| WOT NO ENGINE? |
|---|
Sooner or later, it had to happen. I would lose the engine.
However, fortunately - this time it won't be an emergency. Instead, it would
be intentional! On the 30th January 2000, I started to learn all about
gliders at the Soaring Club of Houston, in an ancient Schweizer 2-33.
Once again, I'll keep a flight journal of the events so I can remember what
went on a bit better, and so that others can hopefully share the experience!
| Session 1 | My first formal introduction to gliding. Boy does this thing have a lot of adverse yaw! |
| Session 2 | Box the wake, steep turns and lessons that gliders don't get flared quite as high up as power planes... |
| Session 3 | Slack line recoveries, boxing the wake, incipient spin recoveries, and finding a huge area of sink (resulting in a downwind landing) |
| Session 4 | An hour of flying without an engine...we found thermals, big time! |
| Session 5 | Emergency review and some more thermal soaring. |
| Session 6 | All Blaniked Out! Strong winds and spins. |
| Session 7 | Second First Solo. |
| Session 8 | Introduction to the Grob and 15G30 winds. |
| Session 9 | Grob Checkout |
| Session 10 | An attempt at thermalling the Grob almost works... |
| Session 11 | An attempt at thermalling the Grob almost works...again! |
| Session 12 | Finally! I get some soaring flight in, and find out why the penetration capabilities of the Grob are so useful. |
| Session 13 | Eagles May Soar... (My longest soaring flight to date) |
| Session 14 | ...But Weasels Don't Get Sucked Into Jet Engines! (The strongest sink I've encountered) |