Monday, May 7, 2012

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. 


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