At the Team Challenge, a teammate let me fly his S2 having recently upgraded to a U2. At the time it wasn't for sale as he wanted to keep it as a backup glider and something for friends to fly if stuck. Fast forward numerous discussions and I had decided to stick to my Falcon over the winter and look at getting a S2 next year.
Then my teammate shoots me a email saying he would really like a Falcon 170 for his wife (oh, and to be his second glider when not a U2 day) but the deals on offer all required him to trade in his S2 and add money on top - did I know of anything and could I help...
Sonny very graciously let me take one of their Falcons down to Chattanooga and I would either bring it back, bring it back with the S2 or just bring back the S2 - it was the latter!
I spent the weekend at Lookout and it was fantastic. I did 3 aerotows with a fin and had no issues on tow. Off tow I think it is trimmed a little slow me, porpoises and falls off slowly to the right. I flew through the flare window on my first 2 landings and then had a chat with Mike Barber. He was excellent and gave me some really good insights - I think the Falcon had made me somewhat lazy and with long arms etc was kinda sloppy. My third landing was a 2 stepper - very happy!
I started my tows early in the morning and my latest was around 1330 so it was getting progressively bumpier/thermally. The field was shut down for a couple of hours as it was getting very challenging - a T2C pilot had a very close miss and slid a long way.
4th flight, took off the fin, some yawing but fine, by now it was 1630. Having done my AT training there the tug pilots were great, taking me a 1000' over (i.e. 3500' tows) on each flight and searching for and dropping me in lift. This was an incredible flight. I thermalled and ridge soared for 2 hours with a gaggle of over 20 gliders - amazing!
Towed with 1/2VG and initially left it there off-tow but felt I was just a little 'behind' the glider with all the traffic so dropped it to 1/3 and it was much better. Towards the end of the flight put it back to 1/2 and was doing better but preferred a 1/3.
I left the ridge to avoid the rush hour back to the LZ and was getting pretty tired. Traffic was fairly busy anyway, 3 tugs, 3 tandems, a handful of solos and a powered trike. Would love to say I ended a brilliant flight with a no stepper but was a little late again...
Next day I did 3 more tows, played with VG, turns, bar positions. It was pretty incredible to fly into a 15mph headwind and make progress without a 1 to 1 glide ration and even more incredible to turn round and do a full VG speed run (50mph airspeed with no PIO) past the ramp. Nailed all 3 landings
So ended up with just under 4 hours on my new wing, what an introduction. Many thanks to all those I had chats with over the S2, now just got to go to Highland and pay Sonny for a Falcon 1....
Cheers
Rich
