Tennessee Tree Toppers Team Challenge

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 launched second, I watched him and tried to take notes. I had been pouring over youtube videos of launches from Henson Gap in order to try to prepare myself for the real thing. After a little bit of struggle keeping the glider level and controlling pitch on his own, Michal coordinated with his wire crew what he expected and what he needed from them so that everyone was on the same page. He stepped back up to launch and had a smooth run off the ramp pulling in as he took the first few steps to follow the contour of the ramp. I reminded myself that I would need to do the same thing.

When I suited up and walked my glider out toward the ramp Ollie gave me a hang check and went through a few key points of advice with me for my first launch. I also explained to my wire crew what I wanted from them and that when I felt comfortable and in control I would yell "Clear, Clear, Clear" and would then immediately launch. It only took me a few moments when I stepped up to the red line on the launch ramp to feel comfortable and in control so I launched pretty quickly. I remember only taking a few steps before the ramp dropped away and I was flying. I kept myself pulled in for speed but I think I could have done a better job controlling pitch in those first few moments. Anyway, I flew strait away from the cliff, put my feet in my harness, switched my grip to the control bar, and banked a turn to the left to stay in ridge lift.

From there, I spent a few minutes drifting back and forth along the ridge, trying to make my turns when my vario was beeping slightly higher. I climbed above launch, drifted a little further up and down the ridge, and spent the next 3 and a half hours soaring the ridge at Henson Gap.

My first flight at the site was 3 times longer than my previous best flight. It was amazing. I followed birds around, explored different parts of the ridge, followed other pilots around, and generally tried to relax and enjoy the view of the valley stretching out below me.

The flight even included a low save. There must have been a sink cycle, or a lull in the wind and I ended up sinking out. There was a 6 or 8 minute period where I heard no beeps from my instrument. And drifted up the ridge toward the LZ while I tried wishing thermals into my path. I aimed my glide toward to the LZ to pass over a small knob at the base of the ridge that I guessed might be a place to find lift. I can't be sure if I just got lucky or if I guessed right, but I did find weak lift right over that bump. It took me another minute once I found it to center myself and drift with the lift, but then it carried me right back up to the top of the ridge. It wasn't the most comfortable thing making full turns in lift so close to the tree tops, but I was fully aware of my proximity and was careful to keep in mind the possibility of getting turned into the ridge. Anyway, I controlled my anxiety and stayed as centered in the lift as I could, and kept my turns as coordinated as I could, as I followed the contour of the mountain up toward the ridge top.

A view of the tracklog from my 3.5 hour flight at Henson Gap, Tennessee. The lowest part of the track is the low save as I drifted from the right edge of the picture toward the LZ. I found lift over the very last bump in the ridge.

Other notable moments for me were the gaggle flying (I had never flown with any real traffic before), thermaling up thousands of feet over the ridge at the highest, and finally getting so tired that I actually decided to go land (I've never had a flight where I got to dictate when I landed, mother nature has always done that for me).

So, the summary of my trip to the TTTTC goes like this: the day before the event started I soared my butt off, then sat for the next 3 days in the rain hoping the clouds would break and we would get to fly again. However during the rainy days I did get to listen to some of the best, and most experienced pilots in the world talk about flying techniques, safety, glider tuning, instrument use, cross-country flying, weather, and more!! So even the rainy days ended up being extremely valuable. I headed back to Ohio in the middle of the week to return to work and also for the rare chance to soar the local ridge site in Ohio.

Bringing the Blog back up to speed

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 illuminate a few interesting things about flying that aren't obvious from just watching a flying video. Anyway, I've been trying unsuccessfully to get my voice on camera during the flight.

I'll have a solution to this soon though.

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 go back to adjusting the shoulder straps and try and find that ideal setting.

My  flights were short and didn't consist of much climbing, but they were enjoyable. The tows were behind a trike, which was a first for me. There was significantly more motion and correction needed since any lift that the trike encountered had a huge effect on it's climb rate so I had to make larger corrections to keep up. In the end both my tows were smooth and incident free and provided a total of 38 minutes of flight time.

First Flights on a New Moyes Contour Harness

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 your almost vertical. And likewise if the slider is all the way to the rear, this puts your center of mass right at, or slightly in front of the hang point, which means you'll be hanging perfectly level, or even slightly head down.

It also has lots of internal storage, one long pocket that covers the back-plate on the inside, two medium sized pockets beside either ankle, also one pocket that opens to the outside of the harness with a flap door on the left side, and then a few small pockets with double zippers beside the parachute pouch. I can comfortably get my whole glider bag w/padding and baton quiver and tip bags into the various pockets and still have room to spare.

The main zipper is velcroed in pretty solidly but can be replaced if needed. And the separate pulls to zip up and un-zip are easily reachable. Although the velcro that holds the pull tabs in place could have been better situated. It comes with a very nice harness bag with shoulder straps and extra pockets.

At first glance, I didn't like that it doesn't have padded leg loops, so if I do choose to spend any time weighting the leg loops, it's slightly uncomfortable. Realistically though, I'll probably only spend a very short amount of time with lots of weight on the leg loops.

My conclusion: This is a fantastic harness. It's effortless, and really mean effortless, to rock upright and go head down again. I've heard people with older Contours say that the slider ends up wearing out a little and could be harder to slide with age, but at the moment, it slides like butter. I don't think I'll ever be wishing I had more storage, and the construction and craftsmanship of the harness is very clean and the harness looks beautiful.

I can't wait for some longer flights so I can really get a feel for the comfort of the harness. My 3 short flights on Sunday (2 minutes each) weren't enough to get a feel for any points of friction or rubbing that may be the result of a poor fit.

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 climb and dampen any bumps and yawing and make the small correction I need to. I think it's this habit of immediately applying a lot of bar pressure that is the biggest cause of my bad launches. Instead of pulling in so hard on Aerotow I need to pull in exactly None and let the glider climb to the 6 or 7 foot height that I see from so many other pilots. Then I can start applying control input and keep the glider at that height while the tug lifts off the ground too. From there it's just a matter of flying the glider in formation behind the tug and climbing to 2000 feet.

Anyway, my first launch on Saturday had the same problem, I end up touching my wheels to the ground for a second (Dangerous!) immediately after leaving the cart. But I towed up into an overdeveloped, but calm, sky and boated around for 15 minutes. I also had a good landing.

My second flight was 100x better. I resisted the urge to pull in at all and instead let the glider climb out of the cart. I finally executed the launch I've been trying to do since the first time I tried. It felt good. The flight also ended up being fantastic and lasted an hour.

I towed up to 1700 and got off in what I thought was decent lift. Either it wasn't that good or I couldn't find it because I didn't gain almost anything for the first 5 or 6 minutes. I ended up watching another pilot, Larry B. (flying a T2C) get off lift and start climbing obviously. I headed over to where I thought he was and encountered workable lift. I used it to climb up to a few hundred below cloud base, which was around 3800. From the moment I started circling below Larry I lost sight of him and didn't realize I was turning the opposite direction he was. I noticed my mistake when I saw him drift out in front of me during a turn. He was only 400 above and looked like he was right at cloud base.

Since I started getting high flights for longer duration I haven't actually had the chance to fly with anyone. I've always been in my own thermal on the other side of the field, or been the only pilot up or something. But today I decided to jump at the opportunity and shadow Larry as he, most likely, started off cross country. I figured I would follow him around for a little while and then head back to the field before I got too far to return. And sure enough, shortly after I spotted him right above me, I saw him start off toward another cloud 4 or 5 miles away. I followed.

After the first glide I tried aiming for the lift he was already working and ended up getting a very nice climb, this time, there was very little drift and lots of lift. We climbed to cloud base a second time and I tried following him again. At one point he made a turn in sink out in front of me and I could see the top of his sail (barely) but he made another turn or two and was above me again. It's the only time I've seen a top side of a flying T2C!

Larry didn't end up going cross country, he headed back to the field shortly after I did. The only reason I did was because I was downwind at this point and knew that I was getting very close to the edge of my glide back to the field. But I made it back with 500 to spare and made a good approach and a good landing.

Following another glider around really did make my day. This is also the first time I've actually climbed in 2 distinct thermals. My other long flights have just been milking one thermal until it disappeared. I would always stay in the exact same place. This time I actually traveled a good distance throughout the flight. Now I'm even more excited about signing up for the Tennessee Tree Toppers Team Challenge in a couple months. I've had a very small glimpse of what I imagine it would be like to fly cross country in a team setting and think there would be loads to learn by following experienced pilots around in the air.

This video was an experiment in how to cut down an hour of footage into only a few minutes. I also tried finding some music to include in the video (which is very hard if you want to avoid violating copyright laws) so maybe the video will be more entertaining to watch. I'm sure some of those 20 minute videos I've put up with nothing but wind noise in the background aren't entertaining to watch, but they weren't intended that way. I hope you enjoy.

Successful trip to Colorado Fly Week 2012

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 said, I learned a huge amount and can say I flew safely and conservatively in a new and somewhat extreme (weather wise) location.

But first, I have to thank John, Willie, and Wes again for their enormous efforts getting me out of town. I had some big help building a roof rack for my car, replacing a leading edge and flying wires on my glider, and packing my parachute, all of which was pretty much done at the last minute. So thanks. I owe all three of you big time and in my mind will be in a debt of gratitude to you for a long time.

To summarize my trip: I left Ohio right after a great big storm rolled through and did loads of damage to power lines, trees and roof tops from the Midwest all the way to the East Coast. I left town on Saturday evening, drove 3 and 1/2 hours to Lincoln Trail State Park in Indiana where I camped for the night. I got up bright and early and proceeded to make the remaining 1100 mile drive from there to Villa Grove in about 22 hours. I set up camp there at the hang gliding head quarters feeling a bit like a zombie but woke up the next morning feeling refreshed and ready to fly.

I somewhat nervously set up my glider at the launch area while going over in my head all the things I needed to remember about launching at a high altitude flying site. I knew I would need a very strong run on launch, good control over my angle of attack throughout the run, and a good awareness of my position with respect to the terrain immediately after launch.

I think I executed my first ever mountain launch quite well. And felt great for the duration of my short sled ride. But I had a very late, or even non-existent flare on landing and ended up setting the glider down on its nose briefly. Not a big deal but still not how I prefer to do it.

The next 3 days followed routine of waking up when the sun rose above the high mountain range east of the LZ, attending the pilots briefing to hear news, weather, and safety information, followed by a mad dash to the shuttles to get up to launch. Those shuttle vehicles needed to be pretty rugged to get to the top of the 4 wheel drive road carrying up to 4 gliders, just as many paragliders, plus the pilots for each aircraft. At least once I saw 10 people in one vehicle! Once we were setup at launch, we generally watched the paragliders launch first, then the H2's and any others just looking for a sled ride would take their flights. I believe I was one of only a few (maybe 3 or 4) H2's at the event and none of us got any significant soaring flights (There were however other single surface gliders that flew quite far).

I brought my camera and was able to film all my launches, but only 3 full flights and landings. The battery died during the 4th (and best!) flight so I failed to capture my only good climb all week and my no step landing afterward.

Looking at the video I think I managed to make decent launches (I avoided ever popping my nose up on launch anyway), although I think I missed 3 or 4 opportunities to work decent lift just because I was making poorly coordinated turns or whipping around instead of gently drifting with the wind to stay in the lift. I think I've got a lot to learn about making the most out of the small diameter, or "precise" lift. On my 4th flight, the only time I climbed much at all, I fixed a few of these things and saw some good results. But my drift and proximity to the mountain ended up scaring me out of the lift in order to head to the LZ. I'm still not entirely comfortable with the idea of landing a long way away from head quarters and requiring a retrieve. Cross country flights will come in time, but I'm not there yet!

This ended up being a fantastic Ice-breaker trip. That is I think I'll be far more likely to plan another road trip to somewhere closer by in Georgia, or Pennsylvania. I wanna start getting more experience flying a variety of sites. The Tennessee Tree Toppers event is at the top of my list at the moment. I really wanna go to that!

Saturday, June 23, 2012

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 evening. But I was lazy, or not focused on the important things, or tired, or something, and I ended up setting up a poor approach that brought me in a little too high into a restricted landing area. For what ever reason I chose not to use the thousands of feet of runway, and wide open field I had available to me and instead chose to land in a "convenient" spot. As I rounded out my final and was skimming the ground waiting for my glider to loose energy so that I could flare, I realized there was a large wooden pole coming at me surprisingly fast. I don't think there was any chance for me to turn, not when I was going 25 miles an hour and only 2 feet off the ground. I stared at the pole and had some instinct to flare early and try to bring the glider to a stop before I ran into the pole. I flared, and flared hard. But I had just a little too much speed so my flying wire and leading edge made contact with the pole almost at the same time. Immediately after the collision I landed on my feet but was off balance and had no grip on the glider so my left wing tip hit the ground hard and broke the tip wand and bent one baton.

I stepped out of my harness a little shaken and stunned at what just happened. A quick inspection of the glider showed me a bent down-tube, a broken tip wand, a bent baton, a flying wire striped of some of it's plastic coating, a small tear at the seam of the sail right at the leading edge, and worst of all, a large dent in the leading edge tube inside the sail.

Uncharacteristically, I didn't have a camera running. I can't watch or post any video of the accident and no one else saw it.

I made a terrible choice in landing direction. Since there was calm air, I could have landed in any direction at all but I chose pretty much the smallest landing area I could have, even then I came in too high and had too much speed when I rounded out.

This accident was made worse by the fact that in one week, I was planning on driving to Colorado to attend the Villa Grove Fly Week. So the roughly $500 in repairs I would have to make, needed to be done within 5 days if I was going to make it.

Since I'm writing this on Friday, and the accident happened on Saturday of the week before, I can spare you the details of all my stress and worry and frantic preparations. In the end, the people at Northwing Designs were extremely helpful, and did everything they could to rush the parts to me on time. And despite all the things I had going against me (I hadn't built my car roof rack to transport my glider, I still needed to make some car repairs, and I was struggling to find a harness that I could borrow for the week) I have managed to get almost everything taken care of. I have a car that is in good shape for the 2600 mile trip, I have a sturdy roof rack built, I have a harness packed with my new parachute, and I have the replacement glider parts in route.

The only real issue that is still eating me up inside is I have to hope that the parts survived the 3 day shipping. The 108 inch long leading edge is delicate, and I don't seem to have any trouble imagining a fork lift tong puncturing right through it. This evening will determine weather or not I will actually be making a trip to Colorado or not.

Saturday, May 26, 2012

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 strong flare.

The day ended up turning on much more strongly toward 3 in the afternoon. One pilot had a 3 hour flight and climbed to 5000 a few times, so the lift was there. Sometime toward the end of the day, closer to 5:30, I tried taking another flight on my Horizon. I had confidence that I understood what was supposed to happen, what I was supposed to do, and how to adjust for position. But the attempt went very poorly. I nearly crashed again. Immediately after coming out of the cart, the glider started banking, I started making large corrections, and I the pilot induced oscillations escalated. The tug pilot gave me the rope and I tried landing in control. I ended up making the worst whack I've ever had and ended up slightly bending a down tube. Check out the video for a dramatic clip of my mistake.

Immediately after the attempt I had no clue what went wrong. Even after looking at the video I'm only half sure what the cause of the failure was. I think I came out of the cart and was slightly off center, or for some reason, I immediately started making a shift in body weight to the left. And I can see it in the video, but I can't for the life of me remember why I did it. I can't relate what I felt during the attempt with how I reacted. I think this is evidence for me that I need to have a fin, and a lot more VG. Both of those things aught to help lessen the "sensitivity" so to speak of the glider during those crucial moments. I can't start oscillating immediately after coming out of the cart.

Also, I need to drill into my mind that if I should disconnect from the tow line for whatever reason, I should NOT try to recover and flare, I should just set the glider down on it's wheels and roll/slide it out. I think partly the severity of my landing on this failed attempt is due to the fact that I was trying not to land on the wheels and ended up mushing (or stalling) the glider into a flare with tilted wings. I think I can pick out in the video where if I had been thinking better, I would have just belly landed and rolled it out into the soft and tall grass, instead I oscillated, never recovered and half flared while the glider was turning.

I ended up slightly shaken, but without any injury at all. No bruised shoulder where I pushed all my weight into the down tube, no sprained ankle, no scrapes or grass burns (on me anyway, the nose cone has a nice grass stain). It could have been a lot worse.

Go to youtube to watch the video, it doesn't embed very well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k09_cwbH2ps

Sunday, May 20, 2012, a few more aerotows

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 through that lift too. And I saw a couple of times that one of the tugs wing would lift suddenly followed by the tug pilot correcting and leveling off, then seconds later, I would fly through the same patch of air and have to make my own adjustments.

However, this wasn't the reason I was waved off. Apparently a 2 engine jet aircraft was making a very low pass over the area, presumably heading in to land north of us in Columbus. Everyone on the ground said that the plane appeared to fly under us, but, Frank, sitting in the cockpit of the tug said that the aircraft passed over us by 800-1000 feet and was maybe 2000 feet out in front of us. He waved me off because of the fear of the down wash of the aircraft. My efforts to carefully watch the tug ended up meaning that I excluded everything else from my attention. I never saw or noticed the close flying aircraft. In any case, I released, and made a U-turn to go back to where I figured lift would be. So by pure luck, I avoided the extreme hazard of the down wash. In the future I need to carefully watch the tug but I also need to be aware of my surroundings as well.You can see the airplane pass by in the top left corner of the video at 11:52.

That second tow on Sunday led to a 17 minute flight in which I worked inconsistent lift.

Saturday May 19th, My first Aerotow!

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. When I did finally come out of the cart, I didn't follow the tug as it climbed, I stayed low and fast, again over reacting to the advice that when aerotowing you need to fly much faster. While I don't think I was necessarily in immediate trouble, I was certainly not doing vary good yet so Frank made the cautious move and gave me the tow line. I made a safe (but uncomfortable) wheel landing in the tall grass and went back to try again.

The second launch was much scarier. Although I did come out of the cart on time, I stayed low, and didn't watch the tug at all. I had all my attention on flying the glider. I was still pulling in too far in order to keep my speed up where I thought it should be so I got below the tug again. If I had led the bar out and climbed up with the tug I think I might have been OK. But I didn't, and I definitely was not OK. I started oscillating by making enormous corrections and holding those corrections for too long. One wing tip came close to the ground and I surged all over the place. I felt like I was loosing control so I released myself from the line. After releasing, I leveled off and made a controlled landing on my feet in the grass.

Right after that second attempt, I knew I didn't do very good but I didn't realize how ridiculously close I was to a bad crash. Anyway, the video shows it pretty well I think. We discussed my second attempt a bit, but easy concluded I shouldn't try again just yet. I would wait until the late evening to try again. Many people thought that the glider was a big unknown, it hadn't been aerotowed before and the attachment point at the keel could have been wrong. It was also suggested that I should use more VG, although, in my limited experience using the VG on that glider, it doesn't make that much of a difference in free flight so I wasn't convinced. In fact, I don't like having the VG on at all while scooter towing because it ends up being harder to make the small corrections in roll that you need to stay facing down the tow line. In the end I think Aerotowing has nothing in common with scooter towing and I shouldn't be trying to apply my experiences with scooter towing to Aerotowing. I think VG is pretty likely to make a positive difference in my control under Aerotow.

I thought about stepping all the way back to taking a tandem next, I already have complete confidence controlling the glider (at least under the most gentle of conditions), but the feeling of being towed behind the airplane is still pretty unique and I could easily get comfortable with that before trying again. The other option was just flying the Falcon that John trains students on. It would eliminate many unknowns from the equation since it was already set up to aerotow and had been aerotowed by dozens of pilots over the years and was a very easy glider to fly.

We waited until the evening when things were starting to cool off before I towed again. By this time all the other pilots were around, some already finished flying for the day so they were eager to jump in with advice at the last minute. Some were so eager, they continued throwing scenarios at me even while I was doing my hang check ("If you have to land out in a field, remember to land on TOP of the grass...Don't forget, if you have to drop the tow line, remember where it lands...etc). I had spent all day thinking about this and talking to people for advice and I was ready to go. It stops helping when the student is overwhelmed with information that really doesn't have anything to do with what he's trying to accomplish!

Anyway...that third attempt went perfectly smooth. I felt calm, controlled, and focused the whole flight. I had my eyes on the tug from the time the wheels first started rolling, I left the cart on time, and followed the tug as it climbed to maintain my position behind it. I might have been slow to adjust my position when I drifted low or drifted high, but I think I did a good job of staying in the sweet spot over all. I didn't have an instrument with me so I don't remember how high I got, but I think we climbed all the way to 2200 feet and I had a smooth sled ride back down to the field. I think my first aerowtow flight went great!

TL;DR Check out the video!

Sunday May 6, 2012, towing at Wesmar

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 today, and was pleased with what felt like consistency. I was setting up my approaches better, and flaring strong and with good timing. I was even able on 3 of the flights to land right back where I started and only a few steps away from the launch. So my accuracy or judgment of final glide is getting better. However I did notice after watching the video that my fourth landing showed some yawing oscillations which led to a slightly off balance flare. I've heard other people mention this before on a number of occasions, usually after it led to a whack. I think their conclusion was that a late, or aggressive turn to final leads to this oscillations after rounding out at the ground. On a very high performance wing, this oscillation can be much more significant too. In this case it led to a slight imbalance but if it was any worse I would have been too off balance to keep the glider on my shoulders. I will have to pay closer attention to this next time and be conscious of my turns before final.

Check out the video, the landing with yaw oscillations is at 04:39 in the video below. I included 1 flight, but all 4 landings. 

Sunday, April 29, A breezy day at Wesmar

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 feature to learn about and settings to customize but the most interesting thing about it is that it will record lots of data about my flights in a convenient format that I can publish. So I may have some additional media to add to this blog in the future. Or more truthfully I will have another medium in which to analyze my flights in the hopes of learning something new.

I think I flew pretty well, but had one bad landing where I flared pretty early. I ballooned up as high as 10 feet and landed hard. Otherwise I had 3 no step landings. Because of the switch-y wind and variable conditions I consistently came in with lots of speed in order to avoid the hazards of the ground effect. By the end of the day though I was exhausted and sun burnt and a little dehydrated. I need to better prepare for the warm sunny days by bringing sunscreen, and extra water.

Next time the club is Aerotowing, I might get a chance to start training for that too! It would be nice getting dropped off at 1500-3000 feet and getting to fly from there.

April 7, Soaring over Wes/Mar

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 off the day: immediately climbing higher than I had ever been.

The thermal wasn't strong and didn't seem very large (wide) but it persisted until around 2100 ft. At that point I decided to try gliding over to a bend in the river where I had seen pilots circling in lift in the past. Apparently there's a feature near the bend in the river that is a consistent trigger for the thermals. But I didn't end up gliding all the way there. I was in sink the whole time and suddenly thought it might have been a bad idea to venture away from what little lift I had. I turned around and glided down toward the end of the field where people were launching from. By the time I got there I was around 1000ft and was starting to wonder if I was going to have to set up and land.

As I was drifting down below 900ft above ground level I found some more light lift and tried working it. It got stronger as I climbed and by the time I was above 1200ft it was climbing nicely at around 350 ft/min. There was another pilot about double my height in close to the same area. I figured I might be able to find what he was in. It didn't end up taking very long before I was level with and climbing past him. I think he was in an adjacent thermal. By the time I was at 2200 I was climbing at 500ft/min or better and making fairly tight turns to stay in the strongest of the lift. I climbed that one all the way to the top at around 3900 ft. I think that was close to the same height everyone else was topping out at. I looked over toward the bend in the river and saw a group of 4 gliders working it. Those were the 4 that had been up since before I launched. Two of them had even been up since I drove in to the field in the afternoon. I was about level with the glider at the top of that stack.

I sunk twice more either because things got quite or because I just wandered away from lift but I climbed back up to 2800 or so each time. In the end I landed nicely after experiencing my first hour long flight. My legs were weak on the landing and I stumbled a little. I'll have to remember to stretch or move them some when I open the doors on final approach. I was feeling great and couldn't have been happier with my flight so I just hung around for the rest of the day and watched the other pilots soar and eventually land. I think at least one pilot had a 4 hour flight.

If Saturday was any indication, this spring and summer are going to be excellent. I'm looking forward to seeing some more soaring flights.

March 31 and April 1

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 conditions is really hard. Or at least you have to moon-sprint in stead of moon-walk. Anyways the lack of wind and my determination to practice the technique led to some silly landings (belly sliding to a stop). But all in all a very nice day. Matt and I were the only two out today so we traded tows all day. I got 6 flights and 35 minutes of flight time

April 1

Sunday was expected to be a pretty good day to fly at the ridge and since it's the start of the season there was maintenance to do. In total 13 people showed up, most just to help with the clearing of undergrowth but a few other people came to fly too. Matt and Sri were looking for their first foot launches and I was there for my second foot launch. I spent about an hour or so helping clear the thick briars that have grown over the hillside below launch. It's hard enough to stand on the steep 45 degree slope in normal conditions but add to that a thick net of sticker bushes and thorny branches under your feet and below you on the slope and you have a really rough time. Apparently if the club is good about doing yearly maintenance it isn't too difficult to keep it up, but last year they didn't do much clearing at all so we had double the growth to remove. I'm pretty sure I can count a pair of socks and my jeans as casualties and my hands came out with dozens of scratches. And in the end I only spent an hour at it. A few of the other pilots that weren't planning on flying worked at it for closer to 2 or 3 hours. So my respect to them for their efforts!

Anyway, the first to launch was a paraglider pilot named Mert, he had a fine flight and proved that the ridge was soarable. Us newbies were setting up while Mert launched since the conditions were still slightly lighter than ideal. I was the first of the H2's to launch and spent quite a few minutes on launch waiting to get my courage up and for the conditions to be just right. When it looked like the wind was straight in I made 4 or 5 strong steps down the hill before I was airborne. I made only a couple passes across the hill before I "fell out" of the ridge. I don't really know what I did wrong, but I left the ridge pretty quickly despite the conditions being good. Perhaps I was just overly cautious but after three and a half minutes I pointed away from the ridge and went to land. I had a good landing with a strong flare and managed to land right on the dirt road in the middle of the winter wheat field.

I spent about an hour or so at the base of the hill watching Sri sit on launch. I think he never felt quite right to launch so Matt stepped up to try. Matt launched after 15 minutes or so and made 2 or 3 passes along the ridge before he headed out to land. Around this time I decided I should figure out how to get my glider back up to the top of the hill so Mert and I walked up to start ferrying cars. Sri launched while we were back at the bottom and I missed his flight, I did see him head out to land though. Pretty quickly after Sri launched John and Larry (the experts) decided conditions were good enough for them to soar. They launched and in only a short time were above the top of the hill, then Larry even took advantage of some of the thermals that we knew were blowing up the ridge and started circling. John did the same and Ken followed soon after and we watched them soar for close to an hour. Larry landed just when we got back up to the top of the hill to start setting up again. John stayed up for another 10 minutes.

When I walked out to launch to survey the conditions I noticed it was much strong than my first flight. It was much closer to the ideal 15mph. So we started setting up frantically in order to take advantage. I was first to launch and had another strong run down the hill which got me airborne in only 3 steps. This time I tried paying closer attention to my position on the ridge and making my 180 degree turns to change direction only when I encountered lift. I ended up scratching for 15 minutes before the lift "turned off". I'm felt that I manage to squeeze as much flight time out of it as I could, and I only flew away from the ridge when there really was no more lift. This time instead of aiming for the huge wide open field I tried aiming for the spot landing by the wind sock. It's fairly restricted and even has a shallow trench most of the way around the spot so it's much more difficult to hit. When I left the ridge I flew towards it on approach and dove at a spot 100 feet in front of my target, I rounded off and glided the rest of the way in and made a very strong flare right at the back of the target. My feet touching down only a foot or two away from the edge of the trench.

Matt launched next and had a sledder. He said there was almost no wind blowing into launch. Sri did the same. And Sri even manage to hit the same spot landing I did. Doing a strong flare right at the back of the landing zone only a few steps away from the treacherous trench.

In the end it was a fantastic and exhausting day that gave me a bit larger taste of ridge soaring. I think I still have a lot to figure out like how to better read the hill and the lift I encounter while making passes back and forth. I also need to better adjust my harness. I felt like I was having to exert a huge effort to making my course corrections and turns in the strong ridge lift. It has something to do with either my dangle angle or hang strap length and the fact that my arms are almost fully extended at trim. I'm using a Wills Wing harness and a Northwing glider. I think they use different standards for the length of the control frame so there is a slight incompatibility issue. I've never noticed it under the gentle conditions of scooter towing at Wes/Mar but under the stronger conditions of ridge soaring I want to be more comfortable. This is all the more incentive to buy myself a harness made to my own measurements and one that will use the same mains length as the glider. This harness that I'm renting is good but not as good as it can be. Soon I'll be ordering a harness of my own.

March 10th and 11th, Training

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.

Lastly, I failed to protect my face from the sun and went home slightly sun burnt. It's a sure sign that we're getting into spring when I have to start worry about using sun screen.

 

Sunday was very interesting. We had Southwest winds that started out 8-15 mph or so before noon but calmed down gradually. The forecast was again sunny and even warmer than Saturday so a number of other club members came out to get a few towing flights in. In total we had 8 gliders set up. Plus the winds were right for full length tows so we expected to get plenty high.

Indeed most tows were getting up 1100 ft. Larry W. and Frank M. had the best flights I think. Larry managed to climb up to 2500 but the wind made it hard to stay in the area so by the time he got up there he was quite a ways down wind and needed to head back. Larry had a really nice landing too. He's the first person I've seen do the "Moonwalk" landing that Jim Rooney talked about in the excellent landings discussion thread a little while back on OZ Report. He had a sweet approach and Moonwalked gently to a stop in front of the group. It's clear he's one of the better pilots in the area and I'm sure I'll be able to learn lots just by watching him fly. Anyway, I decided to try the moonwalk myself. Check out the video, my moonwalk turned out pretty good! I imagine this would be the technique of choice when you've got a heavy or high performance glider. I'm going to have to try it more often.

My first tow had a bridal break. But otherwise my tows were mostly sled rides. I extended one when I made a few circles in some weak lift but I didn't find anything to climb up in really. I had 5 flights but wanted a few more. On my 5th tow instead of landing at the end of the field where we were towing from, I landing at the hangers in the middle of the field and instead of walking my glider 1000 feet down the field I just called it for the day. I need to be more precise with my approaches. I mean I need to better execute my setup so that I'm at the right height to land at my target. On that 5th tow I was 150 feet higher than I needed to be and glided a long way down the field for the landing.

And speaking of landings, I had some very enjoyable landings today. Only one was worth complaining about. During that bad landing, I encountered some small rotor from an slight cross wind that was coming off a line of trees. I ended up flaring early and wasn't aware that I was 2 or 3 feet higher than I should have been. I ended up slipping on the grass and kneeling down awkwardly, it felt like when you walk down stairs but don't realize there is one more step and end up dropping farther than you expect. Otherwise, I had a smooth moonwalk and a few no-steppers.

In the end it was a great weekend. I got lots of good towing in, got to practice working weak lift, and had some very good landings. I also got to meet a few other Ohio Flyers club members that have been in hibernation all winter. I can't wait for the spring when everyone will be out most weekends and conditions will be better.

February 26, Training

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 least visually in the looseness of the sail. However, now that I've had a few more days flying on the glider I'm starting to get a better understanding of the differences the VG makes while flying. What I haven't learned is when to use VG in order to take advantage of the performance changes. Do I use VG while thermaling? Should I use VG while towing, while landing, etc. Most people that I've talked to say this will eventually become a feel thing, or personal preference and I'll just use what "feels good" without "over-thinking" it or trying to calculate the absolute optimum VG setting for the situation.

I had 7 tows on Sunday. The winds were 6-12 mph and 20 or so aloft. So on the ground it was certainly an exercise in ground handling in strong conditions. The tows tended to be turbulent when you were towed up through gradients or rising air but otherwise it was sunny and warm and the air was buoyant with small pieces of lift to be found. I had a few good landings but I mostly I felt like I struggled. Most everyone flying also had some troubles so maybe I can blame it on conditions. Regardless I think I should be able to fix a number of things in order to improve my consistency later. A couple times I made poor approaches and ended up with wings not quite level during round out. This meant I was fighting to keep the glider under control when I flared and once I put my feet on the ground. The ground effect and the difference between wind speed down low and higher up meant that my glide along the ground was changing on approach. So at the top of my approach, it looked like I was right on track to land at the target cone. But as soon as you pass through the gradient and into ground effect your speed along the ground is suddenly much greater. So I tended to overshoot most landings by a little bit. And in one case a lot.

My 7 tows puts my total to 54 scooter tows since H2 for a total of 3 hours 30 minutes of flight time.I recorded all 7 flights but (as usual) I haven't looked over the footage or edited it together yet but I'll do that later today and post the finished product here.

February 5th, Scooter towing and SOARING!

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, but I didn't pursue it. I glided from one end of the field to the other, setup my landing and tried for the spot. I overshot by 30 feet or so. I still don't have a really good ability to judge my height, glide and also distance to a specific landing target.

On my second flight, as I topped out the tow, Willie (the man on the winch) back off the tension, but I was still feeling strong pulls from rough (or rising!) air. I got off the tow and felt the glider immediately want to turn, I went with it and saw that the vario was still beeping away the whole time. I got delivered right to a nice thermal and climbed from 900 to 1000 feet! The thermal became weaker so I slowed my turn a little and tried to keep the beeping going. At this point I noticed I was naturally drifting down wind but was apparently still in the rising air. This was first time I've gotten to experience the shape of that energetic and invisible column of rising air that gets pushed down wind as it rises. It's the same effect that you see on the billowing steam cloud rising from a cooling tower at a power plant or manufacturing plant. Except in the case of thermal activity my understanding is that it's much larger and rises much farther and can take a glider many thousands of feet up above the ground. Anyway, back to my flight. As I drifted down wind, circling all the while I ended up at 1350 feet and not far from right over everyone else lining up to start their scooter tows. While I was struggling to keep in what little lift was left I saw John, my instructor, start his scooter tow. After watching so many tows from the ground it is absolutely incredible seeing a glider climb on tow from high above him!

At 1800 ft. double the height of the tow!

I think I might have lost my concentration watching John tow up because I lost what little lift I had. While I was trying to find it again, John flew my direction and passed under me by about 200 feet. He flew a bit further down wind but even at his altitude of about 500 feet or so he found a good piece of lift and after two or three turns was above me! At this point I resigned to the fact that I was getting too low to be likely to find the lift again and I was already at a good spot to setup the landing, so I unzipped, opened the doors and aimed for the target. On the way in I found a significant piece of sinking air or even a small rotor from a nearby tree line that dropped me 100 feet or so very quickly. This reinforced with me the need for excellent speed while on approach in order to keep the wing flying when you encounter conditions like that or alternately to try and anticipate terrain features that encourage that kind of rotor and avoid them altogether. I ended up landing 60 feet in front of the target and flared poorly but still stayed on my feet and caught the glider on my shoulder.

Meanwhile John made a few more turns but ended up landing only a few minutes later. He guessed that the strong lift he felt was more like a bubble that lifted him up but didn't persist at all after the big mass of rising air passed by.

First landing of the day.

And unbelievably my third flight went even better! Again I was lucky enough to get off tow right in lift. This time the lift was stronger and even larger in area. I found I could make a few turns and at some point I would feel (and hear on the vario) that the lift was especially strong. If I stopped my turn at that point and leveled out I would climb 75-100 feet in 5 or 6 seconds and could resume turning when I felt my climb slowing. In total I got off tow at 900 feet and climbed to about 1800 feet! I couldn't believe I doubled my height off tow! Also, this third flight was later in the day and there was less wind so I didn't end up drifting almost at all. I stayed right above the tow which position and climbed as much as I could. Eventually I fell out or it died off, I have no idea which, and headed back for the landing target. I made a few more turns each time I flew through another piece of lift but didn't gain anything more. I landed pretty close to the target but in my effort to avoid making an approach near any tree lines or possible rotor locations, my up wind landing put me 25 feet or so to the left of the target. But this time my judgment of distance was pretty much right on.

In total 3 tows for 29 minutes of flight time, an enormous difference when compared to my previous best day.

I filmed my 3 flights from a camera on my control bar but I haven't edited the video yet. I don't know how the camera angle will turn out but I'll do that this evening after work and post the video here when I do!

January 21 and 22

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 lets you adjust the angle of dangle in order to go prone or even head down while flying or rock back upright during landing. Additionally he had an issue buckling the waist buckle, as the harness seems to be a tight fit. But after fiddling and adjusting it he seemed to solve most of the issues and I think he was pretty happy with his new harness.

I would love to have one of these harnesses myself but the word is that the maker of the harness is going to be busy until May, and wont have any time to devote to making any more harnesses until then. So if I'm going to get a CG-1000 I will have to wait till the spring or summer to get one. My second choice is a Wills Wing Z5, but I've also been looking into Moyes Contour and Aeros Cross Country harnesses too. Price is probably the biggest selling point for me at the moment, especially since used harnesses that will fit a slim 6'4" pilot tend to be rare I'll probably have to buy new.

Back to this weekend...after fiddling around with Gregs new harness for a while we finally got out to tow. We did more full length tows to 1250 feet or so. The Northeast wind was calm and the cool air felt perfectly smooth. I think I added about 30 minutes of flight time in 5 tows. After my first flight John also set up some targets to aim for spot landings. This is something I've never actually focused on doing. So for 4 of the flights that day I tried landing on the same spot each time. The result: I only made the target 1 time. Otherwise I either overshot it by 30 feet, undershot it by more, or landed off to the side by 25 feet. The 3 consecutive spot landings for the Hang 3 requirements are going to be much tougher than I thought. And at the moment, I can't even imagine making the Hang 4 requirement.

I have yet to master the skill of accurately judging height and the glide to a target. So in the past I've noticed that I end up doing S turns above and downwind of the target before I figure I'm at the right height for final. The traditional aircraft approach consisting of a downwind, base, and final leg is much harder for me to execute. After trying that a few times and by keeping the target in sight and imagining the successively lower windows along a final approach to the target I did manage to land nearly directly on target 1 time. This will be fun to work on again next time.

I think I did better on my landings on Saturday though. I was conscious of my bad habit of grabbing the down tubes much too high during approach and felt I had more control over speed and steering during final. However I still had one or two poor landings. One of which might have been caused by trying too hard to land on the spot. On that one, I flared too early (much too early) and ballooned up about 5 or 6 feet and ended up landing on my feet hard and a little off balance under the weight of the glider. Otherwise another decent day of surface towing.

January 7

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 Saturday for scooter towing. The wind was from the West which was pretty well split between the two runways at Wes/Mar so we towed diagonally across the Field at one end. These were shorter tows for a max height of 750 feet or so but enough to play around a little, work on efficient turns, and even experiment with the VG. My first few trials pulling the VG full on didn't seem to do a whole lot. This time I made a larger effort to pull the VG all the way on and made some straight flights and turns to try to get a good feel for how it changes the gliders performance and handling. I felt it didn't effect the turn initiation but it did effect how easy it is to stop the turn. If I start a turn, and then want to level out for straight flight, I'm having to high side more and hold it longer to get a reaction. I also expect to also see an improvement in the glide ratio but don't know how I could have measured that in flight.

I didn't really improve my landing habits from last time though. When I transition to the down tubes on approach I'm immediately grabbing way up high at ear level. This gives me ineffective control to make small corrections to keep the wings level. This is probably why I sometimes end up with wings just a little off of level and end up fighting to stay in balance. I should be keeping my hands low (at elbow height) and only moving them up to my ears after rounding off the final and just before I'm ready to flare. Effective flaring position isn't effective handling position. So for the second time in a row, I'll have to work on this more next time I fly.

After 6 days since getting my H2 rating, I'm up to 1 hour 45 minutes of flight time. I'm very slowly working towards 10 hours flight time which is the requirement for H3. I am starting to consider making trips to other flying sights in New York or Tennessee or even back home in New Mexico in order to find the best flight conditions. Otherwise I'll be waiting until Spring or Summer here in Ohio when the real soaring conditions (and Aerotowing) start up again.

I feel like I've been given a huge bowl of ice cream but only a little tiny miniature spoon to eat it with. These little bites are still delicious but I can't wait until I get to eat a huge spoonful all at once.