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.