What a weekend!
The weather was warm, the thermals were strong, and the gliders were available for flight!
Sunday we took off at about two o'clock in the afternoon and got towed to 3000 feet in the Puchacz, a Polish-built high-performance glider. Immediately after release from the tow plane we banked towards some dark cloud, and underneath the lift was incredible! We went from 5000 feet to 8000 feet and what seemed like no time! And we spent the next hour touring around and sightseeing, and every time we needed some lift we just circled underneath one of those clouds! Up we went like an elevator, what an incredible flight! Some of the other club members did cross-country flights that lasted between five and six hours, it was a perfect soaring day. After a little over an hour we decided that we had better not hog the aircraft anymore, so we had to hit the spoilers and descend down to our airport.
The next day I arrived at the airport shortly after lunch, and was pleased to find that there was no line up for the gliders. I was pleased that Bob Hagan was free and offered to ride in the back with me, and what a great flight it turned out to be. Shortly after takeoff Bob let me take over control and I enjoyed following the tow plane around until we were 3000 feet above ground, what a blast! I asked Bob which way should we should go to find lift, and he replied "you're doing the flying, go wherever you want."
So for the next 40 min. or so I got to do what I wanted, and was able to find some lift to put all those hours of simulation flying to good use! I can say that real life flying is very much like the simulator flying, and the experience does help.
The wind was strong but pretty much down the runway, so Bob let me do all the flying including the circuit and the full landing, what a great day!
Winter? What's winter? Oh yeah, that was that time of year when you sit in the basement with your bottom lip hanging out, I almost forgot about that.
Looking forward to many more flights this year!
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