Crosswinds

7/6/03 - Quite windy, so no lift - thermals all blown out.

Two 4000' flights with M. Crosswind takeoffs, which I think I handled pretty well. She helped me quite a bit with turns: using county roads for orientation, using MUCH more rudder on rollout, noting that you pick up speed when you come out of a turn, because ... I don't remember why. Practiced crabbing.

Slow flight - "let's just float along for a while". She pointed out where the Class C airspace for M ARB begins. Steep turns. I thought I was all over the place on the second tow, but she thought I caught errors and corrected very well. In my logbook she wrote "Very good tow!" She pointed out that I let the left wing go low a lot. It seems like I have to keep constant right pressure to keep wings level. Someone said the Blanik N5 is a little tweaked - I'll have to look at it head-on sometime. Anyway, "do whatever it takes to fly the plane."

Crosswind landings, which went OK. She introduced something new: the spoilers on the Blanik can self-deploy if they're pulled out beyond about halfway: the slipstream pulls them open, so you have to control them. It was so windy we had to use stick & rudder to keep the glider stable on the ground between flights. Another surprise: the metal in the cockpit gets HOT on hot days - long pants (light) and long sleeves recommended.