My Flying

I spent a few hours on Saturday doing a bit of preparation work on the plane. I then decided to have a full dress rehearsal in that I got all my kit together and tried to arrange and squeeze it and myself into the cockpit. Now as gliders go, the Astir Jeans has a pretty decent sized cockpit. It is wide enough for a bit of extra lateral arm movement and there are two map pockets located on either side. Behind the pilot's head is a very decent sized parcel shelf where all kinds goodies can be stowed. There are however two fundamental problems in using the shelf: (a) is that loose items could fall backwards and jam up the control linkages and (b) things could come flying over ones head in sudden deceleration landings.

So I have made the decision only to stow stuff behind my head that is tied down or some how strapped so that it can not venture too far back. However, needless to say, with the oxygen bottle, it's piping and goodies, two half litre water bottles, my PDA with its cabling, the logger with its cabling, my backup GPS, sunblock, cellphone, maps and not to forget my small blanket for warmth, things are rather crowed in there.

For today (Sunday) my plan was to fit the new tailskid, with a now incorporated small tail wheel designed a built thanks to one of our members, and to de-rig the plane and load it onto its trailer. As it turned out the weather was not so great and no one seemed very interested in flying gliders, but for a few flights in the Motor Falke. This was a good thing for me as there were a good number of hands to help out and provide advice.

So now the glider is loaded and almost ready for the road. I department for Bloemfontein this coming Saturday for some cross country soaring experience.