Flying the airplane

Spring/summer is here and the hills aren't nearly so green as they were a few months ago! No longer do we need down jackets on the flight line, and cold gatorade is now on my checklist.

Adventures in glider-flying [last] weekend:

* Aborted take-off when the airbrakes popped up (we guess?). Pulled the tow release and landed straight-ahead on the runway. Lessons learned: pull the tow-release when something wacky happens early on takeoff, fly the airplane.

* Instructor's canopy popped ajar. I just kept doing what I was doing while he fiddled with it. Lesson learned: don't get distracted during pre-flight checks, fly the airplane. (Afterwards the instructor joked, "Good thing we had a guy in front who knew how to fly the airplane!" I took it as a compliment and it seemed like his confidence in me increased measurably.)

* Landing #2 behind an L-39 Czech military fighter-jet trainer ... yes, the Bitcoin Jet! No incident, but a reminder: remember wake turbulence procedures even when flying a glider.

* New prospective club member, Mark, came out yesterday for a demo ride with an instructor. Turns out he's a 747 pilot for United Airlines, who learned to fly in gliders in his native Illinois, 25 years ago. The instructor was happy to enter the first new entry in Mark's glider logbook in 22 years. (Also turns out that Mark spends a lot of time in Hannover, Germany, so we talked about Linden, List, Faust, the Hannover glider clubs, etc...)

Byron C83 has the most eclectic mix of traffic. Gliders, the skydiving drop plane King Air taking off in the wrong direction, visiting Cessnas doing touch-and-gos, a biplane, a helicopter, an L-39, ...

Up to around 15 glider flights this year and hoping to solo soon.

* * *

A weather front is coming through tonight. The sky this afternoon in the East Bay was full of lennies. Rain is forecast overnight, and the glider pilots are optimistic about good post-frontal conditions in the morning.