Hmmmm.....

I'm not sure how to feel about yesterdays effort in the skies. Firstly my launch sucked big time and I landed on my wheels. However I did pull off an amazing recovery which saw me fly from under the second shelf to over 2800 feet, a person best (height that is). The day started after both Josh and I arrived at about 11 o'clock at beechmont. I helped Josh launch and watched him rise steadily. Half an hour later as I was about to hook in I noticed Josh heading to the top landing paddock. Not sure as to why, I waited ten minutes and radioed him asking if he wanted a retrieve. He confirmed and I picked him up. He told me that after getting high he hit nothing but sink and rather than risk bombing out thought he'd land and launch again.

Once we arrived back on launch Josh helped me out and I did my worst launch ever. I launched cross wind and dropped a wing big time. I recovered well though and proceeded out. I was and still am pretty disappointed with that launch considering that launching has always been my strong point of flying. I'm definitely taking out some spare wind socks next time. I ended up scratching for the next 40 minutes and at one stage even got lower than the second shelf in front of launch. I was later told by Kat she had been a tad concerned.

I recovered a little to see Jay bomb out at the bottom of the mountain and to see Joshy take off. Josh didn't last long however and I was surprised to see him fly out to the bombout after only a few minutes on the hill. I saw him do a nice approach and land. "Joshy" I called over the radio, "was that you that just bombed?" "Yes" he said, and proceeded to blame it on a harness malfunction. Yeah right!

I tried flying a little differently this time and made a conscious decision to let the bar out to trim as often as I could remember. Ive always had it pulled in a bit, but nothing I thought would make a hell of a lot of difference (5-10 cm). I was either wrong in doing so or conditions on Sunday were a lot better than my previous days. I found I held my height quite easily when I let the bar out, and when I was flying in the right direction gained more height when traveling straight than I did in previous flights.

All of a sudden I found my self come from 1600 feet to about 2200. The conditions changed suddenly late that afternoon and flying became extremely pleasurable. I kept climbing and the wind turned into a very smooth laminar constant breeze. It was unreal and I was so moved at the whole experience I was almost brought to tears.

All of a sudden I found myself go from scratching my ass off trying to stay in the air to peacefully and effortlessly gliding about the sky. There were about a dozen gliders and paragliders with me at this time with quite a few of them carrying tandem passengers. I looked at one of the tandem passengers pass me with Brandon and her face said it all. It must have been her first flight and the expression she held described exactly how I felt. And I've flown about 30 times.

At one stage I looked out to see that the clouds above me seemed a lot closer than they had ever been before. Wow! I said to myself, "I'm going to finally touch a cloud", one of my greatest dreams. I was at around 2800 feet at this stage and thought if I just persist a little more I may just get there. Now I've flown at about 2600 feet before but never really felt to much difference in temperature. I guess jumping off a hot mountain and climbing to around 200-300 feet more made some difference because I suddenly felt it. It was beautiful, and I felt like I was standing in front of an air conditioner on a very hot day. Sweet!

Unfortunately I never made it to the clouds. Maybe next time. It was only towards the end of my almost two hour flight that I started to sink faster than I climbed and I thought that if I wanted to land in the top field I had better think of heading out there. I turned toward the paddock and began my short flight. I watched as Jonny landed with Michele and somehow ended up with his glider facing me as I approached on final. Half way back to the field the air suddenly changed and instead of being constant and laminar became quite turbulent and difficult.

I got out of my harness and swung up into hang. I put my hands on some newly added grip tape designed to remind me at what height they should be. Only one problem, I had unknowingly put the tape two high, but below where I normally have them, so I at least had some control. I did one or two s-turns to loose height and as I turned into final I suddenly lost air speed and lost a lot of height. I pulled the bar in but it wasn't enough so I put one arm on the base bare and pulled into recover at least part of my lost speed. It was enough to make sure I came in with glide but due to every thing happening at once I forgot to put my hand back on the down tube in enough time to complete a flare. My arms were to high any way so it wouldn't have made to much difference I think.

Coming into final I also noticed I didn't just have Jonny and Michele lying under their wing watching but also Lee, Kath and a few other pilots. So as you can imagine I felt pretty shit house and very embarrassed about landing on my wheels. I'm not sure who it was that yelled it out but after I herd 6 out of ten I felt even worse. More so because Lee had been there, and the week before had helped me get my landing confidence back. After he explained that my hands were still to high I was a little shocked, especially considering I had put my grip tape on to prevent that. I felt like an even bigger moron when I learnt I had put it in the wrong position, dickhead! Lee did congratulate me on a great fly however and Jonny did say that coming from below launch to the height I made had been a great recovery so it didn't seem all that bad. Especially after an awesome high glide that almost moved me to tears.

Anyway ill keep pushing and hopefully will have it perfect one day.

All up 1hr 45minutes