Short Divide 2009!

The wet spring weather has made finding a good day to fly Short Divide this year difficult. Finally Monday it all came together for the first flight there for 2009. Cody & I met at launch and found conditions promising: Sunny, 88 degrees, with a 16-18 mph wind straight in. I decided it was time for a maiden solo-shakedown flight on my new Tandem Falcon 3.

Launching felt different than my U2, but still a piece of cake. I immediately climbed about 300' over launch in a gentle thermal. I soon found the thermals to be weak and fragmented, not allowing for more than one or two circles in lift.

I scooted back and forth along the launch ridge, as Cody launched and proceded to show me where the good thermals were hiding. It ended up being a light, up and down day, making it difficult to gain enough altitude to safely bench up onto the upper mountains. After over an hour of scratchin', I finally found a thermal I could drift with back to the upper face, but it was not producing, so I quickly headed back out front, and boated around in some lower level glass-off.

The new glider flew straight, true, trim and sweet. The bar pressures are surprisingly light for a single-surfaced glider. It responded quickly to all of my control input, even with such a light wing loading. I did notice the decrease in glide compared to my U2, but I know that will improve when I add a co-pilot! Although we didn't sky-out, it was still some very nice, much needed airtime.

Airtime: 1.5 hours! "Yeeee-Haaaaw!"