My Flying

A pleasant day's gliding with instructor F(2). Things started off late and as there are three (soon to be four) students, including myself, air time is beginning to become scarce. The wind was blowing a slight South-Easterly and this made the ridge work, if only just.

The first flight was an enjoyable 37 minute 750 foot soar along the ridge with two other gliders. I'm starting to figure out how to identify the lift (and sometimes sink) just by the feeling in your butt and the sounds the air makes (outside the plane!!!) as you pass through it. This helps quite a bit with one's confidence. I performed the landing 100% by myself with no prompting, held off nicely and touchdown. I'm so relieved as I've had some crappy landings the passed two months.

The second flight was interesting. The instructor had organised with the winch driver to cut the power and so at 200 foot I was left stranded. Took me a few quick seconds to figure out what happened.

So this is what I did: Nose down (this came pretty instinctively, but as the climb wasn't steep I didn't need to push too violently), pulled the cable (about a second later, one tug, I was a little slow), glanced at the altimeter (200 foot), looked ahead, as I was in line with the runway and it looked landable I push the stick hard forward and waited for the speed to build up. Here I was too slow as the instructor prompted me for full brakes. I landed ahead with full brakes and little drama.

One simulated cable break - CHECK. Day's flying equalled ZAR101,60 (I don't think they charge for simulated cable breaks ).