I had the chance to fly with Charlie in BASA's new DG-1000 (we bought it form Charlie). I wrote about it earlier here.
The glider was setup in the 20 meter configuration. Our flight flight was to 3,000 feet. I got a good feel for the takeoff (with a decent cross-wind), tow (very easy on tow), and then speed control, rudder coordination, slow flight, a stall, and turns. After a bit, I came in and landed on 31. Charlie had me perform a high approach to prove that the spoilers on the DG-1000 are quite effective. I was surprised. I can't imagine ever needed to slip that glider on final.
We launched off 31 and took a higher tow to practice spins. It'd been a while since I'd done spin training but it was easy to get back into. After the spins were done, we played around a bit and then it was time to land. This time I made a cross-wind landing on 24. I landed a bit long because I wasn't worried about getting down on the ground quickly. I spend my time over the runway trying to get a good feel for how the cross-wind was really affecting our flight path. Since I don't have lots of cross-wind experience, I figured that'd be worthwhile.
After our second flight it was getting dark, so we put the glider to bed. All in all, it was a good way to spend a late hour on a Friday afternoon. I took a few more pictures of the glider, but none of them turned out as well as these.
Posted by jzawodn at November 21, 2003 11:38 PM
