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| Firebird under power - Thursday 25th August 2005 - View the entire paragliding news archive |
This week has been a blast. I have flown Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday (today).
I finally got to fly my Firebird Z-One under power today. The first flight was on a Walkerjet Airwolf. It was slow to climb and a little sluggish in powered turns. These are my first impressions anyway. It seems somewhat different under power.
Later I got to try it on Andre's big machine; the twenty eight horsepower Walkerjet RR. This baby will get anything shooting skyward. It is heavy, especially when full filled with fuel, but it really does climb fast.
With no chance of any thermal activity (the cloud cover was pretty constant) I decide to make a series of landings and launches. This is always a good idea if you want to hone your skills. There is little to be learned from pootling about with your engine on.
I completed five touch and gos and three separate take off and landings. I don't want to be rusty for Andre's fly in!
At the field
Bob and Bruce turned up, ready to get some flying in. They have got their skills polished to the stage where they no longer need to spend time ground handling and can reap the rewards of all their efforts. Bob's launch a bit dodgey. He seemed to take forever to get in the air. He was rapidly running out of room. In addition, he was not running into wind. The tendency to run up the airstrip and not into wind overwhelmed him and he did a cross wind take off barely clearing the fence. Into wind would have meant coming nowhere near the fence. Having said that I think we will be moving students a lot further back in future.
Bruce flew too and made an excellent take off. Both pilots are now at the stage where they simply have to accumulate ours and practice take off and landings.
Herb showed up for the third day in a row. He had flown prior to my arrival and did not fly again today. He was very pleased to have had three days flying in a row.
Since the weather was looking bad for Friday it was time for everyone to say their farewells.
Frank and Joanne, who had been staying at the Sodom Road field all week, would now be getting ready to go back to New Brunswick. They will be making all the arrangements necessary to set up Frank's new training school :- Powered Paragliding New Brunswick.
Thanks for all the:
Tea
Beer
Grapes
Peaches
Peanuts
Crisps
but most of all HOSPITALITY |
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The content of this site is � Mark Andrews 2005-12, mandrews1973@gmail.com
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