Learning to Fly

Falling Short

It’s Christmas eve and Guto and I got up the hill around 9:30am to get some early lift. Thiago had been there since 8am and said it had been good. We got in around half an hour of flying along the front of the ramp before the northeasterly died and we had to land at the northern landing spot.

It was kind of up and down the whole time with some turbulent spots which made it a little scary going in close to the hillside at first, and even trying to top land, but I soon got used to it.

We went back up the hill with Ademar but things didn’t look good for a while. It opened up with a southwesterly and I took off in a hurry to beat the rain just as a few drops started to fall.

I could see large thermals with a dozen or more buzzards circling in them further south but close to the ridge where I was the thermals were weak. I circled a few times but never got anything that would do any more than just maintain my height. I made a break for a big thermal over the ploughed field, but even with a tail wind I realized I wasn’t going to make it. I was dropping too quickly and would get there far too low and probably end up in the mud again I thought, so I decided not to risk it and went back at the last minute for the southern landing spot.

There was a big hole in the landing area and I was sure I was going to land just the other side of it, but my glider dropped faster than I thought the last couple of metres and I ended up in it.

I know it was just bad judgement on my behalf, but I couldn’t help feeling the need for a glider with a better planing ratio.

Total flight time: 40mins