Short version: Ended up in the water fully clothed three times. Still had a blast.
Slightly longer version:
Stephane, Michael, Carlos and I went down to Florida for SIV with freshly injured Dave Prentice. I had reservations about going, but Dave wanted to do the SIV. Had actually done one the weekend before (fresh out of the hospital) and he seemed to like the distraction. Carlos had gone early to get his P2, but had had really bad luck with the weather. Not going to talk much about Stephane, Michael's and Carlos's experiences, hoping they'll post themselves (hint hint).
Friday: was blown out. We hung around for a bit at Florida ridge. Dave gave us theory. We attached the winch to the back of his van. Then went to Ft. Myers for linner at the beach. Still blown out when we got back.
Saturday we moved to Sebring. Big lake, with wide shallow water and a big grassy area, which is usually under water, but after a couple of years of drought, a great place to land.
Forecast was for windy, but Dave thought we all could get a flight in in the morning.
Boat for tow (from miami) was superlate and the winds had picked up to about 10 mph.
No worries, says dave...
okay, whatever you say, you da man...
did some kiting. was really on the edge. This is when Dave started making comments about the wing being too big for me.
Kited Carlos's wing (size small). Had a blast kiting it. Thanks, Carlos! Understood what Dave meant about my wing being too big.
soooo easy to kite Carlos's wing. Although of course twitchier with the higher wing loading. My wing takes a moment to respond, so i have to make sure not to make too big of an input, while Carlos's wing responds almost instantaneously.
Due to rustiness and new wing, Michael decided to wait for lighter winds. Dave didn't even want to let Carlos try in those winds. Carlos had had hardly any training that week, because it had been blown out and/or raining. So, then there were Stephane and me, Les and Troy from florida (the condo soaring boys). I was first and had a good launch and tow (reverse! new to me), which I was relieved about. Due to the wind, we had easy tows, i.e. no driving around the lake and having to negotiate big curves.We could just tow straight across the lake and release at the end.
Tows were between 3000 and 4000 feet.
First run was a warm up for me with a few asymmetrics with speedbar, an asymmetric into a spiral, frontal, a full stall, some wingovers. I had had an SIV in February and had already done a zillion asymmetrics. After this full stall, I felt comfortable with being able to recover from one. I had told Dave, I wanted to do it by myself and him just helping out if something goes wrong. Nothing went wrong. Phew.
Everybody else was new to SIV and did their runs mostly doing asymmetrics with increasing degrees of severity and frontals. One of the condo boys was just there to finish up his clinic, so he did a fulll stall on his second run, which looked extremely ugly and had some turns in it. It ate up altitude like nothing, gave all of us heart attacks, but with Dave's coaching it eventually came out and he still had at least 1000 feet of altitude, although Dave was saying he wouldn't have let it go on much longer and was getting ready to tell him to throw his reserve. Condo boy was, understandably, pretty shook up.
We had to go and retrieve the line from the boat before each launch. The water was so shallow, that the boat would (and did) get stuck in the bottom. So, somebody had to wade out to the boat. We took turns. When it was my turn they told me it was no big deal, water only went to mid thigh. Wearing my fast drying pants, i figured no need to change into bathing suit. Well, what I hadn't take into account was that everybody else who had done previous line retrieval is a heck of a lot taller than I am. I was up to my waist by the time I reached the boat. My other clothing items were not the fast drying kind... Later on, Dave arranged for a jetski to do line retrieval.
On my 2nd tow I was going to try to negative spin the glider. I tried a few times unsuccessfully (doing full stalls instead - no big deal anymore
and then I hit a helicopter spin. after that practiced more spirals and wingovers. Dave also told me to try a b-line stall just for kicks. We had decided that the reason I couldn't do b-line stalls (I had tried during my previous SIV) was because I am too light on my wing. Well.... it must be all in the technique. Using Dave's technique, I managed it! So, I was excited. During my debriefing, Dave almost jumped out of his backbrace, he was so excited. But not about the B-line stall: First student who had ever thrown a helicopter spin and such a nice one to boot! I didn't share his enthusiasm, figuring I couldn't take credit for something done accidentally. Well, now that I had done one accidentally, my new goal was to throw it on purpose. But first one pilot gave us some excitement. I thought the pilot was done with maneuvers and started getting ready for my flight, when I heard a collective gasp. I turned around and saw the biggest splash I've ever seen. Apparently the pilot had decided to throw one last asymmetric, went into a spiral and spiraled right into the lake. The boat was not close (takes a while to come back from the other end of the lake), Dave called for the jetski to help. No response. I sprinted to the jetski to ask Dianne to help out. Jetski was stuck in the mud. Trying to push it out of the mud, I got soaking wet (again). Some additional help from Carlos and Dianne and I were off to help. By then the boat had made it to him and he was fine. Nicely ensconced between backrest and life vest, head over water. was smiling at us and waving his arms to show he was okay. Turns out, that his leg was pretty darn sore, but otherwise okay.
My next flight was really frustrating. My spin attempts came to naught, just a bunch of full stalls. Getting some good practice at getting out of those! My wingover timing had actually gotten worse (if possible) and my spirals weren't terribly deep. One of the condo boys was doing beautiful big spirals (first one not on purpose, causing him a bit of anxiety, heh
) I was flying between two thunderstorm cells, hit some lift, but one of the cells was coming darn close. I could see the gust front advancing over the lake. I rushed to the LZ before the gust front hit. Hitting my spot next to the tent was no problem. Just hovered down at close to trim! Collapsed the glider just in time. It wasn't a big gust front, but it had become abundantly clear to me, that I cannot handle winds as big as other people can, because of my wing loading. No wonder i often float to the top of the stack!I would have had time to have another flight that day, if some idiot had not run over our tow line with his boat. He was totally oblivious despite everybody (us, the swimmers, other boaters) shouting and waving at him. He was just slowly tuckering along. Being the only one in position to cut him off, I sprinted along the shore, splashed through the swimming area (fully clothed...) He didn't notice me until I was about 10 feet away from his boat. He was going slow... when I got to him, I noticed this vacant look in his eyes and he was responding R E A L L Y S L O W.... He finally understood and turned off the engine and I untwisted the line from his prop, being almost shoulder deep in the water (no alligators
. of course the line was cut and twisted a zillion times around itself and it took us hours to untwist and splice and spool it up again.So this is how i ended up wet three times. I bet you thought it was for other reasons. Oh yee of little faith
Mike had shaken out the cobwebs and got two runs in that day and with each beautiful SIV runs had gotten more confident on his wing. Carlos didn't get to fly at all that day... too strong for him. he took it in good stride though. Launches were reverses all day. That was a new one to me. Reverse launch for tow.
Dinner at the olive garden. urgh...
I was a bit bummed about not getting a 4th flight, but considering that we had started the day hoping for one flight each, I had to tell myself not to be so greedy.
Started early on Sunday. Because Carlos had to leave at 10:00, we had him do one flight after the other the following morning. I think he got 3 flights in. Dave got some grey hair over Carlos's first tow launch... heh
but his second tow was much better and Dave coached him through some asymmetrics (boy, did that get my attention, when he told Carlos to do an asymmetric!!!!) and frontals... sheeeeezzzzzz.... Carlos did well! We had to leave at 2:00 pm, but I still managed to get 3 flights. One of the condo boys threw his first spin. Very nice. He had been practicing on the ground and executed it beautifully in the air, demonstrating the value of chair flying. We compared flying hours. He has 5 flying hours... he was pretty excited when he came down, but complained that nobody had told him that your body spins backwards. heh
minor detail I got towed to cloudbase on my first flight on sunday.
Second tow I was a bit concerned about some building cumies. No worries, Dave says, you now have a few tools in your quiver. Hmmm... ookee... looking around on tow, I was wondering why the neighboring cloudbases were so far below me. Then i looked down.... umm.... I was in danger of losing cloud reference... folks on the ground said they kept losing sight of me, although i could still faintly see the boat and LZ... heh... probably a good time to release... I seemed to be in lift... hmm.... and lake was getting harder to see.... hmm.... let me try my brand spanking new move, aka the b-line stall. Boy, that thing is an elegant move. Feels so stable, is easy to do (well... it does take some strength to initiate it. Not sure I could hold it for more than a minute at the very most, even if my life depended on it) and sooooo effective. i think 1500 fpm down. i was out of the cloud in a jiffy, let go of the b's and went up into the cloud again. another b-line stall, holding it longer this time and i was safely out. Dave calls this applied-SIV
My routine was always the same: try to throw a helicopter spin, then a good spiral, then practice wingovers.
on my first tow i threw a decent negative basic spin. My attempts at a helicopter spin just ended up in either full stalls or full stalls into spirals.
My wingover timing was getting only incrementally better, if at all.
My last run was preceded by a weak link break (at the end of Michael's last run, i think, although he got pretty high).
That was the best run. I finally did a helicopter spin, but it looked a bit messy. Dave didn't concur he was totally excited (again), agreed i did need to work on some things to make it look nicer, it was a bit wobbly, but he said it was unmistakenly a helicopter spin and a decent one at that. I then hit some lift and thermalled for a bit. and then threw a nice radical spiral. had to pop my ears in the middle of it. Saw the wing at least 90 degrees on the horizon. SWEET!!! what an addictive thing to do! my exits are very nice and controlled. The timing for my wingovers was getting better (still a far cry from acceptable) Did lots of thermalling, cloud street set up straight over our lake, nice fat easy thermals, but the drift was significant and not in the direction of the Fort Lauderdale airport, so i had to leave lift. Still... they had to wait with the next boat launch, because i was thermalling in the way.
i figured they had the rest of the day to launch, so I just hogged it. I did get out of the way eventually and they launched. I practised more wingovers and finally had to land.I really could have used the third day or at least another half day (okay, so I'm greedy). Maybe I would have gotten a solid helicopter spin down and my wingover timing, too.
Michael had elected to do a gentle thermaling last flight and no more maneuvers. He decided not to do the full stall (or spin), but was very happy having done the asymmetrics and full frontals, b-line stalls, stabilo line, etc... we both wish we had done the SIV early in our PG career and that it really builds confidence in one's wing.
Anyway, Dave is trying to get a location in north carolina. He only charged us $300, because the first day was blown out. He guarantees a minimum of 5 tows. I got 6
I like working with him, because he tailors his approach to the student. He will ask you what you want to do on your run, give you pointers, and when in the air, will talk you through it. If you ask him not to talk you through it, he will just stand by and gets ready to talk you out of whatever mess you might have put yourself in. He'll also keep track of your location and will tell you which directions to face before you start a maneuver. Very useful when you do it in higher winds. I didn't have to worry about drifting too far downwind.
If there is anything to quibble with, it's that he didn't tell us to bring our radios (we ended up trading radios back and forth) and he didn't tell me to wear a bathing suit.
Had a blast. Want to do another one. This could get expensive...
-- ellis