graemehowie.com

At the start of the 2005 season, I bought a share in a T.45 Swallow. Comedy glide ratio, no penetration into wind, boxy looks, shark mouth… In short, she’s fantastic

Some pictures from the day of my first flight:

Converting on to a single seat aircraft, In my opinion, was more intimidating that the first solo. When I did the first solo, I knew I could fly the Blanik, and had done many times before. All that changed was the back seat was unoccupied. Not so when going to a single seater.

The first few flights were spent getting used to the aircraft, and planning the approach and landing accordingly. However, when the conditions were good enough, I managed some proper soaring. My first solo soaring flight in the Blanik was a thermal climb to 3000ft in February, then back down again all within 20 minutes. Enough for a B Badge. The first soaring flight in the Swallow was 36 minutes, though not above 1800ft.

A few weeks later I was hanging around the launch point, looking at the windsock when Deryck in the Blanik radios something like “Yahoo! 4 up”. The Blanik was noticably climbing away in wave. I got the Swallow ready and launched into the wave too. However, I was in the wrong place and climbed very slowly just tacking back and forth upwind of the airfield. The flight lasted 29 minutes. I’d missed my second qualifying flight for the bronze badge by 1 minute!

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