PG2 - Site number five

Friday, January 31, 2014 | Posted in

Two weeks ago I managed to fulfil another criteria for my PG2 license by flying at the Mangawhai Heads for my fifth site.

Unlike the other locations the launch site at Mangawhai heads is rather small, just big enough for the glider. Because of the conditions and the amount of space at the launch location I elected to do a forward launch with some assistance of the instructor. That turned out to be a good decision because as soon as the glider was above my head it caught the wind stream and I rocketed off the ground. Unfortunately with all the pre-launch action going on I had neglected to completely check my glider which meant I ended up with a small line tangle in the top C-D line which slowed my glider down a bit during flight.

After about 20 minutes of flying I started to notice that my ground speed was reducing more and more, at which point I decided it was better to be on the ground wishing I was in the sky than being in the sky wishing I was on the ground and so I landed on the beach.

The learning points of this flight are:

  • Reducing the seat depth of my harness has made flying a lot more comfortable, at least for shorter flights. I guess I will see how comfortable it is during longer flights.
  • The addition of a stir-up makes getting into the harness much easier. All I have to do now is stand up on the stir-up and I'm in the seat. I'm still not used to staying on the stir-up during flight though so I will have to work out what to do with that, especially during turns.
  • I really should start practising my asymmetrical launches so that I can use those during high wind launch situations to reduce the pressures on the glider and myself during the initial part of the launch.
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