Doris spiral and awesome night flight, Saijya

The little woman was fabulous today at Saijya. She tugged at the lines for over an hour unable to get the glider over her head. “How can you expect me to fly if I haven't eaten?”
“Gee, How like a bird you are. Silly me!”
I flew down, bought BBQ, took the bus back up. And 2 hours later, she pulled the glider up just before glass off. I talked her though her first spiral, 1 good tight rotation, and one more wide one to bleed off speed. She descended at about 6 m/s. I was thrilled. So was she.
After the long ride back up she was on launch again for another flight. We waited until all the other pilots launched. She pulled up and was off the ground with a nice sprint. The wind was light and the lift stable.
She was about 100 meters above and 1/2 km north of launch. I had already prepped her with videos and all the standard warnings about stomach churning, vertigo, blackout, G forces, etc. I had warned her that she must bleed off speed with the last rotation to avoid vertigo and porpoising. I told her that she can come out of the spiral anytime she feels uncomfortable by letting up on the inside brake slowly.
"How do you feel?"
"I'm good! Let's do it!"
"Take a wrap on the right brake line and on my ‘3’ lean right, and pull down as far as you can reach.”
" 1, 2…" And before my three she began to turn slowly into a diving rotation. I could see that she wasn't into a heavy ,tight, deep rotation,
“Nice. You look good. Isn’t that easy?”
“Good, now hold it there. “
She was too flat to qualify for a decent spiral. “Pull deeper, dear.” And she did. And the glider began to roll more as the leading edge arced more to face the ground.
“Nice. That's it. Just hold the brake there.”
“Good, beautiful. “
We're going around again.”
And the glider screwed down at around 8 m/s.
"Good let's go around again…"
"And again…"
"last one…start bringing up the inside brake slowly to round out your last rotation. Keep coming around, keep coming around.”
And she brought up the brake a little too quickly and came out of the spiral facing the wind.
“Nice, " I lied, "Brakes up to trim so we can stabilize the wing”
And she did and the glider came to a stop over her head. “Now let's get back in thermal and do it again.
And she replied, "Can we not do it again? I gotta get my stomach under control.”
“OK. Next time you do one rotation at the end slowly and very wide to bleed off speed so your stomach can catch up with your body and your body can catch up with the wing and you won't have this problem.”
All in all, a damn good day.



The height of the day, night actually, was when local tandem pilot, David, Jang Kun-I, took off solo on a tandem wing to work the last of the lift. At 7 pm, the 12 km wind was still blowing up the hill, the sunset was blazing, and David was 4 km out, and 300 above launch, a barely noticeable speck above the horizon. Doris was just landing. I clutched radio and wondered how I could get a night flight AND get my car to the bottom of the hill.
All in all, a damn good night.

The Big Weekend "Dragon Boat Festival"

The weather put a damper on my flying plans for last Sunday. The rain never stopped. It did, however, give me the opportunity to prepare for the coming long weekend.

DragonBoat festival is the perfect excuse to head to Taitung. Four days of pure flying bliss. This will also be my first time to fly east Taiwan. I am not worried about weather, the universe/force/karma/ect is on my side. One van, one 1200CC Vmax, one 750CC ShadowHawk, 4 tents, 7 sleeping bags, 1 ice chest -full of unknown liquids, 7 or 8 paragliders, and 7 excited people make up our entourage.

Updates will be made as events unfold. So, stay tuned.

First PingTung Flight

Well, last Sunday was my first day to fly PingTung "Sia Jya". I have been there many times to fly ultralights, but its was my first for paragliding. The air was unusually clear for Taiwan. I could see all the way to Kaohsiung. The 85-floor and 50-floor buildings were easily visible.

Sai Jya is a cliff launch and I would not recommend it for very beginners. Although, others would say differently. The landing zone is HUGE. I cant understand how some actually ended up in the trees on the outskirts. I fould the people friendly. And there was an insurance fee of 150NT. Worth it in my humble opinion.

My friend, orginally, was just going to kite, however the lift was so strong he went straight up on the first pull. Since he was a little too inexperienced, he decided to sit the rest of the day out. The flight apparently made his legs wobbly due to the fact he had the speedbar all the way out. Which in turn gave him a neckache, which gave him a headache with a touch of air sickness.

I made 3 flights. The first two were more or less training runs, where I did big ears and practiced spiral dives. I also hitched a ride on a small cloud. Man, the lift was strong. I was worried that I would get too much of a cloud suck. I was big ears and speed bar and still going up. Luckily, I found sink. I did learn on my second flight that with a 180 degree twisted riser that my glider can still do all the benign decent manuevers. My third flight - at around 5pm- was FANTASTIC. The glassoff had lift everywhere and the ride was so smooth that I compared it to sailing on glassy seas.