Let There Be Lift

After yesterday’s day on the creek in Juniper Springs, today the focus returned to the sky with the hope of being able to soar in it. The forecast predicted favourable flying conditions and that was in fact what we got. Good news for solo pilots and those coming here for tandem flights – of which there were nine scheduled for today. Four of those tandems included my brother, sister-in-law, and two of their friends who happened to be vacationing in the area this week. I was hoping to get a flight in before they arrived but that didn’t happen.

They arrived at 9:00 with some noticeable apprehension as to what they were about to do. After going through the usual pre-flight formalities of waivers and instructions, they were ready to fly – and somewhat less apprehensive. Fortunately, their tandem pilots Donnie and Spinner were in no way apprehensive. One by one they were hooked into their gliders and prepared for launch. One by one they went up. And one by one they returned. Each with smiles far larger than you’d think their faces could contain. Any apprehension they had clearly faded away with each second they were in the air.

With their flights successfully in the books, I could now turn my attention to getting myself back in the air. First step, getting my glider set up again. As expected, that wasn’t particularly eventful. By 12:30 I was in my glider ready to go. Then the wind changed. Actually, the wind was gradually changing all morning and, while the strength was about the same, the direction was changing. Launching was still possible, but it was just going to be from the other end of the field.

By 12:40 we had moved the glider to the other end of the field and I was ready to go once again. A simple “Go Go Go” later and I was on my way. As tows go, it was probably one of the more challenging tows with which I’ve had to deal. There was quite a bit of thermal activity and on more than one occasion the Dragonfly would enter a thermal and suddenly rise far above the horizon. Moments later, my glider would enter the same thermal and take me with it. We played this game for several minutes before we reached 2,500 ft and Ryan (the Dragonfly pilot) gave me the signal to release. I was free at last. Free to seek out all those thermals through which we had just passed. Thermals that would take me up, up, up.

Let me just say that things don’t always work out that well. Or at all. Despite my best efforts – which clearly weren’t very good – I wasn’t very successful at finding much lift. Actually, I wasn’t very successful at finding any lift. I was very successful at finding sink though. A ridiculous amount of sink. Instead of getting into a thermal and riding it to sky, I seemed to have mastered the art of “inverse thermalling” (no, that’s not really a thing – although, maybe it is now). Not only was I finding sink, I was able to stay in it for extended periods of time. If it wasn’t so sad, it might have been impressive.

Despite all the lift while on tow, I truly did a masterful job of making nothing out of something once I was off tow. I’m not going to lie, I was a bit disappointed. However, despite my failed attempts to prolong my flight, it was still great to be up in the air again. And I came oh so close to nailing a foot landing. Next time.

I wanted “next time” to be right away but I needed to do a few things first – namely, get some food. That was going to take some time as it would mean biking into town. That plan then evolved as there were a few other errands I could do at the same time. With that, I found myself on my bike again. Two hours and 26 km (16 miles) later I returned to Quest Air with my panniers full of groceries – although, it was primarily snack food. I really need to stop buying groceries when I’m hungry. That sentiment seemed to be shared by several others as my purchase of a very large bag of mini Snickers bars was necessarily appreciate by all – although, eaten by most.

There ended up being no further flying today which was probably for the best as I really need to catch up on a few other things. Tomorrow is supposed to be flyable later in the afternoon so hopefully I’ll be back in the air soon.