Lima Charlie - my coolest ride so far!

I got to fly a Pegase sailplane today and it was very nice. It's a single-seater and, while it's not exactly a high perf beast, it's definitely more than a training 'mule'. 

Thin wings and retractable undercarriage reduce drag and increase performance. It flies very nicely in the air; the controls are light and direct. There seems to be less need to use the rudder to keep it flying symmetrically in a thermal than with other gliders I've flown. It was also very comfortable, with decent storage for water, food, camera etc (very unusual for a sailplane). I also liked having a beeping vario!

I had a nice flight of just under 4 hours, flying a nice little 100 km triangle. The sky was blue when I took off and I struggled for 15 minutes or so to gain altitude. But from then on there were some clouds and things got easier. Even better, I landed on runway 10 for the first time and it was quite a nice landing (at least, by my not very exacting standards...).

Some pics and explanations.

The Plateau of Valensole

I drive across the Plateau de Valensole to get to my sailplane club; it's a stunningly beautiful place. It's flat and open but the Alps (well, the Prealps) start right beside it. Wheat, almonds, olives and sunflowers are all grown there, but it is most famous for the lavender (strictly speaking it's lavendin, a commercial varient of lavender). 

It blooms in the summer months and has pretty much reached its peak. Especially in the evening, the scent of lavender and buzz of bees seems to be everywhere (lavender honey is excellent). The tourist season is also at its peak also and they all seem to want one thing - the perfect picture of them strolling in the lavender fields. You frequently see Asian couples dressed as for their wedding out in the fields.

One thing that is striking is how open it all is. None of the fields are fenced in, there are no 'No Trespassing' signs and I've never seen anyone get annoyed with the tourists. This is quite a contrast to what you'd expect to find in the States and it reflects very well on the locals.

A few pics.

Flying Over the Plateau de Valensole

Valensole and lavender fields

For the last 6 years or so I've been flying my paraglider in the mountains. But my new sailplane club is situated in pretty flat terrain (it's about 40 km to the mountains) and I find the lack of obvious lift sources a bit intimidating. Today started off blue all around the airfield (although cumulus clouds were visible in the distance) and that made things seem even worse. But I took off at the end of the pack and slowly built altitude as conditions improved. 

I flew over the Luberon for about an hour before coming back to the Plateau de Valensole. By then there were plenty of little clouds and the flying was pretty easy. I cruised around and took some pictures before landing back at the airfield for a flight of just over 3 hours.

Some pics

Old Renaults

In addition to the normal St Andre market, we had a 'brocantes' (somewhere between antiques and junk) market today. The thing that got the most attention was a little exhibition in the main street of a couple of old, lovingly restored, Renault cars. 

First Single Seater - Mike Lima

I'm now flying a single seater sailplane. It's an Astir and it's the most basic single-seater at my club, but even so it feels quite different from the two seaters I've been flying up to now. The controls are more responsive - when you move a pedal, the rudder moves immediately while on the ASK 21 it feels like a long line of elastic is slowly stretching before the rudder moves. It seems more pitch sensitive - a small change in pitch produces a bigger change in speed than I'm used to. Overall, it's more responsive and needs to be flown more accurately - even if the raw performance numbers like glide ratio aren't hugely different. 

It has very low wings, and this gives a lot of ground-effect when landing. You need a delicate touch to hold it just above the ground on the round-out and you use up quite a bit of runway. It's easy to find yourself climbing when you wanted to be touching down...

Dashboard with vario suspiciously stuck at 0.5 m/s

The dashboard is suitably basic but adequate except for the vario. Varios on sailplanes are more complicated than those used in paragliding; they are compensated to ignore altitude changes due to airspeed changes (you can easily climb 100 meters when slowing from cruising speed to circling speed). It's hard to get this compensation right on a mechanical vario and I'm less convinced by the Astir's vario than those on other sailplanes.  

As is common in 'learning' sailplanes, the vario makes no noise. Experienced sailplane pilots climb more 'by feel' rather than by using instruments. But my feel isn't good enough yet and I'd much rather have some beeps and keep my attention outside rather than to look at the dashboard every couple of seconds. Hopefully my feel will improve fairly quickly...

Flying Solo

Today was a strange day's flying - 6 flights using 2 different runways in increasing winds, but I had finished my day's flying before noon. It was all part of the (long) process in gaining sailplane qualifications - I'm now allowed to fly solo.  

I've spent yesterday and today doing a bunch of different things, mostly take-offs and landings. I've got to do some new things like a simulated cable breakage on tow, when the instructor releases the cable unexpectedly and you have to land the aircraft. 

We were turning round the flights so quickly I also got to take off without a 'wing-runner' (so, you start with a wing-tip on the ground and have to 'lift' it up with the control stick) and taking off directly from the grass (rather than the tarmac portions of the runway).  

All important entry in my fight log

Provided you can do all this consistently without terrifying the instructor, he authorizes you to fly solo and you then take your first solo flight. Generally, this takes place in the tandem you learned in; in my case, a club ASK 21. 

The solo flight was suitably uneventful. With the reduced weight, the sailplane takes off super quickly. In the air, it didn't feel any different (it seemed to turn just as well). I used the same landing speed but the round out seemed much more 'floaty' with the reduced weight.

I'm sure there will be moments when I miss the reassurance of having an expert sitting behind me, checking on what I'm doing, but right now I'm looking forward to some flying without a 'back seat driver'.

Sailplane Changes

Vinon airport, looking down runway 16

My sailplane flying has pretty much stalled and I decided that I needed a new club and instructor. It wasn't a very easy decision, but I already know it was absolutely the right one. I've recently joined a bigger club at Vinon; they've got lots of instructors and sailplanes and I can pretty much fly as much as I want.

Antoine prepares the WT9 Dynamic

There are a bunch of new things to adapt to, including the airport. It has three runways, separated into sailplane and powered aircraft sides. This morning I flew in a WT9 Dynamic lightweight aircraft (more info here) to practice landing patterns. The club is experimenting with it to tow up sailplanes. But it's also light enough to act as a sailplane for learning purposes (e.g. practicing 'landing out'). 

Lots to read as the engine warms up
(oil temp is only 16C)

So I was able to do three touch and goes in about 15 minutes. The chief pilot, Antoine, operated the throttle and commented the patterns while I worried about the other stuff. It's the first time I've 'flown' a powered aircraft and the differences with a sailplane were very interesting. No adverse yaw (so no need to use the rudder when turning). The control stick felt very direct. Three wheels rather than one, so very different on the ground. A lot more dials, displays and switches. But it didn't feel that different in the air either...