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.
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