Flew Saturday, bombed out after half an hour: it was rough, narrow thermals and I just couldn't stay right in them. I was so annoyed that I decided to walk back up, with the 25kg of stuff on the back. It was hot, the grass was annoyingly high and I was out of shape, so it took about an hour 20 minutes to get back up for me and Dave who was walking without his pack. At least I got a nice afternoon ridge soar in after that and did some "sissy spirals": wasn't high enough to crank it up fully, so I just turned rather tightly, sinking at 3m/s (which is not a real spiral dive).

Sunday was even worse: I launched early -my launch was not exactly flash- scratched around for a while and got some thermal activity when the sun came out more consistently. But I was totally "off", reacting badly and too slowly to things, and not amenable at all to being jolted around at all. Having a bunch of hangies around didn't really help my internal alignment, and I wasn't enjoying myself. So I left the lift very soon at about 300m above launch, and went to land at Munsters' paddock. Good approach, perfect landing.

And then I started to be angry at myself - for not using the opportunity to get away and do some XC. Two voices in my head battling for supremacy...a silly thing to let happen, I know.

On the way home I realised how tired and dead I was; bought some books and beer on the way home - and fell asleep at 1530. I guess that explains why I was off balance and not enjoying myself. There's always another day...

What bugged me most in these last two weeks was that Kevin managed to get away every single bloody day. Call it envy or stupid competitiveness, but it felt that he wasn't making any mistakes while I bathed in them, and he's got a bit less experience than I. So it is no big surprise that I didn't feel bad at all when it was Kevin's turn to make a mistake on Sunday and he bombed out spectacularily. (If he reads this: sorry Kevin! I'm not gloating, honest!)

[ published on Mon 28.02.2005 12:34 | filed in interests/flying | ]
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