Learning to Fly

Giving Something Back

Daniel, Andre, Angélica, Alan, Carol, Jussara and I got up the hill a little after midday. It had been pretty cold in the morning but the sun was shining bright with a light southerly breeze so we were expecting to see some good thermals.

When we got there though we only saw 2 pilots flying, but everyone else was getting ready. Daniel and I prepped up and he took off first. I had to wait in line as there were several pilots ready to take off at the same time, and by the time I was flying Daniel had already bombed out in the southern landing spot.

I didn’t want to have the same fate so I looked to Gilmar and some of the other top pilots who had just taken off to see which route they had taken. I followed them to a solid thermal above the dairy farm and circled my way back up to the level of the ramp. The thermal then started to die out and I went back in direction of the ramp to see if I could land back up there but I heard Xuxa telling Marquinho on the radio that it was pretty turbulent and to stay away.

I tried doing a few wingovers but with my hangover from the night before I couldn’t seem to get my head around it and ended up just doing a small spiral in front of the ramp. The new wing seemed much slower to come out of the spiral, and I didn’t want to push it, especially so close to everyone, and I ended up losing quite a bit of height.

I then struggled on for about 20 minutes trying to get back up without success. I noticed the new wing is a little more sensitive in the thermals and I have to move my body a lot more in the harness to acompany the movements of the wing. I circled round and round in tight with Fabinho and Gilmar trying to get the same lines they were, but they seemed to always gain a little more height than I did by opening and closing the radius to go through different bubbles.

After a while I got tired and decided to head toward the landing spot. On my way I thought that the first thermal we had tried had been idle a long time in the sun and could have started up again. I detoured over to check it out and sure enough it was just starting. It was weak and I only managed to maintain my height for the first minute or so and then it started. As I started to rise I could see all the other pilots who were still flying notice and come over to join me. I felt kind of good that instead of following the other pilots to find the thermals I was actually showing them one.

I then cruised in and joined Daniel at the southern landing spot where we packed up before heading to the Baiana for a late lunch.

Total flight time: 1h