Flyer

I've seen much discussion on this forum about spinning or lack there of. Up until I jumped into a glider I'd never spun an aircraft except with one instructor who right royally F$@ked up and spun a 172RG on me. That was a dick swinging competition that is another story. As part of the gliding curriculum, spins are an essential part of training. You don't go solo until you demonstrate spin recovery. Every year we do a check ride and guess what ... yep, demonstrate spin recovery. What spinning have you done and are you keen to get a feel for spinning ? No, I'm not offering to teach anyone as I'm spin adverse. I stay right away from them normally. I wanted to start a discussion on the topic and see where it went.

watching with great interest. I'm thinking either a jabiru 3300 or UL350i to drive it.

So after dragging the new bird across the nullaveryboring, getting a form 2 done, I got to fly my new glider on saturday....

Well done Senators O'sullivan and Heffernan ... Skidmore appears to be on the skids a little.

So whilst it wasn't a flight per se, it did occupy the whole Australia Day weekend...plus a couple of days. A mate and I had a wee drive from the east coast to the west coast to procure my first aircraft, a lovely ASW19B. 7000km in 6 days is a big trip

Finally got around to editing up some more video from my last flight on the 9/1 . 150km FAI triangle.

BlurE, don't overthink it, just fly it. As a glider guider, I spend a lot of time at bank angles of 45 deg or more, often very close to the stall in a thermal. That is the nature of the beast. As glider pilots, we are taught good stall recognition and recovery techniques as well as good spin recognition and recovery. If you want to do some really good training, jump into a glider. There are a number of good clubs and instructors around that I can pass on if you like.

the IS28 is a good old training tank but certainly not an exciting one unless spinning. Tried a Blanik once and once only. Didn't do it for me. I always thought it a good idea to hold onto the release until I damn near auto released after hitting a cracker of a thermal one day. Ingo got into my ear about covering but not on the release. I currently have the option of an ASW15B or a Astir CS77. My shoulders don't fit the ASW very well and the Astir is big enough to throw a party in. The Astir certainly climbs ok but I agree with the lack of penetration. Jumped into a Libelle one day and jumped straight back out. Damn shoulders don't fit.

couple of things... keep your hand close to the release knob, not on it. This'll save an inadvertent release should, (read when), you hit a decent size bump 300 ft is the recognised height for a modified circuit in a glider. its almost the equivalent of 1000 ft in a light aircraft. average speed for winch launch is around 55-60 knots depending on the winch capabilities general speed for final approach is 60 knots turn backs from 400 ft like this one are quite uneventful in a glider.

chopped up some video of the flight I did on my birthday (3/1). I'm in the front seat and Bernie in the back. Shared the flying with Bernie coaching me on thermalling technique. He has about 700 hours in gliders and I've got about 55 hours. The day was weak with only about 3 knots of lift max and relatively low cloud base at around 4500'. We had planned a cross country in the single seaters but decided local in the twin was a better option.

I've been following Bruno for some time now. He certainly captures some beautiful scenery from the mountains.

I had my one and only lot of winch training in a twin astir. quite a nice aircraft to fly I thought. I completed a 179km silver badge distance/height flight last week in a single seat Grob Astir CS77. photo is of the Astir sitting on the runway at Finley a few weeks ago when I outlanded

We're just about to fit new radios to a couple of our club gliders. One of our club members has very kindly donated 2 new Becker radios which are touted to be the radio of choice. I'm looking forward to better comms. http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/avpages/beckerar6201.php I've usually had good success with micro air 760 and less so with the micro air 720 (which is about to make a rattling noise in circular file 13). I've only been associated with one Xcom and it made me swear never to buy one. Maybe I had a friday special

The way Matt Scutter is progressing, he may be the new Sebastian Kawa or Ingo Renner

a snapshot from a thermal climb on my way to Oaklands on saturday.