Four plus three plus three plus three is not a secret safe combination, but code for our pipeline of flights at Ed Levin this Monday. With light conditions, while most people were scratching for lift, I got to check off some top launch skills, that everyone has in the bag already. Since no-one described their stalls yet, I'll take the chance to do it.
Some call it fun, but stall is scary. I was instructed to stall the glider fully on my second flight off the top, and obviously, I was kind of nervous about that. I negotiated mini-stalls to start with. I got to the LZ, and just slowed down the glider; until it nosed in, three times. That felt ok, and the air was so smooth that it seemed like a "safe" thing to do. That made me brave to really try it on my second flight. I checked the altitude by looking back at the 1200, and it was just a touch above me. Call it 100 ft, so I was counting on 1000-1100 ft below. Ok, here we go. Pushing the bar out was harder, as it pushed back at me, but not that strong of a push; I stretched my arms out as far as I can (for my arms that's not very far). I may have done it a bit too quickly; not sure, but the glider stopped flying, wavered and dove. It is when I was heading straight down, head down, feeling no tug in my harness, that I knew, ok this was stall. Please come up please. It did. I did pull in and checking my altitude attempted another quick one of those. My ears popped at least once. When I was finally out of that, I turned around and was still above the 600 ft hill. So these two stalls plus good old gravity cost me about 500 ft. The 300-600 ridge was more fun this time, as I made two passes and actually enjoyed the bumps along the way.
Wind: 5-8 mph, W, WNW? Very few bumps (clayble got one!), not too lifty.
Log:
cleanpants - 4 flights from 1750 ft
clayble - 3 flights, 1750 ft
papirtiger - 3 flights, 1750 ft
cookie girl - 3 flights, 1750 ft, stalls and 360 degree turns
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