A Good Day at the Dune

Yesterday was great because I finally got some decent flying in, apart from that ridge soaring flight that seemed like ages ago.

The day started off very windy, so while most of the pilots did took their club pilot exams, 3 of us went to a little town, walked around a bit and had some really good ice cream. Who knew that ice cream could come in 98 different flavours including curry coconut and chilli chocolate? It was good to spice things up a bit from just sitting on the beach waiting for the wind to change, wittling the hours away.

We came back and the Dune had plenty of people flying around doing wagga, and attempting to soar (although it wasn’t quite conducive for that). The instructors got their wings out because they felt it was too strong for us, and did some playing around themselves.

The wind dropped by a couple knots and everyone got their wings out. My first flight was kind of crappy – nothing special really, but from then on I had a blast. The wind was extremely strong the higher you got, so I would soar the lower part of the ridge, do some bobs by pressing the brakes and then do some wingovers when I felt like landing. SOOOOOO much fun. At the bottom, I’d kite the wing up, and do it again. At one point I must have been in the air for a good half hour within maybe a 100 meter radius crabbing back and forth, or almost just sitting idly in the air. That’s what it’s all about….

I must say that my launches kicked ass, even that kind of wind. The Dune is great because if it’s super-windy, you just bring up your wing and let yourself ski towards it. Of course you can do this on things like gravel too, but on the sand it’s so nice and smooth. Ahhhh. It was nice too just having the confidence to fly that sort of wind and know what to do if things went awry. The instructors helped out the beginners, while I played around a good half kilometer or so away. Nice to know that I didn’t need babysitting.

Today things look really good again. The wind is straight on the Dune, but a couple tandem pilots and I just went to look at it, and it was too light for our taste. The group from last week left today, and a larger group will be here for this week. I’m pretty sure I’ll get some flying in today and next week looks good, so I’m pretty happy about that. Sunshine + flying = :)