Born Again Pilot

An excellent morning today indeed – I flew my new glider for the first time today!

As I unfolded it at the training hill, I was almost giddy with excitement and had a couple butterflies too. It was like Christmas in July! (I never said I wasn’t a dork).

Anyway, there wasn’t any wind out there so I practiced some forward inflations after a half hour or so of just kind of looking at the pullies, the size of the wing etc. I definitely didn’t have to try as hard launching it as my old wing, and it was kind of interesting how it would kind of come up slow at first, and then accelerate quickly. Pitchy for sure.

I did this for a while, knowing full well that I could go for a quick top to bottom, but I paced myself knowing that conditions would stay this way for a while and that since I’m out of shape, the hike up would be long and strenuous and would therefore suck! Finally, I got ready for a proper flight, launched, and off I went. Hee hee, it was like floating on a cloud! Kind of strange because maybe because of lighter material (?) things just felt really smooth and flowy. As I came to land, knowing full well I’d have a better glide, the brakes seemed kind of soft, and although I missed my target, it went well.

On my second flight it was starting to get thermic and as I launched, I gained a bit of height almost immediately and could feel the glider almost “bite” into a thermal. It’s definitely more aggressive than what I’m used to, and the speed at which it flies seems faster too. Landing this time was more challenging because the thing didn’t want to land! Everytime I was ready to do my final flare, it seemed to almost find a thermal and then it went up again! I missed my target this time by something stupid like 50 yards but since the LZ out at Cochrane provides acres of landing space, it didn’t matter. I need more practice with properly landing this new glider, for sure..

So yes, I’m quite happy with my first couple flights on my new wing and I look forward to flying it in thermals. The weather looks good for Golden this weekend with highs exceeding 30 degrees - yes! http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/city/pages/bc-34_metric_e.html