The Dog Days of Summer

I've already said that Portland is a tough place to fly in the summer. Last weekend I went kayaking with my son in the San Juan islands, I didn't fly the weekend before, so I was itching to fly this weekend. But last week was a heatwave with Portland temps maxing out at 107F (42C) and the weekend was only a little cooler. I had a choice of a 6 hr drive to some flying at Mt Howard but I just couldn't face the drive. Encouraged by a half-decent forecast, I hoped to fly the Gorge on Saturday. But it blew out early on Saturday morning and Sunday didn't look any better, so I decided to join Brad and Maren on an SIV course at Yale Lake for the Sunday - at least the lake would be reasonably cool and I'd get some air-time.

I'm a bit of a wimp and don't really enjoy SIV clinics. But SIV can help when things go wrong. It's best to avoid problems, but if you regulary fly XC something will go wrong eventually - you'll get a nasty collapse, you'll fly into rotor, you'll spin your glider, you'll need to avoid cloud suck etc. SIV clinics build skills that increase the chances of handling such problems.

I got my current wing (Nova Factor) around 9 months ago and I love it. It's a step up from my previous wing (Nova Mamboo) but I haven't done an SIV clinic on it (apart from an impromptu clinic going over the back of Baldy - http://dougmullin.blogspot.com/2009/06/baldy-badly.html). So this was a good opportunity to try it out.

It was nice to not have to look at the weather and decide what to do in the morning. And to get up at a civilized hour. And to have a short drive to Yale Lake. And to fly in shorts.

The SIV clinic went pretty well. My glider was well behaved in everything I did. It didn't feel very nice in a B-line stall (it oscillated a little), but that isn't something I've ever used or intend to use 'for real'. It 'fell' from the sky during accelerated collapses (asymmetric and symmetric) more than my previous wing and the tips were always a bit slow to re-inflate. One accelerated frontal seemed to leave my wing parachutal (when I tweaked the As, one side was soft). But overall it was pretty docile; no nasty turns on asymmetic deflations.

Most of the time at an SIV clinic isn't flying; it's talking to others, watching others fly, kiting, or riding in the boat. And I did a fair amount of these things today. Yale Lake is a pretty scenic place, immediately SW of Mt St Helens. Normally I fly there late in the fall or early in the spring, so it was nice to fly when it's warm and watch others boating around and swimming. Brad and Maren (local instructors) and Stu (boat owner, driver and tow operator) all got a chance to fly as well.

More photos at -> http://picasaweb.google.com/DMMullin/YaleSIV2Aug2009#