BlogPPG

I made it to the field a little after 7:30 am. It was already pretty windy. I could tell before I even set up that it was going to suck. Maybe I’d be lucky and there wouldn’t be too much wind gradient. After all, it was kind of sucky last weekend when I flew with Jeremy, but up high it was really nice. I figured I’d set on up and see what happens.

Matt (the guy from Michigan) got there a little after me. Tony was coming, too. I called Tony and he was running much later than I wanted to wait, so Matt and I went ahead and got ready to fly. I was going to be back on my wing, because I gave Ola his Muse back the night before. I was going to wait on Matt since he’s pretty rusty and has been having trouble launching. He blew a couple forward attempts and decided to go for a reverse (the wind was borderline). He was still having trouble and then Ola arrived. I decided to let Ola hlep him for a while and I went ahead and got strapped in to launch. Matt tried one more time (back in the forward configuration) as I was about to inflate, and he got up that time. I did a forward and was up in no time flat. The air was pretty sucky, as I suspected. Down low it was bumpy from the gusty wind. Up high it was warmer and smooth, but the wind was blowing hard enough that I was moving backward at a few miles per hour. What’s the point? Matt landed after just a couple laps. Ola came up and flew around with me for a short while:

I flew for only about 15 minutes and I’d had enough. Bummer. Tony got there while we were in the air. We told Tony he probably shouldn’t fly due to the nastiness of the air (he has only had 5 flights).

We all decided to kite for a while since the wind was great for kiting. Here’s Matt kiting his Power Atlas wing:

That was getting boring after a while… it can be a scary thing when thrill-seeking men get bored. So what’s to do when you’ve gone out to the field and the flying is no good, and you’re getting bored with kiting???? Hmmm…..

Anyone have a rope?

Even though it’s fairly dangerous and most experts recommend you don’t do it… we decided we’d try some hand towing. I went up a couple times with Ola’s Muse. Both times I only got a few feet off the ground, and both times I wasn’t guiding the wing well enough to avoid lockout. Luckily, wiping out from just a few feet was no biggie. I suggested that next time I shout “left” or “right” if the puller was pulling me cross wind to help avoid locking out. I also suggested that it would be easier to get up higher if we used the largest wing available. So next time I was going to use Matt’s Power Atlas, size Large.

But for now it was someone else’s turn. Here’s Matt taking his turn:
Doing a reverse inflation:

Making the turn:

Getting an extra push from behind courtesy of Ola:

Matt didn’t get very high off the ground. I helped pull Ola or Tony, not sure which. I think we all took turns pulling and flying. Here’s me on the large wing. It worked much better!:

I’m light and easy to tow!

After a lot of hand towing, we were all worn out and ready for lunch. We made plans to do it again Sunday morning.

.