bacrdek wrote: ↑Tue Jan 22, 2019 5:10 pm
Does anyone practice launch/landings at the training hill on a topless? I've heard it's a bad idea. Not sure if it's worse than only practicing ~20-30 landings a year on XC flights.
I've spent a lot of days at training hills with my flex wings after I've gotten some hours on them... including my topless Sensor which was my last flex wing before I started flying rigids. Mostly both the southwest and northwest training hills at Ed Levin, starting early in the morning so you can do no winder launches.
You can't believe the confidence doing this will give you in your launches and landings but it's not for the faint of heart. Standing there on a dinky little hill with it trickling in (or calm) and wondering if you can even get your topless glider off the ground before the bottom of the hill can be intimidating. But once you pull off your first flight you realize it's not that hard. You just have to run your ass off.
Even after a lot of hours on my topless Sensor, and one day at the training hill already, I went to Ed Levin and took Pat Denevan's launch and landing clinic. It was very helpful in further refining my technique. On Pat's suggestion, I arrived with a set of very large training wheels so you can just go to the nose after you land, pick the nose up some and push the glider all the way back up the hill. Way easier than carrying it.
Doing launches from the training hill at Ed Levin gave me the confidence to do a no winder from the Timberline launch at Hull Mountain on my topless Sensor on an east day where it was blowing lightly down at launch with pauses where it was completely calm. It was no big deal... but would have been had I not been doing no winders at the training hill. After barreling off launch, I turned right, hooked into a climb and beamed out to 13,000... while everyone else was stuck on launch.
Other than that, I second what WaltsPoint and BubbleBoy said.
- Andy