Learning to Fly

Christening

After having a good clean up at the bach for the guests Daniel was expecting and lunch at the Fazenda Aldeia, Jussara, Juninho, and I made it up the hill around 2pm. It was blowing a strong northwesterly when we got there and I was pretty sure it wasn’t likely to change. There were about 30 pilots there all waiting for the wind to change some had opened their gear out and some not.

After nearly an hour Fabinho took off on a tandem flight and soared in the small western area for about 20 minutes. It was pretty rough and his wing would soften and ruffle in the turbulence which made a lot of the pilots quiver. Lucas Salles then showed up with his new USP wing. Fabinho stepped up to christen it and flew a few laps along the west. The wind was becoming less gusty and less turbulent and I wanted to take off but there were at least 30 people watching Fabinho fly and all the other instructors were on the ground including Gilmar, so I thought I shouldn’t be too audacious.

I was waiting for someone else to take off to draw everyone’s eyes away and Roger stepped up to the plate. As soon as he had prepped and it was looking like he was going to take off I layed my kit out and started to check everything. Fabinho came over and told me that he had a new student who was interested in buying my wing. He looked it over and told me that the new model, Prymus III, was now well accepted and I wouldn’t get as much as I’d hoped for on my older one. I wasn’t sure if he was trying to help me sell it by lowering my expectations, but either way I decided to think about it later.

As I pulled my kit over to the southern ramp the wind shifted and I thought I’d be able to take off from the south for a minute, but then it went back to the south west. There were 4 pilots ready by this time and we all took off from the lower southwestern ramp. The wind was low by this time and it wasn’t worth trying to catch any lift before swinging round to the south.

It was a straight flight to the southern landing spot without hitting any really noticeable bubbles. As I got close however I saw a lot of buzzards heading to a thermal forming on the other side of the landing spot. I got there pretty low and only managed to keep myself up for about 3 or 4 turns before dropping and having to land on the wrong side of the road. It was worth a shot I thought, although folding up my glider in the longer grass made it more of a hassle. Lucas had come in a bit higher with his new glider and managed to catch the thermal a bit higher up where it was stronger which kept him going a little longer. I couldn’t help thinking that when I get my new wing I will be a step closer to doing the same, which seemed plenty more important than losing a little money on my current one.

Total flight time: 10mins