Back in the saddle

This weekend I was finally able to shake my flying demons that I've had since last year. I was trying to heal and feel out my new shoulder the whole season of '17 and had the setback of my crash and re-injuring it to the point where it needs surgery yet again. I had the pressure of the competition to get me in the air at the Green Swamp and I honestly didn't give flying a second thought because.. Florida. But returning to New England in Spring conditions unsettled me and I began questioning everything I have been working for and why I was still flying. The people I spoke with who have twice the time under a wing as me told me that every pilot goes through this phase at one time or another in their flying career which made me feel a little better about it. Injuries and surgeries are humbling reminders that we don't bounce when we hit the ground. And my crash at Yamaska in '17 was eye opening at how wrong shit can go even when landing in what should be a routine field in routine conditions.

The FunMobile

This weekend was turning out to be H pressure, low wind speed, and HOT. Almost one of those times where it's actually too hot to fly and we all migrate to the local swimming hole instead.. almost.

I set up Friday afternoon and waited around until after 6pm when it started to glass off. Ilya went up and had a decent flight, landed, and said he assumed I wasn't going to go up. I had replaced my second-ever dented downtube without an adult present and it wasn't until this weekend I realized it was nagging in the back of my mind whether I'd done it properly. I asked Ilya to look, he confirmed it was fine, and I was totally liberated. I threw my harness on without a second thought and went for a tow. It was glassed off with some lift still burbling off the hill and zero wind on the ground. I had no worries, I towed up sans vario and comms, got a 25 minute flight, and had a perfect landing in no wind. I felt 50% better.

Saturday was a repeat, but earlier in the day. I towed up, flew around, and landed next to the rings in the LZ across the street. My initial intention was land next to the taxiway but that plan was thwarted when I hit heavy sink and saw a car coming  down the road that was going to be intersecting uncomfortably close to where I was going to be rounding out. Things happen, flight plans change. It resulted in a no-step landing next to the rings despite the last minute evasive maneuver back towards the park. I was 75% there..

Sunday was the day. Ilya and I spent the morning as ground crew and moral support for Max while he tried to fine tune his Combat landings, and while doing so I began seeing Cues forming over Ascutney and drifting our direction. It was only about 10 in the morning, so that was promising. XC Skies was predicting a late day (4-5pm) but after we helped Max I told Ilya I was going to set up and pointed out the clouds, so he did the same.


Combat Max and Ilya

Around noon they were over us. Ilya launched around 1:30pm and stuck, he was working some broken lift and getting up over the SE end of the park. I tromped my ass out onto the runway after, and it was the calmest I've been pre-flight since before surgery. I laid in the cart and BOOM, tailwind. After a few minutes it still hadn't switched back, so I walked back to the taxiway and stated I was going to wait it out. Within moments of my harness coming off it went back to North again and full grump mode hit. Max had bagged the Combat and set his Sport 2 up, so he hopped on the cart and towed up. Not one to be outdone, I got back on the cart.. again. It stayed North for me this time.


Nick - tow pilot extraordinaire

Nick had dropped Max off over the river to the West and he went on glide all the way back to the park without hitting a single pluff. I waited for him to land, then I launched. I got dropped off over the factories and I spent about 10 minutes working a sad little 0-10fpm to maintain while Ilya was over the hill cranking in stronger lift. I scratched up and hung around 2,700' and decided to head his way since nothing seemed to be building in my area. It paid off, I got into a scrappy 150fpm over Morningside that required being up on the wingtip to stay in but turned into 4-500fpm up to 4,700ft. Max had a relight and came over to join and, as Max always does, quickly out climbed me and joined Ilya about 1k over me. Asel towed up and climbed up with us. The little whipper snapper even got above me for a minute!

I was content. I was aggressive, cranking and banking, sniffing out thermals, leaving and finding new climbs and had absolutely zero worries about any aspect of the flight - I was back 100%.

Thermaling with Ilya

After 1:20 of flying I decided I had enough and flew over the valley to land. I anticipated lift over the cornfield and turned onto final further back than normal. I caught the tail end of the corn lifting off and ended up about 100' short but it was a perfect no-step landing. Ilya had the flight of the day with 4 hours and 22 minutes! I got to fly with my boys again, it was a good day.

Happy girl!