Towing Day

Today we headed north to go towing, only three pilots including myself plus a driver. We left town about 9am and arrived at the tow paddock, after stopping at the bakery, at about 11:30am.

As I didn't have a tow endorsement I get to do most of the tows for the day. I did the theory in the car on the way so was keen to fly when we arrived. I had taken the Fun as I only have 3 launches in the shark. The day had light winds with thermals coming through that were swinging the wind about and giving a few gusts. There was also a reasonable wind shear to add to the fun.

I took the first tow, having not towed since my novice course I was a bit apprehensive. After a long run in the light wind i shot up as I hit the wind shear, that got me on the ball. once the tow slowed down the tow continued to about 1000'agl without any problems when I hit a thermal and broke the weak link.

I had a few more tows without incident, all to about 1000', and then had a go in the tow car, learning to drive while the other pilots had a fly.

It was then back to the fun for a few more tows. By just after 3pm I had completed all my tows for the endorsement (9 tows), and was starting to feel tired.

We decided to pack up and head home to get home a a reasonable time.

All in all a great day's flying.

First Impresions of the Shark

Ive had three flights in the Shark now. First flighr was 3:30 in moderate conditions, next was a bomb out in light conditions followed by 1:45 in light scratchy conditions. All flights were coastal with no thermal to speak of.

The ground handling, especially in stronger winds, was far easier than the Fun, presumible due to less reflex. Takeoff needed a longer run but was straightforward with no unexpected querks. The handeling in the air was also good in the costal conditions. Roll and pitch control was similar to the Fun which supprised me seeing the Shark is about the right size for me but the Fun is a bit big. The difference in performace accross the ground was definatly noticable and allowed me to fly to places that I have not been brave enough to ventur to before. While the extra groundspeed was noticiable when landing I was supprised how straighforward the landings were (a number of pilots had told me that the landing would be the hard part). Im just hopeing this wasnt beginners luck but all the landings were in light conditions at the bottom of the hill and the glider flared and stopped each time.

2006, My First Year

I have been involved in aviation since I was about 20, most recently flying sailplanes and before that skydiving.

Having taken a few years out of aviation to get married, have children, etc I was getting "itchy" to fly again. I did some research and decided that hang gliding would be a good way to get back into flying.

I signed up for a course at Dynamic Flight just after Easter, loaded the family into the car and headed to Victoria. Rohan, who runs Dynamic Fight, is an excellent instructor as well as an excellent pilot. There were five of us on the course, with a few other people joining us on and off throughout the course.

We started the course on the trailer, then a couple of days on the training hills, followed by a few days towing. To finish the course off we had a couple of days on some bigger hills, with the last flying day being from Sugarloaf and Ben Nevis, which was great.

I picked up a secondhand Stealth II harness from Dynamic Flight while I was there and a Fun 190 when I got back to South Australia.

The weather didn't seem to want to cooperate for the first few months, I had lots of trips to the beach and hills but not too much flying. The weather improved a bit and I managed to get a few hours flying in.

I did my first cross country in September from Hallett Hill, it was a slow day, initially too windy to take off then the wind dropped right off. I managed 15km with a maximum height of 4400'asl.

The next highlight was the state comps. Most of the rounds seemed to be on difficult days with lots of pilots bombing out. Flying was not going so well until round 6, when I managed to get away and managed 42km of an 80km cross wind task. I also managed to get away from the hill in round 7, managing 62km, 8km short of goal. Fortunately there were only 3 floaters flying and these two flights were enough for me to win the floater class.

After the comps I decided it was time for a faster glider and started looking around, I fond a Shark 144 for sale, unfortunately it was in Queensland, 2000km from home. Christmas was approaching so we decided to drive to Queensland for Christmas and pick up the glider, which we did.

I finished the year with just under 30 hours flying from 17 sites, so I was a happy pilot.