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I have now had three beach lessons. The last one had "light and variable" winds, ie, very weak and not blowing from the same direction for more than a minute at a time. My experience consisted of barely getting in the air (pictured below), completely failing to launch, and crashing. It was so hard to get in the air that my instructors decided to consider it a half lesson and comp me another one, so that was nice.
Failing to get more then three feet off the ground for three seconds
I regret that my biggest crash yet didn't get videoed, because it would have been interesting to watch and also was my best launch, up until the point when one of my instructors yelled at me to flare (push the control bar out, which caused the glider to lose speed and gently drop to the ground). Unfortunately, he yelled that just as I got caught by a gust of wind and was attempting to turn back on course, which you do by shifting your weight to that side. It turns out that if you flare when you're in a turn, it exaggerates the turn and you will take a header directly into the ground. I nearly got pitched over the control bar (but was caught by my harness, of course.)
Beaches are lovely to crash into. It's very hard to actually get hurt.
So far my big challenges are not grabbing the controls (you're supposed to keep a very light touch), which I especially tend to do if I think I'm not going to launch (a tight grip will ensure that I don't) and when I'm trying to flare. And many other things as well, but that's the big one. I especially struggled with that yesterday, because the conditions weren't easy and that apparently translated into "TRY HARDER! PUSH!" Which is not how to do it.
That lesson did have a very helpful factor, which was a woman pilot (not an instructor, but a member of the school) who was a lot closer to my physical build than any of the others and had useful suggestions for working with that. There were other women instructors, but they were all taller and slimmer and more long-limbed than me. Noelle is short and stocky and has short arms and legs, which is also my basic build. She suggested clipping me in higher (closer to the frame) and also bringing in a different glider for me to try. She thought that even though I'm a beginner, I might find a smaller glider easier to handle than the standard beginner's glider, which is enormous for beginner-student reasons, but that also exaggerates the issue that like most gliders, it's designed for people substantially taller and with a much longer reach than me.
The instructors have clearly figured out that I'm serious by now.
The most useful part of the last lesson was actually putting together and dismantling the glider. I'm supposed to basically be able to do that without prompting on my third try so good thing that my supposed second try (yesterday) was actually my fourth try because that is a whole lot of consecutive steps to remember. It's especially hard for me to recall stuff like whether the sail rolls up from the top or underneath and other steps that aren't as intuitively obvious as "remove bolt, slide tube A into tube B, attach with bolt.
ETA: Found it! It starts on page 10: https://www.delta-club-82.com/bible/manuels/falcon-3.pdf
Failing to get more then three feet off the ground for three seconds
I regret that my biggest crash yet didn't get videoed, because it would have been interesting to watch and also was my best launch, up until the point when one of my instructors yelled at me to flare (push the control bar out, which caused the glider to lose speed and gently drop to the ground). Unfortunately, he yelled that just as I got caught by a gust of wind and was attempting to turn back on course, which you do by shifting your weight to that side. It turns out that if you flare when you're in a turn, it exaggerates the turn and you will take a header directly into the ground. I nearly got pitched over the control bar (but was caught by my harness, of course.)
Beaches are lovely to crash into. It's very hard to actually get hurt.
So far my big challenges are not grabbing the controls (you're supposed to keep a very light touch), which I especially tend to do if I think I'm not going to launch (a tight grip will ensure that I don't) and when I'm trying to flare. And many other things as well, but that's the big one. I especially struggled with that yesterday, because the conditions weren't easy and that apparently translated into "TRY HARDER! PUSH!" Which is not how to do it.
That lesson did have a very helpful factor, which was a woman pilot (not an instructor, but a member of the school) who was a lot closer to my physical build than any of the others and had useful suggestions for working with that. There were other women instructors, but they were all taller and slimmer and more long-limbed than me. Noelle is short and stocky and has short arms and legs, which is also my basic build. She suggested clipping me in higher (closer to the frame) and also bringing in a different glider for me to try. She thought that even though I'm a beginner, I might find a smaller glider easier to handle than the standard beginner's glider, which is enormous for beginner-student reasons, but that also exaggerates the issue that like most gliders, it's designed for people substantially taller and with a much longer reach than me.
The instructors have clearly figured out that I'm serious by now.
The most useful part of the last lesson was actually putting together and dismantling the glider. I'm supposed to basically be able to do that without prompting on my third try so good thing that my supposed second try (yesterday) was actually my fourth try because that is a whole lot of consecutive steps to remember. It's especially hard for me to recall stuff like whether the sail rolls up from the top or underneath and other steps that aren't as intuitively obvious as "remove bolt, slide tube A into tube B, attach with bolt.
ETA: Found it! It starts on page 10: https://www.delta-club-82.com/bible/manuels/falcon-3.pdf
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