Sunday, July 3, 2011

First training flight and registration

The morning started off with over 3 hours of registration.... By the time we got our equipment checked and our instruments loaded it was after lunch and we had not even had breakfast and had no time to eat lunch so it was up the mountain for me to check if my lines were attached correctly from my re-lining session on my single bed in the hotel room. Everything was fine and off I launched. It was a great afternoon with me getting over an hour with lots of climbs. It was my first chance to see how my new glider compared and lets just say I have nothing to worry about. The APCO Enigma will not be the problem if I dont have a good meet. This glider climbed very well against the latest crop of gliders and seemed just fine on the few glides I took that were close to others. Its always different when your racing with a glider but I feel confident that everything will be great. Landing was just a bit sketchy as the wind was blowing across town and the main landing field was in the lee with lots of rough air close to the ground. Claudio has great film of a guy losing his glider 30 m from the ground and getting it back over his head just in time but very close.
Upon starting my packing of course a few of the other companies test pilots and designers came by for a closer feel of the new glider with some hyms and hahs and of course nice compliments they still remain my friends...haha. That is one of the many things Paragliding comps are great for and thats the employees of the different companies always get along and laugh with one another over the tricks and crazy ideas. The world is just to small for tension. Tomorrow is the official Practice day then its work time as the comp starts Tuesday.

The big parade of nations was tonight so it was long night of listening to spanish dignitaries speak in a language I don't understand about topics I also don't care about so once it was ok to disappear we joined the US team for some pizza in the alley. Its sleep time so Good Night
Keith

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