Sunday, February 04, 2007

Manilla Practice Day

Noone could ever accuse me of being a particularly neat or tidy person, and usually I don't put that much care into the packing up of my gliders. But today when I packed up the climax I did the best job I could, its a beautiful sail and worth looking after. The setting up and packing up went swingingly, since the refurb the climax is like new, all oiled and free, easy to set-up and break apart again. In fact the only problem I had with the packing up was that I was still on the hill. After setting up straight away I had a chance to look at the conditions. There seemed to be a front advancing and the Cu's had lennis over them suggesting  high winds. The wind was crossing the Westerly launch and whilst there was definitely plenty of lift the radio reports were saying it was rough. I was thinking it might not be the best chance to bond with the glider if I am getting my arse kicked. After deliberating for a while I decided to launch but as I was getting my glider I watched a guy with a green under surface get absolutely hammered on take-off and then almost flip upside down and then with the bar to his knees went up like a rocket and gained a few hundred feet as he drifted back over launch. I started packing up the glider. There is a strange psychological thing coming into play in my flying, after fearlessly flying the climax for a couple of years I suddenly lost my confidence in my ability to fly it and need to make friends again.

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