Awesome. Totally awesome.

Today I accomplished a goal I've had for quite some time in my soaring career.  I checked out in a high performance glider - our Discus CS.

Since I've been flying at Harris Hill, I've had a goal of being checked out in all of the club's equipment.  Today, I reached the top of the pyramid, so to speak.  At least for our soaring gliders.  The Discus is a single seat racing sailplane and although ours is perhaps 20 years old, it is still a very viable machine for contests even today.  If you've followed some of my blog posts, you know I'm working towards learning to fly cross country and I now have a tool for flying those tasks.

Tim Welles again did me the favor of checking me out.  We started with a bit of bookwork, reviewed the speeds to fly and he gave me the main item to add to my checklist - Gear!  The Discus has retractable gear, you see, and everything else I've flown does not.  So the thing is not to land with the gear up.

After the review, we pulled an ASK-21 out to the line and took a check flight.  It wasn't the easiest conditions today.  We had a good 10 knots of crosswind that had gusts to 15 or so and we'd be landing to the North, which I haven't done this year yet.  But I felt ready and off we went to 1,000 feet for a quick up and down.  Everything went well and Tim seemed to be satisfied, so I eventually strapped in to the Discus and got ready to roll.

Everything was fine until the last few seconds before breaking ground when the crosswind I was correcting for with the rudder must have quit and I yawed to the right.  Just as I was correcting for the yaw, the airplanes broke ground and started flying.  Actually, it may be more accurate to say it LEPT into the air!  Startled, I fed in down stick, but the Discus is sensitive in pitch and I oscillated back down, kissed the pavement with the gear tire, then bobbled up again.  It was a bit if a yo-yo show for about two cycles before I managed to straighten out and fly right.

After that, it was smooth sailing and I tried a couple of stalls, did a few turns, and entered the pattern for landing.  The spoilers were super effective and I didn't have much trouble landing it.  I even remembered to put the gear down!

I met Tim, we talked things over a bit, and he declared me checked out.  'Go have fun,' he said.  I saddled up again and managed not to oscillate on takeoff this time and in just a few minutes, I was centered and climbing in a thermal.  I eventually topped out above 6,000 feet and headed for Corning, the town where I live, about 11 miles from Harris Hill by air.  

I was headed upwind, knowing I could easily return with a tailwind and it wasn't long before I felt at home circling the Discus.  It has a very light touch, good balance, and feels well balanced when it flies. Before long, I was circling over my house in Corning and exercising the broad speed envelope of the Discus.

I landed after an hour and fifteen minutes and while I rolled out somewhat longer than I wanted, everything was right with the world.

Approximate route of flight for my first Discus excursion.  "Dude, I can see your house from here!"

This really is a game changer for me as I begin to reach out beyond local flights around the airfield.  I spent last summer flying with an instructor cross country and now I'm ready to do it on my own.  My next step is to schedule a lead-follow with an experienced cross country pilot to both observe and do it on my own.  Then, I'll try it alone at some point.

It's my time to take the skills I've read about and learned and pave yet another path in my soaring journey.  I can't wait.

Sublime. Very sublime. (subtitle: time to level up again)

The 2013 soaring season is underway and I've posted nothing so far because I've been pretty freakin' busy with soaring!

An early March warm spell brought on some pre-season flying and put me back in the saddle again.  That was followed by my acceptance as the new Junior organization advisor for Harris Hill, some sporadic issues with the web site, the weather station, and a full upgrade of the Hill to add WiFi via a repeater to give everyone access to the internet from pretty much anywhere on the field.

Follow up with some great flights in the ASK-21 with passengers, some fun alone time in the trusty 1-26 and we arrive at my current project - getting checked out in the club's Discus glider.

Andy Brayer and the object of my desire - the Discus

All I can say is...this is one beautiful machine.  It's the kind of plane that soaring pilots dream of flying one day and I'm closing in on making that day happen for me.  Beautiful sleek lines, high performance, and ease of flight are hallmarks of the Discus and you can tell this is an incredibly efficient machine just by sitting in the cockpit.

Yesterday evening I strapped on the parachute and sat in the cockpit for about an hour while Andy Brayer, one of our Discus aces, familiarized me with the control locations, functions, and we ran through how the systems work, did a little scenario flying, and with the fuselage up on a cradle, I practiced cycling the landing gear up and down.

Ahem.  About that landing gear.  I'm really worried I won't remember to put it down.  And, there are two ways you end up landing without gear in a glider.  First, you flat out forget to put it down.  That means you didn't follow the checklist properly.

The OTHER way is the way I can totally see it happening.  Basically, you forget to put the gear UP after you takeoff, then as you get ready for landing, you put the gear "down" except you are actually putting the gear UP by accident.  It sounds real easy to do and I'm really worried I'll be the one to do it!

Regardless, I'm very excited to get checked out in the Discus because I'm itching to fly cross country and right now, the season is on and the days are ticking away.  I've got to act soon to get going on it and right now is the time.

Driving that is a passenger ride I had the other day.  My passenger was a lapsed flight instructor in gliders and after we got to about 1,000 feet I offered to let him fly.  It was obvious he knew what he was doing right away and after we released, he lowered the nose and sped up to get to a nearby cloud, cross country style.  He knew what to do and wasn't afraid to lose altitude to do it.  We eventually hooked up into a thermal and spent the rest of the ride above release altitude romping all over the Elmira area and just generally having a blast.

That ride made me want to get into the Discuss that much worse!  I think I've got it lined up for Saturday to get a flight checkout and then finally fly the aircraft.  Beyond that, Harris Hill has a cross country 'camp' they are hosting for a three day period prior to our region 3 soaring contest.  The camp will be led by our ace cross country pilots and will include lead-follow flights, ground school tips and hopefully good weather! 

The only fly in the ointment is that I don't have a glider to fly during the camp and the Discus is spoken for already.  Sigh.  The travails of not owning your own aircraft!  I'm giving some consideration to asking the club to use the 1-34 for that period of time.  Although it doesn't have the legs the fiberglass aircraft do, I can still use it to fly more local cross country flights.  I think I'll talk to one of our instructors about whether that is a good idea or not.

In the meantime, I'm nearly there to making one of my fiberglass dreams come true!