Whenever there is a fatality, it makes you stop and think. One of the the things I’ve taken away from the last two weeks, is…
“Your either a pilot or your not”… and … This once a month stuff, may be enough, to keep my skills current but it’s not enough to enjoy the sport. I need to get out to the field more often or every flight is going to be refresher. I’m sure, part of it is, I’m aging. But, my muscle memory doesn’t seem to work for every little thing, when there are long gaps between flights. For instance today, I noticed a few steps that I didn’t do last time. Nothing important , more like little things that made the experience easier or more fun. Today, my moves were more fluid, during set up and in the air. it was a logical progression, things flowed smoothly from one moment to the next and I didn’t have to stop and think about what I was doing. This morning was a lot more fun than the last two!
When I set the alarm late last night. I didn’t think, I would feel like, dragging ass to the field in the morning. But, at 5:30 I was wide awake and ready to go! The launch was cleaner and the air felt great. Out to the Marina and around the golf course, then back to the Patch and a long slow circle to 2000ft. When I reached cloud base it was cool and I could see patchy areas of Virga. In fact it was pretty fuzzy all over and even the tops of the clouds were lacking definition. I wasn’t taking any bumps and the air felt stable but it wasn’t a day for playing in the clouds so I pulled some asymmetric spirals and dropped to 1000ft. At 40 minutes I landed smoothly with a big grin.
Powered Paragliding. A most Personal form of Flight 