truestorys
Mar 11, 2006, 08:45 PM
Man oh Man, what a good day today was!
The day started with a SE wind at about 5-10 and a forecast of highs in the low 80’s.
I started flying my Gentle Lady at about 10 am. Probably launched about 5 times an hour till noon. Most flights were 3 to 4 minutes. And I felt really good when I had one seven minute flight.
Sometime after Noon, the thermals decided to crank up. I was sitting in my lawn chair, wondering if I’d ever have a flight longer than 7 minutes, when I saw 3 turkey cultures start circling across the filed upwind of me. I jumped out of my chair, ran upwind to get the bungee back and ran with it over my shoulder back to launch. I bungee launched to about 250 and immediately flew toward the birds. When I got to the birds, BAM! Up City Kitty! I rode and drifted downwind with this vultures till I was way way downwind.
I was probably at about 1000 or so feet and decided I had better head back home.
But with the Booming thermal also came an increase in airspeed at 1000 feet.
The old Gentle Lady couldn’t’ penetrate! I seem to hover in the air and just sink and sink and sink.
Did I tell you that I was over a trailer park at this time?
I had visions of the GL penetrating the roof of a double wide as it fell out of the sky.
With the glider so far away, I then lost wing orientation and didn’t know whether the plane was fly toward me or away from me! So to find out which way I was going, I started to circle to see if I pushed the stick left the plane went left or right. Well since the plane was flying toward me, the controls were all backwards. This took my brain about a minute to figure out. And this delay, only let the glider fly further downwind.
Somehow my brain kicked in and I repeated my mantra of “low wing Down” push stick that way.
I porpoised over the roofs of several trailers and landed 5 foot away from a chained, barking Rottweiler hound. This was about ˝ mile downwind. I walked down to the trailer park and retrieved my glider before the hound of hell could break his chain and destroy, me and the glider!
Well, I went back to launch and added 6 ouches of ballast to the Gentle Lady.
Launched again, released from the bungee and BOOM! BLASTED SKYWARD!
The tail went up!
The nose went up!
I was propelled skyward and was being pulled toward a big white cumi cloud.
She went up and up and then there was CLOUD SUCK!
I’m really not flying I’m just pointing my plane in to the wind. It’s being sucked into the dark bottom of a once friendly looking cumulus-nimbus cloud.
Then didn’t look like these clouds I’ve linked to, BUT in my panicked stricken mind they looked JUST Like these clouds!
http://www.hprcc.unl.edu/nebraska/june2004hastings-mammatus.html
So I started giving my ship full elevator DOWN!
I only succeed in looping my airplane and the thing still goes up!
Yikes!
A flying buddy comes over and says just hold the stick as far left and back as you can and spin the thing down. So I put this thing in a spin that seems to last 2 minutes. I spin and spin the Lady down to about 500 feet and then start flying again. But all there is, is UP!
Yikes the thing starts fly skyward again!
I spin and spin again.
Finally I level off at about 200 feet and there is no lift.
Thank God no lift! That statement just doesn’t sound right! But at that moment in time, I was happy for no lift.
I landed and added 3 more ouches of ballast. That’s all I got. Nine ouches for the Gentle Lady.
Next Flight…………………… SKY OUT!
Once again I found myself going up and up. This time I was able to fly the plane in and out of the lift and work it. When I became afraid that I was going to lose my plane, with 9 ouches of ballast I could fly away from lift.
Once during this flight, I was hit by some killer sink. It seemed I was flying down through some air that was as thick as Peanut butter. The plane was really just mushing through the air. But on the other side of this thick sink, was a blast of God Given, seat grabbing, head cracking UP air!
Oh life was good today in Austin Texas.
What will tomorrow bring?
Don the NewBee
The day started with a SE wind at about 5-10 and a forecast of highs in the low 80’s.
I started flying my Gentle Lady at about 10 am. Probably launched about 5 times an hour till noon. Most flights were 3 to 4 minutes. And I felt really good when I had one seven minute flight.
Sometime after Noon, the thermals decided to crank up. I was sitting in my lawn chair, wondering if I’d ever have a flight longer than 7 minutes, when I saw 3 turkey cultures start circling across the filed upwind of me. I jumped out of my chair, ran upwind to get the bungee back and ran with it over my shoulder back to launch. I bungee launched to about 250 and immediately flew toward the birds. When I got to the birds, BAM! Up City Kitty! I rode and drifted downwind with this vultures till I was way way downwind.
I was probably at about 1000 or so feet and decided I had better head back home.
But with the Booming thermal also came an increase in airspeed at 1000 feet.
The old Gentle Lady couldn’t’ penetrate! I seem to hover in the air and just sink and sink and sink.
Did I tell you that I was over a trailer park at this time?
I had visions of the GL penetrating the roof of a double wide as it fell out of the sky.
With the glider so far away, I then lost wing orientation and didn’t know whether the plane was fly toward me or away from me! So to find out which way I was going, I started to circle to see if I pushed the stick left the plane went left or right. Well since the plane was flying toward me, the controls were all backwards. This took my brain about a minute to figure out. And this delay, only let the glider fly further downwind.
Somehow my brain kicked in and I repeated my mantra of “low wing Down” push stick that way.
I porpoised over the roofs of several trailers and landed 5 foot away from a chained, barking Rottweiler hound. This was about ˝ mile downwind. I walked down to the trailer park and retrieved my glider before the hound of hell could break his chain and destroy, me and the glider!
Well, I went back to launch and added 6 ouches of ballast to the Gentle Lady.
Launched again, released from the bungee and BOOM! BLASTED SKYWARD!
The tail went up!
The nose went up!
I was propelled skyward and was being pulled toward a big white cumi cloud.
She went up and up and then there was CLOUD SUCK!
I’m really not flying I’m just pointing my plane in to the wind. It’s being sucked into the dark bottom of a once friendly looking cumulus-nimbus cloud.
Then didn’t look like these clouds I’ve linked to, BUT in my panicked stricken mind they looked JUST Like these clouds!
http://www.hprcc.unl.edu/nebraska/june2004hastings-mammatus.html
So I started giving my ship full elevator DOWN!
I only succeed in looping my airplane and the thing still goes up!
Yikes!
A flying buddy comes over and says just hold the stick as far left and back as you can and spin the thing down. So I put this thing in a spin that seems to last 2 minutes. I spin and spin the Lady down to about 500 feet and then start flying again. But all there is, is UP!
Yikes the thing starts fly skyward again!
I spin and spin again.
Finally I level off at about 200 feet and there is no lift.
Thank God no lift! That statement just doesn’t sound right! But at that moment in time, I was happy for no lift.
I landed and added 3 more ouches of ballast. That’s all I got. Nine ouches for the Gentle Lady.
Next Flight…………………… SKY OUT!
Once again I found myself going up and up. This time I was able to fly the plane in and out of the lift and work it. When I became afraid that I was going to lose my plane, with 9 ouches of ballast I could fly away from lift.
Once during this flight, I was hit by some killer sink. It seemed I was flying down through some air that was as thick as Peanut butter. The plane was really just mushing through the air. But on the other side of this thick sink, was a blast of God Given, seat grabbing, head cracking UP air!
Oh life was good today in Austin Texas.
What will tomorrow bring?
Don the NewBee