Hello all,
After a very hectic April getting my Bronze done May has been a relatively quiet month. I have been consolidating my Aerotow work taking a couple of flights in the Acro. OUGC's K21 is also back on line and I had a short flight in that also. The CFI is now happy for me to convert to the Astir and I aim to be up and running in this ship over the next few weeks, its key to fly this ship as much as possible locally to get used to it so I am ready when the time comes to break the apron strings and head away from the airfield. Vicky our midweek winch driver managed her 5 hours for silver over the weekend, after a broken weak link and some delays at the launch point it looked as though it was ebbing away. She got away after scratching around for 10mins leaving the wheel down as she went as it looked as though she would be back any minute. 5hours and 16mins later she returned to the airfield with a very square bum but pleased none the less.
On the same day I was introduced to Pat who pilots the aerobatic MDM Fox, we took a tow to 4000ft and Pat set about teaching me some aerobatics, we concentrated on the roll and I can tell you its a real rush flying inverted, you hang from your straps and can see the ground zipping along below as most of the manoeuvres start from around a 100kts. Awesome flight and something I will definitely do again.
On Friday the 27th we were turfed out of work at lunch times "I love Friday Fatwa's" I decided to head to the airfield with ambitions of getting into the clubs Asitir for a few short circuit flights as it was quite overcast and not doing much at all. Got to the field at 1pm and dragged the Astir over to the launch point, after a good amount of time getting a briefing the weather had begun to improve with the cloud cover breaking up rapidly. It was suggested at that point that I should take it for a nice high aerotow to get a good feel for the glider. 20mins later I was pulling the bung at 4000ft a couple of hundred feet above cloud base, after making a couple of nice easy turns at various speeds and doing some stalling exercises I was now nearly a 1000ft below cloud base. looking up at a nice dark solid base I could see the CFI's lead and follow team approaching cloud base rapidly, I was able to hook into the same thermal and rode 6kts up to the base of the cloud as they headed off into the distance. One of my ambitions ever since going solo was to be able to fly at cloud base having got there myself and then stick my hand out of DV panel and catch a bit of cloud, having now achieved that I can honestly say that I am more hooked on this sport than ever before. Over the next hour I pottered around repeating climbs from 2k back to cloud base which ended up being around 4500ft, a sore bum set in so I headed back, upon landing I found that I had been up for over two and a quarter hours, what an amazing couple of hours that was.
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