Hang Gliding: Lesson Four on the Beach

[rachelmanija]

Here is a spectacular fail landing, immortalized on Instagram. And here (smaller video) on Facebook. It was going so well until until the very end...

Today I feel like I really leveled up. There was much better wind than last time, so it was very easy to launch. There was also light turbulence and cross winds, so it was a challenge to stay on-course. However, I was in the air long enough that I had time to do a lot more and also make decisions.

There was one scary moment where I felt like I was swerving fast into the ground and I decided to land on the wheels rather than trying to land on my feet. (That's not the landing in the video.) Also several where I did not intend to land on the wheels but did anyway. But I had a bunch of flights that were great up to the landing, and even a couple decent landings.

I'm going again tomorrow to try to consolidate what I learned into muscle memory.

Comments

[sheron]

You can fly!

What happens if you actually keep flying and reach the waterline??

[rachelmanija]

That glider can't fly far enough to reach it. It comes down on its own a safe distance before that.

[summerstorm]

I'd never noticed how much hang gliders look like paper airplanes. Makes everything even funnier.

I'm glad you had a good lesson!

[scioscribe]

I'm so glad you had a lesson where it was clear you'd already learned a ton and got to actually make decisions in the air. Biggles would be proud.

[davidgillon]

You landed on your feet, seems pretty good to me. It would have been a good landing but for the wingtip digging in - not sure if that was down to the crosswind, ideally you'd be landing into wind making it less of a risk.

[aelfgyfu_mead]

Wow! You went pretty far there.

[wpadmirer]

Wow. That is something I would never do. Kudos!