My path to Pilot

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...