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:
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