I headed to Hollister late in the day after confirming that the weather down there was flyable. I had to check because it was pretty crappy in the Bay Area.
I arrived a bit early, thanks to me over-estimating how bad the traffic would be. So I poked around a bit while Jim finished up with the student that he was with. I took a few minutes to check glider six four echo. Someone else had already done the pre-flight checks, but I'd rather check it myself.
The clouds were low, so we decided to work on low stuff. I didn't care what we did, I was just happy there was a crosswind. It was coming right run runway 24, so we planned to fly off 31 a few times so I could finally get some decent crosswind training.
For the first flight, we headed to 2,700 feet and dodged a few coulds while looking for lift. There wasn't much out there, so I got to practice a few slips before getting into the pattern. I was entering from left 45 rather than the normal crosswind entry, so we had a bit of altitude to burn.
The downwind leg was interesting. I had to crab into the crosswind a fair amount. It's odd to be flying "sideways" like that. The turn from downwind to base became a downwind to final. The tailwind on base had me flying a bit faster than I expected so there wasn't any base leg to speak of. Once on final, I eased into the side slip and opened the spoilers. We touched down just a bit left of center on runway 31.
For the second flight, we decided to tow downwind in the pattern and fly another crosswind landing. The crab was a bit less than before, but I really didn't notice until later. The base leg actually existed this time. On final I didn't need to slip as much as before. That told me that the wind had died down a bit. The crab should have given that away on downwind but I just didn't think about it.
The landing was good. Amusingly, I noticed that the runway lights were on. That's the first time I landed a glider on a lit runway.
This time, we planned to take off on runway 31, fly to 1,500 feet and enter the patten for runway 24 (the active runway). Rather than a normal landing, we were to simulate an off-field (short) landing over an obstacle. I kept off the spoilers on final until we got over the power lines and then pulled them out nearly the whole way. We fell like a rock and touched down just past the numbers. I pulled the wheel brake and got us stoped in a couple hundred feet.
The landing wasn't bad. The only odd thing about it was seeing the ground come up at me that fast. But at least we didn't bounce. :-)
For this flight, we took off on runway 24. Then, 300 feet over the ground, Jim pulled the release to simulate a rope break. I made a 45 degree banked 180 degree right turn back onto runwawy 06 for landing. It took a bit of adjusting to get over the runway. We drifted down the runway a bit, I pulled the spoilers, and landed.
No problem.
This time, Jim told me he was going to pull the release again. He told me because he wanted me to come back and make a low approach to runway 24 even though I'd want to land back on 06.
We took off on 24 and roughly 500 feet above the ground, he pulled the release. I turned around and entered a right downwind for runway 24 and made my radio call. Then, just before we reached the half-way point downt he runway, Jim pulled the spoilers and said "You're in sink now." I looked around and said, "okay, but I'm going to fly down the runway a bit longer before I make a 180 to land on 24." When I began my turn, he gave the spoilers back to me. I closed them for the duration of the turn and then put the nose down quite a bit more and pulled them back out to drop enough altitude to land. We landed long on runway 24.
That was a fun flight. I really didn't know what I'd do in advance, so I just had to decide how to fly as the situation developed.
After all those rope breaks, we flew one last flight with a couple other twists. Rather than drag the glider back to the other end of the runway, we flew a downwind takeoff on runway 06, went to 1,300 feet and came back for a no spoiler landing on runway 31.
Whew. Despite the weather, I had some interested flying. Most of it was in preparation for emergency situations. I feel a lot better about low altitude approaches and landing in very short distances.
On Saturday, we'll take the ASK-21 up in the mornining for a few flights. Then I'll do some more solo work in one of the 2-32s. Oh, that reminds me. I also got a 14-day solo sign-off.
Posted by jzawodn at February 13, 2003 11:03 PM | TrackBack