My Flying

What a day!!!

I was determined to fly this Sunday and arranged, at short notice, during the week for a new aerial to be made for the winch so that I could at least be winched launched. The weather was slightly overcast when I arrived early at the airfield to fit the new aerial, so I wasn't too hopeful, though the weather forecast had predicted a good soaring day. Members started to arrive, including the tug driver, and things started to look promising.

At 12pm the Twin was the first aero tow of the day and I was next inline. The tug arrived back at the airfield and reported that the air was active. I took my tow and was towed to 3000ft well west of the airfield. This was the first time that I had been so far away from the airfield by myself and I was just a little apprehensive. My idea was to scout around for a few minutes for lift and then head back to the safety of the airfield.

It didn't take me long to find some decent lift and I spent the next hour and three quarters exploring some really good lift. The northerly wind kept pushing me towards controlled airspace and on more than one occasion I need to abandon a perfectly good thermal and head on out of dodge. I spent a lot of time learning, practising and exploring as I basically have very little thermaling experience.

Many of the thermals were so strong that they were hard to miss. I'm sure that my technique needs LOTS of practice as I'm pretty certain that I centred very few of my thermals. In some cases I was wrestling the aircraft just to try and keep her in the lift as the thermal just wanted to push me out. I learnt a TON today, mostly about thermaling, flying slow, learning the sounds and feel of the Single and figuring out that top rudder is required when thermaling, which really started to be a big pain in the legs, literally.

After almost two hours in the air I was exhausted. My legs were tired and I was starting to dehydrate as the temperate in the cockpit was about 35°C and my shirt was socked in sweat. I spent about 10 minutes gliding down from 4000 ft over the airfield and used the altitude to practice some steep turns, stalls and even side slips. I discovered that the Single is actually rather easy to side slip and I will need to practice this on an approach one day soon.

The circuit when off well but I timed the final turn wrong and even though I was at 700 ft and not far out at all I some how ran out of height very quickly. Pretty soon I realised that full airbrakes was not a good thing and glided the rest of the approach with no brakes and came in over the fence way too low. This was the first time ever that I needed to flare and float a glider without airbrakes, but I had learnt from past experience not to make any major changes with the brakes during the landing. I did however try to open them just a little after straightening the plane on to the runway as I had managed to drift well off the centre line. I flared a little high but as I had plenty of speed I just held it there with the nose a little in the air and it soon drifted down by its self and I landed nicely, just a little deep and off centre.

So what an amazing day. I learnt so much in those two hours and also realised that there is still so much to be learnt. Flying days like this a very rare here and I glad that I was lucky enough to be able to make full use of it. Flying was R201.30 and about R175.00 for the tow, so a pricey day but well worth it.