Ashley's Alberta Adventures!: Chic's Take Flight

The day had finally arrived! After 7 months of planning with a great group of ladies, our endeavour had finally come to be!

I arrived at the clubhouse early Saturday morning to help set up. Although things fell through with the 187 Squadron Dream Flyer flight simulator, the SAC sim was amazing! Three large projector screens illuminated by projectors on stands. They use the Condor flight sim software which was really cool!

Mini ground school lessons didn’t entirely go according to plan, only because we didn’t receive the number of people we had hoped for and therefore there were times when the tow planes were spooling and the gliders sat empty. So there was a drive to get paying individuals through their Theory of Flight and Walk Around lessons before sending them down to the flight line. This gave others that had previously been seated an opportunity to walk around and thus altered the ground school plans we had in plan.

I’m certain that if the winds had been from the East instead of the West, the flow of people would have been a lot better/different, as an East wind would have kept the launch site right beside the hangar and all of the action.

Speakers were a huge hit!! Thanks to Selena and Rebecca for a great job!! Lunch (as with any event) was also a hit! The wives of some of the club members did a great job BBQ’ing and all seemed to go over well.

When things finally started to wind down, I got a chance to fly! I was going to get in their new DG1000 the club bought from Germany, but there were a couple of people ahead of me in the pecking order. The Duo Discus however was vacant, so I said I didn’t mind going in that one. In hind sight I wish I had of gone in the K-21 or waited for the DG, only because I am a little selfish and had I of flown with an instructor I could have logged it! (Not that I need the dual time, but to be able to put the DG in my logbook would have been great!) So the Duo Discus was privately owned, and the gentleman that flew me was not an instructor. Actually, when he asked if I’ve ever flown in a Duo Discus before, I said “apart from the flight in the one flight in the K-21 I had about a month ago, all of my other 1500+ flights have all been in a 2-33”....He looked at his co-owning partner and said “I think I’m not qualified to fly you....you have more flights then the two of us combined....”.....oh lord.....haha. So he flew the launch and after release let me practice my thermalling techniques. And then I flew the circuit while he did the checks and then he took control and landed. It was AWESOME! I felt like I was looking out the window of a West Jet flight! LONG white wings (20m wing span with a glide ratio of 47:1!) I expected her to be extremely responsive, but her weight and sleek wings gave her just the right amount of sluggishness and made her a dream to fly!!