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.