Airtime at last

Jason ready to go

With most of the bugs worked out of the winch it was now time to get some practice flying. Jason and I headed out to the local tow road expecting a great day of flying. I checked various weather reports and for the most part the wind was to be westerly but light. We set up on the east end of the road expecting some westerly wind but it never showed. It was light east until later when it turned north. The good thing about payout winching is the light wind makes no difference. I towed Jason up in a light down wind. He didn't do to well the day was still early. Not thinking he went and landed at the same end of the road where I towed him up again, downwind. Again he landed but this time on the west end of the road where I relit him again. A little over half way through the tow the line broke. I found my new pulley had overheated do to my slopy machine work causing it to rub. I had another pulley that was much truer that we put on for my turn.

Me getting ready, Notice the color coordination.

My first tow was down wind and so I did not get very high. The tow felt great, I'm still impressed. I passed through a good thermal but I was low and decided to hold out for better. There was nothing but 700 fpm down at the other end of the road and I was soon on the ground. I got back on at the other end of the road and went for tow number two. About half way up I went from 700 fpm to 1400 and decided to pin off. It wasn't a great thermal but I was going up. I climbed a slow climb till the clouds shut out my sun and soon after, my elevator. I headed for a sunny spot and was rewarded with a rodeo ride up. At 5000' it smoothed out to an even 300 up and I held onto it till 6600' I was 1000' below the clouds but getting a ways from home and I didn't want to head cross country. I boated around looking for more but the 700 fpm down finally got the better of me and I landed after an hour of airtime.

This is a neat picture Jason took while I was high, click for a bigger one

On final approach and fast