Flight Number Tree Fiddy!
Another small milestone today - flight number 350!
As I bitched about the other day, ridge soaring is kind of lame. Today when I got to Bridal along with an accomplice, we decided that trying to go XC would be our goal and that we'd probably either end up with a 15 minute flight or with something much more exciting. Thankfully we did much better than a sleddie.
We both left at about launch height, if not a bit below, and made our way to the next spur which had a few bubbles here and there. I decided to milk what I could, while my partner in crime dashed forward to the next spur. Neither of us had great climbs, but lift was there and we slowly but surely got higher.
On glide again to the next little ridge, again working ridge lift with small thermals. When I got to Cheam I found a decent thermal which got me back up to 1100 meters which seemed to be the ceiling today. Off to Butterfly on glide, bobbing around in lift here and there.
Anyway, with super limited landing options and a shitload of wind, I wasn't going anywhere fast, but saw a small area to land in where an exit branched off the TransCanada highway. I've always wondered what it would be like to land in a spot like that and today I had that experience.
Two sets of powerlines, lamp posts, road traffic, trees, a sloping LZ, bouyant air and a wind gradient made my approach a tricky one, but I pulled it off and landed safely. I was never too worried about crashing, other than a split second where I thought something horrible could happen, but keeping a logical attitude when flying in precarious situations always helps.
My logbook as of today: 350 flights and 175 hours. Lots and lots of sleddies over the last 3.5 years, but having to land so many times is probably what helped make my landing today, safe.
LEONARDO flight link.
As I bitched about the other day, ridge soaring is kind of lame. Today when I got to Bridal along with an accomplice, we decided that trying to go XC would be our goal and that we'd probably either end up with a 15 minute flight or with something much more exciting. Thankfully we did much better than a sleddie.
We both left at about launch height, if not a bit below, and made our way to the next spur which had a few bubbles here and there. I decided to milk what I could, while my partner in crime dashed forward to the next spur. Neither of us had great climbs, but lift was there and we slowly but surely got higher.
On glide again to the next little ridge, again working ridge lift with small thermals. When I got to Cheam I found a decent thermal which got me back up to 1100 meters which seemed to be the ceiling today. Off to Butterfly on glide, bobbing around in lift here and there.
Anyway, with super limited landing options and a shitload of wind, I wasn't going anywhere fast, but saw a small area to land in where an exit branched off the TransCanada highway. I've always wondered what it would be like to land in a spot like that and today I had that experience.
Two sets of powerlines, lamp posts, road traffic, trees, a sloping LZ, bouyant air and a wind gradient made my approach a tricky one, but I pulled it off and landed safely. I was never too worried about crashing, other than a split second where I thought something horrible could happen, but keeping a logical attitude when flying in precarious situations always helps.
My logbook as of today: 350 flights and 175 hours. Lots and lots of sleddies over the last 3.5 years, but having to land so many times is probably what helped make my landing today, safe.
LEONARDO flight link.
posted by Veronica at 11:27 PM
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