My path to Pilot

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...