I'm still Hang Gliding - my last lesson I repeated the 50' launch since it had been a while than hiked up to the 150' launch a couple of times. Everything looked good so I got to move up to the 300' launch and got three flights with a truck ride back to the top each time.
The main focus of this lesson was starting to be able to fly a landing approach. I'm not yet up to a standard aircraft Downwind-Base-Final approach but have the same basic idea: pick a spot I want to land, fly downwind away from it till I'm just the right distance, then turn back and glide to my chosen spot. Easy :)
Or not. The first time I waited waaaay to long - the only thing I'm happy about was when I'd made my turn to final my first thought was to fly best glide all the way down to the ground to get as far as possible but I quickly reconsidered and flew a little faster. Landing is about getting down safely, not hitting a particular spot right now and one of the things I'm working on is bringing enough speed down to the ground.
Of course my second landing I forgot this piece of wisdom and nearly landed on my wheels reaching for the spot. This time I turned too high, recognized it and made a (previously discussed with my instructor) course correction; flying back towards the 50' launch then turning back towards the spot in an effort to burn off some altitude. This was so successful I nearly landed in the inner circle I was aiming for - but stupidly pulled up my feet to eke out the last few yards of distance and barely got my feet back under me.
My third flight was the most exciting - the wind was really picking up and I actually had to wait for the cycle to die down in order to launch where normally I'm waiting for the breeze to pick up. I should have power launched, keeping the nose down a touch to increase my speed before flying but my takeoff was ok - this was my first ever "straps tight" takeoff where the glider was flying even before my takeoff run. Once in the air I felt great and thought I'd made a good call on my turn onto final. Of course I now had a headwind of ~10mph on the ground so I came up far short again. The landing was funny too. I decided as I came in that I wouldn't flare in all the wind and would just run it out which worked fine - but it was weird again to be landed (my feet are on the ground and no forwards movement) but the glider is still flying.
Landing is still what I'm thinking about the most and the skill I most want to acquire is the ability to round out at 2' high instead of swooping all the way down to ground level. All my flights for the day were good ones despite new conditions (wind!), new launches, 180 degree turns. It all was fun. I can't wait for the next time!
Well, that was an ... interesting season of Lent. My Church life has changed more dramatically than I would have thought possible at the start of the season. Things started out innocently enough - Fat Tuesday at my house means Taco Truck Tacos and drinks all around!
Jarritos!
Lent turned out to be a season of sadness in general. After seven years at BCF my family has left. The time was not wasted - we've been blessed by much fellowship and friendship - but I can't help feeling a sense of sadness and failure at our departure. I'll have more later to say about my reasons for going and what I hope to do next but for now I am still processing it all myself.
Not all has been sadness - we had a lovely Sunday playing hooky with friends and talking about the future.
"We're Walking!"
Claire
After the long Lenten season Easter was a reminder that God is a God of life from Death. We remember the death, but we celebrate the victory of resurrection life.
Communion
In fact I would go so far as to say that Easter has left me hopeful. I've spent some time looking back, thinking about events and decisions, what I could have done differently or wished others had done. I thought about the last congregation I was a part of - leaving doesn't get any easier! And now I am immersed in change and though much of what I value most in my life - life in the Body of Christ - is uncertain going forwards I believe and trust that He has something good in store for me and my family in the year to come. In the season of Easter I am grateful to be reminded of the presence of my resurrected savior and of the power of the one who raised Him from the Dead.
For the last year I've been doing contract work teaching for Marakana.com in San Francisco. Now we've made it full-time - and my new job title is Expert. Click through to my other site to read That's me, Python Expert for all the details...
All my life that I can remember I've wanted to fly. When I was very young (maybe 6?) one of my cousins who is an aircraft instructor gave me a plane ride for my birthday, instantly becoming the coolest cousin ever!
I can't remember when I first learned about hang gliding - I do remember watching Hang Gliders at a very young age when my family visited Fort Funston in San Francisco. I can still remember my feeling of awe at the magical way the colorful wings rose, seemingly effortlessly, into the skies to surf the invisible waves of the air. And ever since gliding flight has enchanted me. I've spent happy hours watching sea gulls ridge soar around the rocky point out at Pigeon Point Light House - tiny movements and adjustments controlling their flight, stopping and nearly hovering then wheeling and diving downwind... Somehow flight just seemed wondrous, magical, much more fascinating than the mundane world where my feet were firmly planted.
During my early teenage years a friend of mine found an ancient rogallo style hang-glider in his family's newly rented barn and offered it to me, knowing my fascination. I might still be a little bitter that despite all my pleading my mom said "Absolutely not!"
When I was in my early twenties and planning on getting married I took one hang gliding lesson and made it out to the training hill. But money was tight and I eventually put my dreams of flying through the air to one side and opted for the somewhat more practical but still exciting motorcycle.
And here I am. I'm in my thirties. I have three children - and I don't even have a motorcycle anymore. But I can (maybe) afford to take a flying lesson or two and my job actually has a somewhat malleable schedule that means I might be able to take enough time to go flying occasionally. Can I still pursue my dream at this late date? It turns out that I can!
Eric Hinrichs teaches for Bay Area Hang Gliding and I've been taking lessons from him for the last few months. Or more accurately - I took a couple before December and a couple in the last month. As a result I've gotten to know the path down the training hill pretty well. I started out with a huge training glider that flies incredibly slowly - the Wills Wing Condor 330 - and Eric had me run on flat ground learning how to hold the glider, feel it rising off my shoulders, and come back to a stop supporting it. I slowly started working up the hill - getting my feet off the ground a little bit on my first lesson and gradually moving higher to make the flights slightly longer. The first few lessons are all about take offs and landing - controlling the angle of attack so that the wing flies when you take off and learning to feel ground effect, find trim speed and slowly push out to slow the glider upon landing.
My fourth lesson with Eric was Friday and I'm still flying high - I moved up a glider to the smaller Condor 225. Losing 105 square feet of sail meant things sped up and it took me a couple of tries to confidently power down the hill on launch and a couple more flights to be able to feel the right time to flare on landing. But by the end of the day my launches were strong, my flares were getting crisper, and I flew straight flights at a couple of different speeds to complete the tasks for my H1 novice rating. One multiple choice test later - I'm the proud holder of a temporary novice card and looking forwards to flying off the 300' launch on my way to an H2 license.
Eric was kind enough to strap a go-pro camera to my glider and post the footage. Yes - that's me skidding in on my knees the second time - but keep watching. By the end of the day landing smoothly on my feet with a crisp flare made me feel a mile high.
Driving home I thought to myself - In some ways I feel satisfied right now. I've accomplished a lifelong dream of mine - my feet have left the ground and I've felt, for 20 seconds at a time, the joy of pure flight. In some ways though I feel hungrier than ever. Those accomplished soarers - the hawks and vultures that spiral up in the thermals that rise around our training hill had better watch out - one day soon I'll be with with them climbing up into the blue skies.
I just bought a new camera and am so happy with it I'm wondering what took me so long to upgrade.
I've had a succession of point-and-shoot cameras since in the last ten years - but I've noticed for the last couple years that I don't take many pictures. And I don't take many pictures because all my pictures seem to look horrible. It's true that I can take good looking picture with my 6 megapixel point-and-shoot: of brightly lit non-moving scenes. But birthday pictures of small children running around in poorly lit rooms? Impossible - either too dark or too blurry or completely washed out by the direct and close flash.
Enter the DSLR. I do have a rudimentary understanding of aperture, shutter speed and ISO and understand that to get the most from my camera I'll have to learn more - but even on fully automatic I'm amazed by the superior light and detail. Compare two successive photos taken on full automatic of a room lit by a window - one from my A570 and one from my new Rebel T2i:
Do I have to say which came from the point-n-shoot and which came from the DSLR?
I'm looking forwards to enjoying taking photos again...
Claire
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