Light Towing!

Lots of people had signed up as it looked to be an interesting day, possibly one of the last good days of the year! Winching operations were a little slow to start which was good for me as my glider was short-packed and I needed this time to rig.

As more and more pilots neared launch readiness a helmet queue was formed and it wasn't long before my turn came. For some reason I was feeling a little rusty but as I commenced my launch it all came back to me. The wind was very light and I don't think I was much higher than 600 feet when I released. Immediately I connected with something and began to 360. It was certainly a tight thermal and I fell out the side of it on more than one occasion. Eventually my luck was exhausted and it was time to land.

On the final moment of my landing, the wind switched but it was too late for me to react! I landed on the runway [good], but did so by sliding across it on my knees and wheels! How embarrassing!

My second flight of the day was a similar affair but being more determined to better my landing I kept my head up during my approach as not to confuse my airspeed with ground speed [I think that's what I had done earlier!]. The net result was a perfect no step landing on the runway!

Much later it was time for my third and final tow of the day. Will waited to launch in front of me but the wind had now switched from nil to a tailwind. After 15 minutes of baking in the sun I was invited to launch instead. I took Will’s place. The wind was certainly off and required quite a sprint before I lifted from the ground. I popped the nose which led to a turn to the right that I quickly corrected, but I confess to there being a moment of thinking there wasn’t going to be a good outcome!

The remaining flight was uneventful. All thermic activity had now shut down so it was simply a dash back to launch to land and pack-up.