My path to Pilot

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...

I made it! That is to say, I managed to finish (with very generous help from a number of people) the last of my many preparations for my week long trip to Colorado Fly Week. I also (since it is now July 10th) made it home safely too, so I now have the chance to write it all up. The Colorado Fly Week was held at the Smith Ranch outside of Villa Grove, CO and was absolutely fantastic. I learned a huge amount, met lots of fantastic pilots, saw some spectacular weather and had some nice flights too! Below is a lengthy summary. To be honest, I had expectations of attending Colorado Fly Week and racking up huge amounts of air time soaring up and down the Sangre De Cristo mountain range. It turns out it isn't quite so easy, although a number of people did it over the course of the week. I only ended up with less than an hour of air time over 4 days and 4 flights. But the discrepancy between my expectations and the reality doesn't really disappoint me at all because like I sai...

So, I've been putting off writing up my last day of flying. There have been a number of reasons for this but I guess the biggest reason is that it was my worst day of flying ever. How does this sound: I had 2 more blown aerotow launches which resulted in a belly landing once, and a nice controlled flare the second time. I was still making the same mistakes I was on my first few attempts but couldn't figure out quite what the problem was. On my third tow I launched successfully, towed up to 2100 feet and soared for an hour, climbing to cloud base once at 6000 ft AGL. Sound like a bad day so far? Well, I even had a nice landing on that flight. However, at the very end of the day I decided I didn't want to carry my glider all the way across the field to the hanger where I would be packing up. Instead I took a short scooter tow thinking it would be nice to boat around for a few minutes and land back at the hangar. It really was quite pleasant in the calm air late in the eveni...

On Saturday of this weekend I went out to fly again. The day looked fantastic with large cumulonimbus clouds popping up all over. The wind was relatively calm too but only a few pilots came out to tow. I got an early Aerotow on the Falcon to 2100 which let me work lift for 20 minutes or so. I climbed to 3070 and decided I would try to go find another cloud to work lift under. I mean, that's what cross country pilots do right? They fly from cloud to cloud, or anyway, from thermal to thermal and try to get as far as they can. Anyway, I saw a large looking cloud that appeared to be forming over Darbyville, only two miles away. So I headed out of my lift and cruised in that direction. It turns out the cloud was farther than I though, by about 6 miles or so. I kept an eye on my altitude so that I could be sure to get back, but I didn't get any lift at all. I flew back to where I expected it to be but couldn't find the lift I started in. I flew in to land and had a nice stron...

I meant to write this up that evening but I got distracted by other things. Anyway, after my first three attempts at Aerotowing on Saturday, only one of which was successful, I came back on Sunday to get a few more in. I again used the Falcon 170 for both of my tows on Sunday. We started out a little bit late but my first try around 11:30 went smoothly. Although I borrowed another students vario and misread my altitude so I ended up releasing at around 1100 feet instead of a full tow to 2000. I tried again immediately and towed to 1600 before I got a hand signal from frank waving me off. I assumed frank waved me off because of a bit of turbulence that the tug had just moved through. He gave me some serious advice before we towed that the conditions were likely to be much rougher and that I needed to be really careful about handing the rough air. This advice made me double my effort to watch the tug for signs that it flew through lift, or signs that would mean I was about to fly thr...

This weekend an event was organized in memory of a club members Mom. She was a big part of the community many years ago when the Ohio Flyers would fly from her property. It was a great weekend of flying, food, and drink. The weekend was forecast for 2 decent days of flying and most expected to see some soaring. I was also looking forward to this weekend because of the possibility of doing my first Aerotows. John has been hinting at it for a few weeks now but this week was the first I seriously considered trying. I arranged to be out early to take advantage of the calm and cool air and Frank and I set up my glider for towing. To cut strait to the chase: my first two attempts went very poorly although no harm was done. On my first launch, I stayed in the cart too long. I over reacted to the advice that I would need to hold on to the cart much longer than I normally do while scooter towing and ended up trying to stay on the cart well after I was at an appropriate speed to take off. ...

Saturday of this weekend was forecast to be very foggy and rainy. So no flying was possible. But Sunday was expected to be much more sunny. Indeed we had mostly clear skies all day. A few cumulus clouds were popping up here and there but it was very humid and we had very little lift to work. Again, a number of other club pilots came out for Aerotowing so we had our crowded setup of scooter towing down one runway and aerotowing off the other and a total of 15 or 16 gliders set up to fly. I got 4 scooter towing flights today for a total of 14 minutes of air time. Unfortunately there was so little wind that our scooter tows couldn't possibly get us high enough to work lift. So all 4 of my flights were sledders with the occasional meager effort to search for lift. Although another student named Matt did manage to extend his flights on 2 occasions to more than 10 minutes. 15 minutes in one case I think. So he managed to find what I could not. Anyway, I think I had 4 great landings t...

Saturday was windy and rainy in places but Sunday had a decent chance for clear skies over wesmar. And despite being a little strong, 5-10 mph on the forecast, we expected to be able to soar. Our tug pilot and 6 other pilots came out today. And while us H2's scooter towed, the experienced pilots aerotowed. Few people climbed much, but were able to work lift and extend their flight times. My best was a 15 minute flight off of an 1100 foot tow. I climbed to 1600 at the highest but quickly sunk after that. In general the lift was small and punchy and hard to stay in. One of my fellow H2's, named Matt, brought out a newly acquired glider, a Wills Wing Sport 2. John test flew it and Matt had his first flights on a glider other than the Falcon. I think he got a longer flight than any he had had before and the landing was decent, so I'm sure he's happy with his new equipment. I also acquired a used, but very fancy, Flytec vario and flew with that today. It's got loads of f...

The forecast looked excellent with winds 3-5 miles per hour and sunny skies. We've had little to no rain in the last week so the ground was dry and the air pleasant on the ground. The club Tug pilot named Frank worked on Friday to get the Dragonfly ready for the first day of Aerotowing of the year and a bunch of pilots came out to take advantage. When I showed up at the field at 1:00pm there were 12 gliders set up and ready to fly and a few in the air. I set mine wing up to join them. They were running both the scooter for us H2's and the Aerotow for the others. I watched a few people launch and then stepped up to the scooter for my first tow. It was a smooth ride to about 800 feet. Since there was little or no wind we didn't expect very high tows. When I released right over the top of the tow rig the beeping vario didn't stop so I immediately started circling in lift. I think I climbed up to 2100 or so and was ecstatic the whole time. What an excellent way to start o...

March 31 On Saturday, the forecast was misty and low visibility in the morning so the beginners training was canceled. It was overcast all day and a little humid but 2 of us showed up at noon when the conditions were expected to be clearer, and much stronger. It ended up being pretty light and pleasant and in fact I had the smoothest tows to 1000' I've ever had. It was completely effortless with almost no turbulence or bumps on the way up. I even got off tow in light lift and climbed 100' or so making it a 12 minute flight. The flights after that got progressively shorter so I focusing on landings. Two weeks ago when there were a number of other pilots out at the field towing I saw Larry do a really smooth moonwalk landing. Later that day I tried it myself and manage to do a pretty good one so today I wanted to practice that. Today there was very little wind on the ground and although I never really thought about it until the end of the day, moon-walking in no-wind condit...

Saturday was another sunny training day. We towed Southeast into 6-10 mph wind. Sri, Matt H., and a potential new student named Will (I think) were there with me. Our tows got us up to 750-800 where I was able to find gentle lift and extend my flights for a few minutes more than a sled ride. On these flights I was making quick 360s in the weak lift and drifting most of the way across the field only to gain 100 feet or so. It was good exercises on finding and staying in lift. In total I had 6 tows. My landings for today were generally not good. I had 2 enjoyable landings but otherwise I was flaring late or weekly which caused the glider to continue flying out in front of me when I put my feet down. I even whacked once when the wind added to my imbalance and tipped the glider off my shoulders. My approaches also weren't that good. I didn't do a good enough job planning out my height and approach direction in order to land at my target. I tended to overshoot quite a bit today. ...

On Saturday the Ohio Flyers club had their annual meeting. So I drove out to Columbus Bolton Airfield and met a number of other area pilots that I haven't met at the field yet. The meeting consisted of socializing, talking about membership, site upkeep, and other club business. Many people also repacked their parachutes. Sunday looked good to fly so a number of us students showed up for another day of towing. Another pilot named Ken was also there to fly his brand new Wills Wing U2. He unboxed it and set it up to fly in the afternoon. It was cool to see a brand new shiny hang glider fresh from the factory. While drooling over the glider I was surprised how loose the sail on the U2 is when the VG is off (Variable Geometry is a setting that can be adjusted in flight that changes the shape of the wing). On the U2 VG does an amazing job taking the sail from loose and billowy to drum tight. My Horizon has VG too but the difference between VG full on and full off is much smaller. At l...

After the illuminating discussion on Landings at the Oz Report , I went out to the field figuring I would try out a number of the techniques Jim Rooney talked about as well as working on spot landings some more. But I got a little sidetracked when instead of getting a bunch of short sled rides from the top of the tow to the landing target, I instead got a 10 minute and a 15 minute soaring flight. My first ever!! Shortly after leaving the cart on the second tow. The sky was clear, it was sunny with a calm wind 4-5 from the North or NNE. This let us make full length tows which dropped us off at about 900 or 1000 feet. One of the other H2's there today was Matt Gethers he took the first tow and came down absolutely grinning after feeling his very first piece of lift. He said he made a few turns through the lift and gained 100 feet or so and the feeling of the climb was fantastic. On my first tow at about 1:30pm I didn't find any of that lift, maybe a beep or two on the vario...

The weather forecast was good enough to try scooter towing. For the last couple of days we've had some cold and wet weather which dropped a few inches of snow in places further north, but mostly left us with Ice. So in spite of the cold weather and icy roads I thought I wouldn't mind flying this weekend. It took me a good 30 minutes to remove the 2-3 millimeters of ice from my windshield and doors on Saturday morning but otherwise I didn't have any trouble getting to the field. Greg's new CG-1000 harness came in early this week so when he showed up we spent some time looking at the features and seeing how it fit him. It was a really slick looking harness that was clearly made with excellent craftsmanship. At first there were some issues with the size of the boot and getting his shoes into the end. The CG-1000 is a single suspension harness and uses a foot plate in the boot of the harness to help you move the suspension slider back and forth along the back plate. This ...

My first flights of the new year were also my first flight as owner of a glider! I bought the Northwing Horizon ET 180 that I had been flying the past few weeks. Although I am at the lower end of the weight range for the large glider, I feel comfortable while flying and have no issues handling the glider at all. I also love the look of the glider and think it's in excellent condition. From the reviews I've read and the impressions that I've gotten from other pilots it'll probably be a glider I will fly for a number of years. It has enough performance that I'll have room to grow so to speak in the future. Next will be to decide on a harness. I'm trying to decide between the Wills Wing Z5 and a CG-1000. Another student here at Wings To Fly had recently ordered a CG-1000 and expects it to arrive soon. I'll get a chance to look at that harness and hopefully make up my mind about ordering one. This weekend was unusually warm and we had a sunny and breezy Satu...