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Membury Today. (pics anyone?)


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Membury today was like a mini fly-in! It was great to have a mix of students and existing pilots. :-)

Some thermals in places but nothing dangerous or scary. Sun, Flying, happy people! what's not to love. 

I am home now with a beer and I have a 'Fly-in' feeling coursing through me. :-):-)

I think it's fair to say that I love my 'job??' 

SW :D

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Really good day. Lots of people to chat to ranging from 2nd day ground handling up to 15+ flights. All good fun.

I always try to set myself targets - today's were to improve take off thought process and to come in to land with excess height and actively manage altitude loss.

Pleased with the take off - a couple of wind shifts required direction change and brake input as the wing was coming up and stabilising. Then an active decision to go with positive brake input to lift off.

Spotted my target landing point at 1200' and went to engine idle. Put in 3 or 4 "S" turns on my approach. Landed about 5m from my target so really pleased with that. Not quite brave enough to kill the engine though !

Flight number 11 - done, not quite double digit air time though.

Got into some bumpy stuff 10 minutes in resulting in unwanted course change and some rocking and rolling. Looked up and the wing was rock solid.

Confession of the day - Ended up holding onto the risers like a big jessy and using some bad words - I guess my bump tolerance is still a lot less than the equipments. Almost turned round to head back and instead told my self to man up. Glad I did as by climbing up to 2000' and staying away from oil seed rape and buildings it all got a bit smoother. Ended up being a good 35 minute flight.

It does make me realise how much I have learnt from @admin (Simon W) and @weesplat . It's been an amazing journey so far (with so much more to learn) so a huge thanks Simon and Colin for getting me this far.

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As a learner still (flying 1 year) and usually flying on my own, it is hard to learn after being trained. I have been using books! It is still difficult to know what 'bumpy' is. Hence questions.....

How bumpy can it get? How bumpy is OK? Is it just comfort thing?

I fly in both thermal and wind shear conditions. I often fly during the day, especially off the beach when the sea breeze is going. But I enjoy going inland, over the mountains. In the Costa Del Sol heat, going over a big ploughed field is like the Oblivion ride at Alton Towers......up,up,up...arghhh....down! I have a vario that has clocked over it's max rise/fall a number of times (450 feet/min). I understand air flow round/over mountains well, so I don't go too near unless calm! 

I have flown in bumps that felt uncomfortable enough to turn round and re-trace route but the wing always looked fine. I'm big and my wing is big O2 28m.

Any experience you have would be most appreciated. Cheers, Andy

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Answering the questions. I fly a Synth 2.

How bumpy was bumpy. I was getting some unrequested direction changes and at one point was gaining height on idle. Also I'm guessing I was flying into and out of lift as the wing was moving around above me a bit with occasional surges.

It's worth adding that at no point did the wing suffer any kind of upset. I looked up at during some bumps and it was rock solid. Using Jeff Goin's bump scale I would say it was a 3 maybe very occasionally a 4 but that is very probably just be me being an over-dramatic wuss with only 11 flights. http://footflyer.com/PPGBibleUpdates/Chapter05/bump_scale.htm

So totally safe but I will admit to finding it a bit un-nerving. Thought about landing after 10 minutes, but kept going and had a good solid 35minute flight.

 

 

Edited by Hodders
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