Clocking Up the Hours
This morning's destination: Woodside
Objective: Get High
Objective Successful: Yes
Today I had another flight at Woodside. Fresh snow up at launch but it was nice and sunny today and great to be up there.
Flying-wise, I think I'm doing pretty well this season. I got high right off the bat today and the last few times I've flown have gone pretty well too. Launching is not the greatest though. I think it's a combination of being rusty and not being 100% familiar with my new wing, but in any case, I need a good groundhandling session.
Anyway, conditions today were interesting. There seemed to be a few sheer layers which made things a bit bumpy sometimes but overall, it was pretty fun. I debated whether trying to go XC, but I didn't really feel the conditions were all that suitable. I didn't think I could make any notable distance today and I figured that if I tried, I'd ditch it 5 or 10k's down, which meant retrieve, etc., and I wasn't in the mood. Maybe I was being pessimistic? Not sure if anyone actually did manage to fly anywhere today, but I guess I'll find out soon enough.
Since it was nice and sunny, I fooled around with my camera a bit and took some nice shots. The results:
Pilots prepping at launch
Looking at launch
South Knob, looking towards Mt. Cheam and Bridal launch
Redneck Beach! Packed today!
Vanity Shot - notice the mittens
When I was ready to land, I flew out to the Farm, and was greeted by lift absolutely everywhere. When recounting my flight today, I said to one pilot, "I had a hard time getting down!" and he corrected me by saying that it's stupid to say that - in that kind of lift, you can most definitely get down. To me however, it's an expression: no matter where I flew (over green patches, light patches, etc.), I was going up anywhere from .5 - 1.5 m/s and to get down meant I had to pull some sort of maneuver (spiral, big ears, etc.) which meant some effort on my part, hence the expression "hard time getting down." But anyway, I digress.
At first it was cool - flying with a hawk then an eagle and going up, up, up. Then, it kind of got annoying. I've never experienced having a challenging landing because things were going "off", but man, today was the day. At 30 metres off the deck, I was rocking up at 2 m/s. The only reason why I say it was kind of annoying is because from a safety perspective, it was a bit irritating. Things were switching in the LZ from second to second, so an approach was a bit tricky. Then preparing myself to land, only to find I was going up again, and making sure I wasn't in the way of any obstacles, etc. was definitely interesting. It wasn't the smoothest either...
Anyway, I don't expect any sympathy, I had a great flight! I can't believe I've clocked a few hours this year already, and it's only April, and I'm flying in Canada! Yeah!
Objective: Get High
Objective Successful: Yes
Today I had another flight at Woodside. Fresh snow up at launch but it was nice and sunny today and great to be up there.
Flying-wise, I think I'm doing pretty well this season. I got high right off the bat today and the last few times I've flown have gone pretty well too. Launching is not the greatest though. I think it's a combination of being rusty and not being 100% familiar with my new wing, but in any case, I need a good groundhandling session.
Anyway, conditions today were interesting. There seemed to be a few sheer layers which made things a bit bumpy sometimes but overall, it was pretty fun. I debated whether trying to go XC, but I didn't really feel the conditions were all that suitable. I didn't think I could make any notable distance today and I figured that if I tried, I'd ditch it 5 or 10k's down, which meant retrieve, etc., and I wasn't in the mood. Maybe I was being pessimistic? Not sure if anyone actually did manage to fly anywhere today, but I guess I'll find out soon enough.
Since it was nice and sunny, I fooled around with my camera a bit and took some nice shots. The results:
Pilots prepping at launch
Looking at launch
South Knob, looking towards Mt. Cheam and Bridal launch
Redneck Beach! Packed today!
Vanity Shot - notice the mittens
When I was ready to land, I flew out to the Farm, and was greeted by lift absolutely everywhere. When recounting my flight today, I said to one pilot, "I had a hard time getting down!" and he corrected me by saying that it's stupid to say that - in that kind of lift, you can most definitely get down. To me however, it's an expression: no matter where I flew (over green patches, light patches, etc.), I was going up anywhere from .5 - 1.5 m/s and to get down meant I had to pull some sort of maneuver (spiral, big ears, etc.) which meant some effort on my part, hence the expression "hard time getting down." But anyway, I digress.
At first it was cool - flying with a hawk then an eagle and going up, up, up. Then, it kind of got annoying. I've never experienced having a challenging landing because things were going "off", but man, today was the day. At 30 metres off the deck, I was rocking up at 2 m/s. The only reason why I say it was kind of annoying is because from a safety perspective, it was a bit irritating. Things were switching in the LZ from second to second, so an approach was a bit tricky. Then preparing myself to land, only to find I was going up again, and making sure I wasn't in the way of any obstacles, etc. was definitely interesting. It wasn't the smoothest either...
Anyway, I don't expect any sympathy, I had a great flight! I can't believe I've clocked a few hours this year already, and it's only April, and I'm flying in Canada! Yeah!
posted by Veronica at 8:52 PM
1 Comments:
Veronica, nice updates on your nerdblog. Seems like the BC flying is getting better and better. Just some more towing here, flew the atis2 yesterday, pretty agile and fast if you fly it in the top of the weight range. Can't wait to fly the valley though. Have fun, wouter (ps: nice gloves!;)
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