My Flying

We arrived yesterday in Nieu Bethesda after a four hour drive; an hour of which was on reasonably good gravel roads. Our accommodation is in a small, but nice, rondawel situated on a local sheep farm that is about 15 minutes drive from the farm's airfield (S31°51'58.8 E024°29'20.8).

Flying started at about 10am after a drive to the airfield and the rigging of the club's single. The twin had arrived the previous day and already had a good 3 hour flight logged. The weather was not great and the strong South Westerly wind progressively got stronger. Some nice wave was forming, but would be out of reach as we have no oxygen equipment and the elevation of the field is already 4500ft.

Follow up:

I was third on the list to fly. The first flight was a short check flight and for the second the plane disappeared. In the interim I took a short 45 minute PIC flight in a privately owned Motor Falke.

This was my first real PIC flight in the Falke and my first flight with a previous instructor of our club, F(7). So I push the throttle full forward and he sits back and folds his arms. All went well, bouncing down the runway way trying hard to keep it straight, level and the prop out of the dirt. Lifted off very skew, heading for the bushveld, but made it! We thermaled in some 2 to 4m/s thermals until my motion sickness again raised its nasty head. My thermaling is improving and I'm starting, slowly, to get a feel for it.

I judged the circuit and the approach very well, but felt very very low on the last stages of finals. The instructor insisted I continue and we touched down about 10m before the official threshold, but safely as the area had been cleared. I later found out that this was 'his' unofficial threshold.

The wind progressively got stronger and by 15:30 the gliders had been secured to the ground and I was in the swimming pool back at the farm.