My Flying

A much better turn out at the airfield, but unfortunately no thermal lift. A little later in the day the Southerly picks up and the ridge starts to work, a little. I go up for my check ride. We spend 20 minutes floating around the ridge and then head back.

Much later in the day after a lot of instructional flying the instructor decides to head off to the ridge in a borrowed ASW20 (his new mistress). As we are short staffed on the ground, for a dual flight, I radio the instructor and ask if I may come and join him on the ridge in the Blanik. No problem he says.

I head off to the ridge after a really bad winch launch. I got a good height but I pulled too hard too early and climbed really steep. I still find launching the Blanik to be tricky, especially that initial rotation to climb out. I'm going to have to be careful and give some extra forward stick.

Anyways, while I'm flying the ridge one of the other members radios me and suggests that I go for my two-hours. The instructor agrees and so I start. The first hour went well and the lift was good. Later my concentration started to wonder and I really needed to try to keep focused. An hour and half later I find myself slowly drifting lower and lower and hope that the time is almost up as the lift seems to be slowly disappearing. After two hours they radio me, "two hours are up." I spend another few minutes there then head back and land. I was surprised there was no cross wind during the land on 08R and am even more surprised when I later open the canopy after landing and observe just how calm the wind has become (the airfield's windsock is shredded and useless). It was a little more than a breeze. Twenty minutes later when someone else headed out to the ridge, all the lift was gone. So I guess I was very lucky, would have hated to get to 13/4 then have to return.

So another great days flying at 370,00ZAR.

View some of the photos here.

Watch a short 2 minute movie.

So my GPL is getting closer. Basically all that is left is 20 solo flights (done 3) and 6 hours (done 2.5).