Learning to Fly

Braking Up

Daniel and I got up the ramp about 3pm. We both had things to sort out in the morning and the forecast hadn’t looked that great anyway. After lunch though things cleared up and the wind switched round to the south so we decided to give it a shot.

When we got up there everyone was still sitting on the ramp waiting. The wind was a little south-southwest and everyone was apparently waiting for it to swing round a little more southerly. It looked ok to me but I decided to wait with the rest of them as I had been away for a while and didn’t want to rock the boat.

After waiting for half an hour or so André took off and flew in the lift along the ridge without any problems. It took me less than 5 minutes to kit up and take off there too despite the obvious aprehension of the others.

I flew a couple of quick laps along the front of the southern ramp, but with a couple of people in the same area it quickly gets crowded. I swung left along the ridge and started looking for thermals. I played around a bit hitting a few bubbles but with the rain yesterday afternoon there wasn’t anything really good around.

I would circle and spend less than half the circle in the rising air and thus not gain any height at all. I tried doing figure 8s as well but that also wasn’t working. I could only just manage to keep my height and not get much more than that, and then sink in between bubbles. I knew I had to think or I would soon be on the ground and everyone would be saying I told you so.

Suddenly I remembered braking in the lift and how I could stay in the same spot, and decided I should try to do the same. I waited for the trees below me to move to indicate the next bubble coming and went toward it. When I hit it I pulled hard on the brakes and felt myself rise straight up with the bubble. I was able to keep myself in the bubble for longer and after doing this several times I was back up at the level of the ramp again. At this higher level the thermal was stronger and I was able to circle inside it rising continuously.

Daniel called out on the radio and I told him to stop stalling and take off. Eveyone saw I was making it and quickly followed suit. As I got higher I would sometimes lose the thermal in between bubbles, but had managed to read a couple of pages of my new GPS manual this morning and it had an arrow to lead me back to the thermal. I found this very handy, as I knew where to wait for the next bubble.

Daniel and I flew along the ridge to Andradas and then played over the city for an hour or so before landing at Moacir’s. It was a good afternoon and I managed to practice a few manouevers too to try and get back into things after the time off. I could feel I was a bit rusty and took it easy accordingly. I was happy with everything though, from the thermalling techniques to the spirals, and even the GPS purchase.

Total flight time: 1h30mins