Into the white

[Lauren Tjaden]

Paul Voight has been giving some of us at Quest both instructor and tandem clinics. I took and passed the instructor clinic (now how wierd is THAT?)earlier this week and have been taking the tandem clinic the last couple of days. I had my T1 but thanks to Paul I am now certified to take up any poor sucker that wanders in off the street. I am a T3!!!
Please don't let my levity let you believe that I do not have the utmost respect for my responsibility. But the lessons have been surprising.
Paul says he always learns as much as the students do. The tandem clinic is mainly flying. This morning at 7:30 Mitch and I were first up. I was pilot in command, flying from the top. My takeoff could have been better. In fact, it was probably the worst takeoff I have ever had. It wasn't like we were about to wreck, but I bobbled in the wake turbulence and got a tic crooked before correcting. Jim Prahl said perhaps I needed my hands lower. It is not like flying on top is so hard but it is not the same as the deal as on the basetube.
We towed up to the edge of the field and very suddenly whited out. These were totally benign conditions that you would have soloed someone in. It was absolutely unexpected. I told Mitch I was pinning off, since I could see the edge (OK, a few branches on the trees below) of the field and I thought I had enough altitude to turn and land downwind (not such a big deal with wheels). Mitch said he thought we should get some altitude to figure out what to do. I hesistated and in several seconds the moment was lost. Mitch was not wrong; the turn would have been low, though I probably should have done it anyhow. Mitch's thought was that we should get as high as we could to figure out what the hell to do.
I have the skill to land and as Jim mentioned, what if we had broken a weak link shortly after? But we were in the glue and all I could do was hang on after that. You have never seen anything sock in so quickly. We climbed above the cloud into perfect air but I was pretty scared about finding a hole to spiral down in. I pinned off at maybe 2500 to 3000. Mitch and I flew around awhile, and he told me to go right back over the airport. I was trying to but he was the one who spotted it through a hole. I was headed north to what I thought was the airport (it was not).
Anyhow, we found a hole over the north side of the runway. Mitch took the glider and spiralled it down to where we could see the earth. I was not confident doing those manuevers from the top. Anyhow he got us down really, really quick in our little bit of opportunity.
I took the glider at maybe 150 feet (on final, right out of our spiral)and landed. My landing was even good.
But the lesson is to ALWAYS send up the tug plane first. The thing scared me and Mitch. The tug pilot, Joe, described it as TOTALLY SUCKING. He was terrified,too. None of us had ever seen anything like it. I had not anticipated the huge wall of clouds that appeared out of nowhere. But it was a free lesson. No harm, no foul. Just gotta learn from it.
Later me and Paul Voight flew a tandem side by side; it was a first for me. He is the nicest guy in the world and a friggin' sky God. The side by side harness wasn't rigged very well but we had LOTS of fun. There was this teensy little cloud and our glory was plastered to it. We blasted through the middle of our glory and came out over Quest. Then he did this very fast approach that was somewhat hampered by my head stuck beside the downtubes (I asked him if he could only turn left so I would not be mushed) and a perfect landing. The whole flight was about a zillion more times fun than the first one. Actually the first one would have been pretty if we hadn't been so scared.
There have been SOOO many lessons. Paul wrote this thing on the board today. It goes like this:
Fate is a hunter. Whenever you fly, you have a target on your back. Your judgement determines the size of the target.
I think he's right. I need to sleep for a couple of days to recover from the last couple of weeks. Then I intend to break the women's east coast record. Maybe tomorrow. It is not very far, just a 126 miles. Wish me soft thermals and decent skills and some guts.
Lauren

[jimrooney]

People will always assume you're not taking things seriously if you're not miserable... F#)$ EM! Have fun! Paul's the king puba tandem dude in the country (literally). If he says you're competent, then everyone else can piss off.

Congratulations!
Enjoy showing the world of flight to "normal" people. It's truly a blast
You'll never grow tired of hearing "WOW!!!! This is AWESOME!!!"

Yes... yes it is.
Jim