More training time

Over the last few weeks, I've done more flying than in a long while. I'm calling it all flight training to keep the wife happy ;-)

A friend and I are working on a new thermal-finding instrument for full-scale applications, so he took me up on a familiarization flight in the North Carolina Soaring Association's Grob Twin-II.

Since I'm pretty sure Brett wanted to see if I got sick, we did a bunch of acro and wore parachutes as a precaution. Conditions were already way over-developed and it was flat out raining on us before the tow. Then Brett's breath was fogging up the canopy (he sat in front). On ground roll and tow, he was wiping the inside while the accumulated drops on the canopy came streaking past like Star Trek. Did I mention the canopy seals aren't great and it was practically raining on us inside too?

Anyway, it was neat being in an airplane in the rain, basically the same sensations and sounds to driving fast in a car through a downpour. We still did three wing-overs, some zero-G pushovers and a very interesting feeling negative G pushover. I got to fly us back to the airport in the rain a bit. It was surprising how sensitive the rudder felt compared to the little Cessna. I need to work on coordination, but the task of keeping the plane in the sky was relatively easy.

Just yesterday, I finally took hang-gliding lessons through Kitty Hawk Kites flying at Jockey's Ridge State Park ... the back-story is that I had a 10-year old "wind check" from trying to do this once before and getting blown out due to high winds. Kitty Hawk Kites honored their well-worn receipt!

Okay, so the Eaglet wing is certainly no high-performer, but my five flights were sufficient to get the feeling of how different (and entertaining!) hang-gliding is. I think the most interesting parallel to Goat flying is the feeling of being out in the open air. No instruments, just the feeling of air on my face and the sounds of the wind in the wings. Five flights of probably 15 seconds is by no means conclusive or constitutes a training regimen. However, I'm happy to personally have the exposure to the origins of the Goat and get the best parallel I can think of to the flying sensations.

Back to the Grob in a month and a half for more flight testing. Maybe I can finish off the tool chest and get back to hobby work for a bit?

How about a hang-gliding video??