Sharing the Air

I played the Father's Day card and headed out to Harris Hill this weekend for some more Discus flying.  The forecast was…meh, but I'm still new to the machine and needed practice in all aspects, including takeoffs and landings.

As it turned out, the flying was swell, although a bit limited.  I managed to assemble the Discus without too much fuss (luck?  getting better?  who knows?) and waited for the day to begin to perk up a bit.  It was, as forecast, a blue day -again.  I'm starting to get used to it instead of being afraid!

I took off around 2pm and promptly returned in about 15 minutes.  There were thermals alright, but they were not widespread and I went looking for them in the wrong place.  On my way down in the pattern, I spotted a single cumulus cloud that was dissipating rapidly with a glider underneath it. Drat!  I'd meant to go check that are out but I needed a relight first.

I got back in line and took off again.  Both takeoffs were well controlled in both direction and pitch and I think one of the secrets to reducing pilot induced oscillation is to take off with a very slight nose down trim and on takeoff roll, simply pitch down very slightly to lift the tail off of the pavement and wait.  It seems to takeoff on its own without jumping up and down.

I released early, in lift and raised the gear.  That's when I had my first aha! moment.  I'd forgotten to cycle the gear up OR down previously.  How I managed to overlook that is the question every pilot who lands gear up asks his or herself.  It was stupid - so stupid that I never realized I didn't cycle the gear until I put it UP after tow release -the SECOND flight.  I made a mental note to USE MY CHECKLIST post-release and be sure to check it pre-landing.  That was an idiot mistake.

I decided not to beat myself up about it and concentrate on flying.  I'd released in lift and pretty soon was climbing over release altitude with top around 4,300 feet.  I joined several other gliders in the same thermal.  I caught some of the action on my GoPro as we circled and climbed.

There were precisely two thermals in the immediate area that were workable.  One, the 'house' thermal we usually find was cycling rapidly, building up for about 10 minutes, popping off a puff of cumulus, then collapsing.  The other was about a mile east and doing the same thing.  I'd climb to a little over 4,000 feet, then set off east, west, or south to see if other thermals were doing the same thing but each time I had to come back to the two that were working.

In any case, it was good practice and I was having fun climbing, taking off a few miles, turning back, and climbing again.  I was joined by several club members and our commercial pilots giving passenger rides on several occasions.

One thing that nags at me is that I was sometimes out climbed by others.  One glider, an ASW-20 consistently, the others a bit less consistently.  I worry that it's my technique, I'm certainly no ace when it comes to thermaling, but I felt I'd gotten a lot better at it.  In a couple of cases where I was just slight below and flying a slightly different circle, I'd move to where the glider above was circling but I didn't get the same lift.  It seems like 50 or 100 feet difference shouldn't be that significant but when I took the  same path, the vario averaged lower than when I took my own path.  But, still, the other glider would sometimes out climb me either from below or above.

I was flying very slowly and using at least 45 degrees in my turns, often smaller diameter circles than others.  I thought, well, maybe that's the problem, the thermal is better with a wider diameter, so I would fly a larger circle.  Didn't help.  I'm pretty sure this is a pilot skill issue that I'll simply have to solve with more experience.

In any case, I had a good time and landed after an hour and fifteen minutes.  I remembered to follow the checklist FUSTALL (flaps, undercarriage, speed, trim, air brakes, look out, land) and monitored my airspeed closely.  I'm still getting used to how far to open the spoilers and how much they affect my descent angle but I'll rate the second landing as quite a bit better than the first with touchdown at minimum energy with spoilers open about half.  I pulled full spoilers as I touched down and rolled up to the line looking like a pro.

Good times.