My Flying

We had our first flew flights in the Blanik L13 today. Rather a nice aeroplane. There are four points that stood out for me. Firstly the incredibly uncomfortable seats, secondly the huge joystick (this thing is so big that if removed could easily be used as a deadly weapon), thirdly the sounds and noises the plane makes and lastly it can fly so slowly. You can thermal at 60kph and the approach speed with flaps is a maximum of 110kph. Took me some getting used to and was very enjoyable.

As the Blanik is so light we were getting very good winch launches with out much of a head wind to help. After my six minute flight I took the Falke up and soared the weak lift on the ridge for about five minutes, one TnG and then I landed. I was using 16R and there was a light 45˚ cross wind component. Made for some interesting landings as my cross-wind skills are not that great.

So it was a long day at the airfield, but at least we flew. There were only four flights in the Blanik between 10:00am and 01:30pm makes like a 50 minute turn around time between flights which is very bad, but understandable due to the low number of members (4) there.