set for myself are likely to take a year or more if I'm able to fly regularly. If I can't fly regularly it's likely to take much longer. So this will be a test of my determination to accomplish something completely new to me.
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