Hey Gang,It was a very good weekend, Great food, great folks, great weather, great training. I learned a bunch, really starting to get some feel for how this works, now I just need to not mess it up next time. (yea, thats a good positive attitude). I can feel that mountain now starting to whisper to me... come fly me. I'll be there only when I'm ready, but I have a feeling that it's sooner than later now.
Had a great time at LMFP this weekend. Got down Thursday around noon, fixed some dressing, had a HUGE dinner with lots of good folks down there. Now, Off to School....
FRIDAY: Small hill all day, started working on landings. Some were better than others, just had a bit of trouble putting them together. Had 1 that was an almost perfect 1/2 stepper, (0.2 deduction by the Albanian judge). I really thought about the idea of kicking my legs back toward the keel on it, and really powering UP on the flare. Had a few where I flared before it was really ready, but leaned quickly NOT to do that. The benefit of being on the small hill was that I didn't have enough speed to really hurt myself or the bird too badly. For a while we had a very nice wind to work with, but then it got a bit too blustery for us fledglings, so the mama birds (Tim and Gorden) decided we had best tear it down. All in all, an excellent training session.
Some REALLY NEAT folks on the hill today, Jim (a hoot), Mary Dell, who's just a charm and all the rest made it a lot of fun
That evening I wanted to get out for a tandem, but time just ran out. I told Sean, (the guy that keeps things flowing out there for tandems) that "IF I get off tonight, great, if not, that's ok too".
SATURDAY: Got out bright and early, frost on the ground. I decided at that moment I'd nail the landings, since it would be REALLY COLD slding across that stuff. (I was wearing my rain pants just in case, plus they are nice and warm). After 1 flight Jim (who had a string of good landings in a chain the day before) had Gorden tell him "GET OFF MY HILL". I was glad for him, and reallyt wanted to hear that myself. Well, I ran off 4 acceptable landings in a row. After each one I'd ask Gorden "What do you want me to work on" and his answer was the same each time "Just keep doing what you're doing"
After the 4th flight, I was walking the glider over to 4x4, and I hear him yell down "WAGNER... GET OFF MY HILL!" Yipppeeee I was big hill bound
The big hill was a hoot. Lots more flight time, the ability to actually make a planned course correction or intentional turn. I made my landings on the belly, just wanted to get a better feel for the extra speed and height I was carrying into landing. Had 4 good flights off the big hill, and really felt like I had made good progress and learned some stuff.
That evening got out for my second tandem with Eric, and told him that I really wanted to start to learn about speed control and turns. He had me take the bar pretty much once we were about 1/2 way to altitude, had me working on keeping the good position behind the tow. He talked about what to do when we disconnect (pull back to get some speed, let it recover, then ease the bar out). He said that I need to keep that in mind in case the weak link were to break unexpectedly (then he triggerd of the release (i think he did it, I don't think I broke th link), and I got my first release handled. We workind on turning, gettng comfortable with bank angles, getting a feel for the "LEAD and LAG" (my term) that you have turning the bird. He demoed a stall for me, and then had me do one. It was as easy as he said, but I could hear the glider saying "I really don't want to do this, but if you insist I will, but I'll forgive you".
He talked about setting up the landing pattern, I have a lot to learn about how fast / slow the sink rate is, but I see where tandems are going to be huge with that. I flew the approach in, the only problem is that I came in a bit hot, (the air was dead still), and sort of flew it into the ground a bit, rather than let it coast in ground effect. Lesson learned. No damage done, just a good learning expernience.
Sunday I managed to oversleep, so I just headed home. Would have loved one more day of training, but I had two very productive days, got off the small hill, and am much pleased with my progress.
Neatest part of the weekend, around the campfire Friday nite, somebody said, Hey, don't you teach Computer Programming? It was a former student of mine (who also skates with the "Nashville Roller Girls" roller derby). She recognized my voice, so it was another of those 'small world' moments. She was out there reclearing so she could go off the mountain.
Well, I'm done, thanks for reading my ramblings,
Steve
.jpg)
No comments:
Post a Comment