Another Sledder

January 10, 2009

Met up at the Cocopah LZ with John. Arriving at launch, the view was pretty spectacular. Amazingly clear air--possibly a symptom of the Santa Ana winds, which were thankfully not blowing over the back at launch. While we were setting up at Alternator, a bunch of PG pilots set up and launched. No one was getting very high. We resigned ourselves to a likely sled run.

I took the opportunity to just practice some things I've been doing badly. I've had difficulty zipping/unzipping my harness while in flight because I keep trying to grab the cord too low. I also wanted to work on having more control of the glider with one hand free. Other items to be addressed: lighter touch all the time, less stress during my landing approach (unzip/transition to downtubes earlier in approach), develop a nice clean downwind/base/final approach pattern, more confidence in judging altitude before going on the downwind leg. All in all--I'd say I improved substantially in all these areas by simply giving them some attention. I'm anxious for all of these "best practices" to become second nature...



Airtime: 12 minutes