A Quokka Dreeds its Weird

Yesterday I really leveled up on the beach. There were difficult wind conditions - strong and gusting, and cross-wind going in different directions minute-to-minutes, so a tendency to get blown off-course.

And yet! I flew better than I ever had before. You have to make four straight flights in a row to a target as one of the conditions to get to the H-1 (beginner) level, and if you miss one you start over. I got three in a row twice out of nine or so flights, which was a huge improvement from before.

Right now my big issue is landings. My flights tend to go off the rails, if they do, right at the end. A couple times I got pulled off-course by strong winds as soon as I landed, and ended up running way off-target to not get yanked off my feet (and I did get yanked off my feet once. You can stop this by landing with the wings level, and if necessary letting go of the glider and running strongly in the direction you want to go in.

Noelle, a non-instructor pilot, demonstrated hovering. You do this by matching your flight speed to the wind speed, so you float still in mid-air without stalling. It looked absolutely magical.

It was a beautiful day. The beach is lovely. Pelicans fly low, occasionally in huge flocks, and the water glitters like liquid diamonds.

At the end I was surprised by the instructors agreeing that I can attempt to get H-1 (Hang 1) status next week. To get this, I need to do the four straight flights, land correctly consistently, and pass a written test.

Here's some of my flights on Facebook.

Flight 1

Flight 2

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

Click to enlarge.





That's Beena, Dan's dog. Isn't she adorable? She's very frisky, and rides on the folded glider atop the cart like she's surfing.

I didn't get as much practice on the second lesson as I did on the first as winds eventually got unsafe for a beginner to fly in. But before that, there was much more wind, sometimes enough to lift the glider straight off the ground, and it was way easier to launch.

Zero totally failed launches (ie, none where I never got off the ground or immediately crashed)!

Several flights where I sort of managed a controlled landing! One in which I would have landed fine except I failed to get my feet quite under me and dropped to my knees!

Only one actual hard crash!

No injuries!

I didn't ever manage to correctly steer it but I did get closer. It's really hard when you only have a couple seconds in the air and you're trying to keep track of what feels like really a lot of things, though in fact it's a small number of things but all of them are critical and also YOU'RE FLYING!

But I did manage to acquire some noticeable improvement from the first lesson, so that feels pretty good.

ETA: Spoke too soon on no injuries. I scraped a knee and a shin, and bashed the hell out of my elbow. Icing it now.

I have a recurring dream in which I can do weightless leaping like you see in wuxia movies: I jump, and glide for a long way, then land and jump again. In the dream, this is something I'd always been able to do, but I'd forgotten how and am only now remembering.

Of course, I think. Of course I can fly. I just need to remember how to do it.

When I wake up, there's always a period in which it's very hard for me to believe that it's not that I've temporarily forgotten how to fly, it's that it's physically impossible. It always feels as if I should be able to.

I recently learned that there is a paragliding and hang gliding launch site a five minute drive or one hour hike from my house. I've always wanted to try it, so I contacted a local hang gliding instructor, Dan. He was dubious due to the season (winter is mostly too rainy or snowy) but I asked him if he'd let me know if there was a clear day when he was available.

The day before yesterday I hiked to the launch site just in time to spot a paraglider coming in for a landing. I went and chatted her up, and she strongly recommended a tandem flight to see if I like it.

I was (and am) a bit nervous about a tandem flight. I get motion sick in boats, I get motion sick in the back seat of cars on windy roads, I got put off flying small aircraft for years and years because I got sick in a small (two person) plane after begging to be given a flight, and a tandem flight seemed more likely to be a problem as I wouldn't be controlling it. But I said sure, maybe in a couple weeks when the weather is better and I've had time to experiment with Dramamine.

Then I hiked back home. It's a 4-mile, 2 hour hike up a very steep hill, and I was carrying a weighted backpack because I was trying to train for carrying a glider. I got home and found a text from Dan asking if I was interested in doing a hang gliding lesson on the training hill in San Bernardino. Tomorrow morning. I texted back YES PLEASE.

Yesterday I drove to the training hill in San Berarndino and met Dan and his adorable dog Beena. We drove around in an ATV and set up his glider while he told me all the names of the parts, 90% of which I've now forgotten; I shall study a diagram. The actual setup is a little awkward, largely because a glider or at least this particular glider is BIG, but not that complicated. I was using a student glider, which has landing wheels and is designed to be easy to fly and forgiving of crashes.

As we set it up, Dan explained a lot about aerodynamics, most of which went over my head. After all the time I spent memorizing pitch, roll, and yaw, I was slightly disappointed that none of those came up. Instead, I got a lot about the "angle of attack" which I'm still not sure I fully understand despite having read about it before, getting a whole lecture on it, and looking it up afterward. Hopefully it will make more intuitive sense once I manage to get a glider in the air for more than three seconds at a time.

This is how you launch a glider:

1. Lug it up a hill. We mostly did that in the ATV.

2. Clip in and lock the carabiner. Make sure you're clipped in and locked. Make sure again.

3. Balance the glider on your shoulders. This is difficult and awkward, especially if you're short like me.

4. Take a step downhill, then walk, then jog, then run. If you keep the glider balanced while doing this, it will lift off your shoulders, then lift you off your feet.

5. You're gliding! Move your hands to the control positions if you haven't done so already. You can now control the glider. In theory.

6. Once you're leveled out over flat ground, push the control bar up to flare. The glider will stall and gently drop, and you will land gracefully on your feet.

This is how it actually went:

1 - 3: This went basically as above.

4. A few crashes when I didn't go fast enough and failed to achieve lift-off.

5: Me (mentally): I'M FLYING, I'M FLYING, THIS IS THE BEST THING EV--

Dan (over radio): "Flare! Flare!"

Me: Oh righ--

Glider: CRASH!

I did not manage a decent (ie, deliberate) landing once, out of maybe eight or so launches.

On the last one I managed to crash into a mud puddle, the glider skidded and dragged me all the way through it, and I twisted my knee and bruised my foot and ankle.

So that was it for the launch part of the lesson, since I could no longer run. However, it was supposed to be three hours and when I left I found that it had been four, so I don't think I missed too many launch chances.

Hopefully my knee will be OK after a few days. I'm giving it the RICE treatment. This morning my knee is a bit better, but I'll stay off my feet as much as possible for the next day or so. A giant storm is coming, so it's not like I can do another lesson for another week anyway.

Also this morning, I feel like I got hit by a train. Literally everything hurts, including weird places like my upper inner thighs, which I've only ever experienced before after horseback riding, and under my arms, which I think is bruising from holding the glider balanced for launch.

Flying is amazing. For the three seconds I was in the air before I crashed, that is. The first time I managed to get airborne, I don't think I heard a single thing Dan said to me for the next five minutes because the inside of my head was completely occupied by I FLEW! I FLEW! I WAS IN THE AIR AND I WAS FLYYYYYYYYYING!