KnumbKnuts the Lawn Dart
Flights in early March
Sat Mar 10, 2007 8:21 am
Well,
I got up to the hill one day last week... could have been two, should have been two, but at least the one day was a good one.
I burned off workday tension by going on a 45 minute bike ride, scoping out the hills above launch. In hindsight, this was a bad move, cuz it kinda wore me out for later... it was a hot day and I am outta shape, so I was a little dehydrated the rest of the day.
Anyway, I am so new it takes me a while to set up and break down. We had runs to Marshall at 2 and 4 o'clock. Given a stop on the way up to pick up gliders, and some setup mistakes on my part (due to high wind, I almost pancaked my glider on one and straped in with a twisted line on another blah), I didn't launch until 70 minutes after we left for the top of the hill.
This limited my first flight to an extended sled... which kept it at 15 minutes. My second flight got caught by sunset, so it was 25.
I didn't catch any thermals, but there were pockets of ridge lift.
I'm comfortable launching and my two landings were very good, the second one bringing a few unsolicited compliments. I landed slightly crosswind, but brought enough speed that it didn't really affect me... I did have to flare a tad early to keep a wing from dropping and ran out three steps to... the exact center of the HG circle. Hoot.
I need to practice getting into my harness... or get a new one. I suck at it. Damned cocoon... shoulda got a pod.
I also am anxious to learn how to thermal... I think I've been flying too slowly when I encounter lift, getting too close to a stall.
I also need to lose some weight. Flying a falcon 3 195 with 195 pounds of body weight has me on a crappy glide slope, even by falcon 3 standards. I think my next time out, I will just do a sled ride as close to trim as possible and then look at the gps tracks to see if I'm trimmed correctly.
Anyhow, it was a fun and satisfying day. And they fixed the Marshall Road well enough that I could drive a friend back to the top without having to worry about whether I had messed up my minivan. The top of the road needs a bit of work, still... and it was the worst part. I pulled up just short the other night.
One other fun part of the day was that there were more hang gliders up and out than paragliders. The wills wing boys were test flying, there were some Germans in town that were half wings, half bags, and a lot of the club hang gliding pilots were out. Fun Day.
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