ECC Day 4, Task 4

When Davis said we would fly tomorrow on Tues. night I thought he was nuts. I needed a day to repair my glider after taking out a down tube and corner bracket after getting popped on landing after task 3 so maybe it was wish full thinking. Through the help of good friends I was able to get the corner bracket, insert and side wire shipped from my parts stock at home overnight to Maryland. They arrived by 11am as the pilots meeting was finishing up and Ron and I went out and disassembled and reassembled the glider, replaced the parts and down tube then pulled the outside leading edge and inspected the glider. It all checked out so it was rigged and on the flight line and ready by 1pm. Luckily it was almost total overcast and no one wanted to launch. Terry Reynolds and Davis launched and scratched hard to stay up as blue sky moved in from the west Terry came back and Davis took off and flew 10k before sinking out. A bunch of sport class pilots got in line so I went with them to get a tow in mellow conditions so I could check out the glider after the repairs. As I was towed up everyone was sinking out and I decided to search to the NE and see what I could find up yhe course line. I was almost at the point of no return and just taking the glide as far as possible to get minimum points when there was a few beeps on the vario. It took a long time but eventually the weak thermal took me to 2100' and drifted me further down the course. I topped out and went on glide in to the blue found another climb a few miles out and took it to 2500' before it pettered out. The glide was the last of the day for me and I was soon on the ground in a huge cornfield and chatting with a nice old farmer dude who was very friendly and inquisitive of hang gliding. My ace driver Ron was there before I even called him and we broke down under building clouds and gliders flying over. I flew 10k and was just short of where Davis landed.
Not bad for a day I was not even sure I would be able to fly on. Tue. a number of bad decisions but me on the ground with a broken glider and luckily nothing else. With all the huge fields around I tried not to land in a corn field with the farmer baling hay and watching me so I tried to squeeeze into a hay lot between the corn and a pond, got popped as I turned way to close to the ground and ended up in a ground loop as the base bar touched the ground. My butt had an argument with the down tube and I trashed the tube, corner bracket, side wire and insert. Tuck and roll baby, if not I probably would have injured myself and not just some aluminum and plastic. The moral is take the safe landing even if it is witnessed by the farmer, and don't push so hard you put yourself in an unsafe situation.
1 flight, 40 min, 10.3km