Tuesday,
30 May: - the worlds is over - Ms. May got three flights
on Sunday, 28th, Mr. Bill got four flights - all (our)
flights-information-specifics-details are available at "United States"
(click this link, first; then 'sort / find' pilot (use our last name(s)
(Schell / Wong) in/on this web-site: http://www.flightlog.org.
The world's scores (Women's / SWIFT / Rigid wing) / info is at: This Web Site (CIVL / FAI based)
We learned a LOT by being there - but we also realized that volunteering is a LOT of WORK in the HOT SUN from about 11:30 a.m. til as late as 3:30 p.m., and though we got 'coupons' for tow-up it's not a bad deal, at all, for volunteer. You can't really get towed up and still fly in the 'best' part of the day (for lift) since that's when the competitors are flying. However, at our stage of learning we just wanted to fly - and though we could have - there were some days when they called it quits for the 'free-flying' and some days when the weather wasn't so good, and so-forth.
When we first learned how to hang-glide we wanted 'calm' air, but now that we're attempting to advance our skills (to learn thermalling (to take advantage of warmer-air-parcels moving "UP"...) - we need to fly later in the day in the 'bumpier' air and to learn how to utilize the thermals that are developing. Some of the competitors would go 100-160 kilometers during a long task. Some day we'll be able to do this, also, but for right now our 'challenge' is to stay-aloft 1-2-3-4 hours over the Quest field and land back at Quest so we don't have to have a 'ground crew' (a whole 'nother' episode!). An additional challenge is to learn to land on our feet - we're still using wheels mounted on the cross-bar (you can just barely see these in the set of pictures below the ones of the mini-van), but eventually we need to develop a lot of other skills - probably the first is to develop the foot-landing skill. Then we need to learn more about foot launching and windy-cliff, and so-on and so-forth...
OH: - Mr. Bill 'FINALLY' finished the "UGLY" (but fairly well engineered) front-support for hang-gliders for the Toyota Mini-Van. (with Ms. May's glider on top). Picture taken in Groveland, at Quest Air. The 'nice' thing about this front-support is that the mini-Van still gets about 24 mpg with this thing (with no glider on it) whereas the trailer we WERE pulling to put hang-gliders on yielded an MPG of about 15-16, so we're saving BUNCHES with this new 'integrated' support, and it takes less than 5 minutes to put it on/off the car - the lower-end stays on the front 'semi-permanently' but it doesn't affect the view or the gas-mileage at all.
Mr. Bill's (rental) glider - pictured here - it's an older version (Falcon 1) of May's glider which is a Falcon 2. So Mr. Bill's glider is a bit older and a bit larger, but other than that basically the same as Ms. May's glider. there were some 'towing-issues' with this glider on 28 May so - we learned a bit of something from that and after talking with our "Mr. Awesome Bob" about towing - learned even more. These new towing-things we can put to use next time we are in / at Groveland for
some more tows...
Wednesday, 24 May: - herein we pay tribute to Ms. Tigger - who was our wonderful house companion and lovely 4-legged meow-cat for just over two years... Unfortunately Ms. Tigger seems to have disappeared on Monday, 22 May - at least no-one has seen her since Monday (and now it's Tuesday, 30th) - UGH UGH UGH - We know Ms. Tigger had had a lot of kidney problems and we know she was a "people person" and we'd been away for a week when we arrived back home on Wednesday, 24th... - She was missing - and still is - I fear she is long-gone but I hope, severely, that her passing was painless and that she knew that we loved her and loved her a LOT!!! - Ms. Siew Mei - never Ms. Tigger's favourite friend now meows constantly - I guess Siew Mei misses miss Tigger just like Ms. May and I miss her?
Monday, 22 May: Competition cancelled at 2:15 (after 3 x 30 minute delays0 for lack of 'lift' - we might be able to fly at 6-7 pm but don't know - they close their office at 6pm - so who-knows? - - and because they didn't launch, today, we have no 'dinner coupon' and no 'tow-coupon' - so we now have to pay for things?
- begining of the 'last week' of the competitions - at 09:15 a.m. - there's several tandem / instruction activities going-on and lots of other 'happenings' in / around the 'air-park'... we have had breakfast, gassed the car and washed-off the front-love-bugs (Bill) and used Ronsonol lighter fluid to remove tree-sap (Ms. May) from various and sundry things.
Weather for today looks 'iffy' right now - but - perhaps - clearning in the afternoon.... - we might get to fly after the competitors take-off this afternoon, again - will Mr. Bill and/or Ms. May either one of us get a 'lengthy' flight? - who knows - but stay-tuned! - Sincerely yours, Bill & May
PS: - we had to hire some 'ground-crew' (or larger image) out of our earnings - these guys are helping us figure out the multiple button-pushing-options on our varios!
Several people have asked about 'our-camp' - well - click on the image to get larger view.
Sunday, 21 May: Today is the fourth day of the (Hang Gliding) competition(s) and we launched them, again, today, without incident... BUT _ Further - Ms. May and Mr. Bill had a good afternoon - and a 'new personal best' - Mr. Bill stayed-up over 1 hour - this is a real accomplishment - though '60 minutes' is 'just a number' it is definitely an accomplishment and several people who I highly-respect have complimented me, and my instructor "Awesome Bob" has announced this to several people, too - so I feel REALLY GOOD about this - maximum altitude was about 963 meters - and maximum lift was about 6.5 meters / second which is GREAAT... Ms. May had a couple of good flights, too, today, - we'll report more tomorrow... See Mr. Bill's on-line-flight-log-book here.
ALSO: _ Mr. Bill finally bought a helmet (after spending a total of 40 minutes trying to find a local / rental)- identical to Ms. May's helmet - but white in Color - and 'XL' in size. We thought of taking a picture with Mr. Bill 'modelling' his new helmet, but decided this model was a lot more 'beautiful' and so he's modelling the helmet on Mr. Bill's behalf. - Some Day Soon, we'll get the radio 'stuff' to do PTT and listen and so-forth - Mr. Bill's Dad is going to 'gift' us with an Icom 2-meter radio that may need some work - so - perhaps - soon - we'll be able to talk to each other in the air - and/or we'll be able to talk with our 'ground-crew' (who we have not yet selected?
Saturday, 20 May: - 07:00 raining (well drizzling to be more precise) - and overcast and chilly and muggy - but - it's 'supposed' to clear-up today and perhaps we'll get to fly this afternoon!, we hope - we'll have to set-up Ms. May's glider and the one I use is already set-up - someone used it late yesterday afternoon for just one flight - someone who had never launched off a 'cart'... Anyway we both flew this afternoon - each had two flights about 20 - 30 minutes. - we use 'coupons' they give us each day for working the 'launch-crew' job. - they also give us a coupon for dinner - normally at least 4-6 different 'dishes' and always some veggie stuff - and it's both tasty and there is plenty of food
then the next day - we can get in our 'wrap' for lunch - the left-over(s) from the previous night - like roasted-salmon in a wrap or beef or veggie-stuff... - anyway the food is
pretty spectacular for a bunch of people in a tent - led by some lady from Chicago who is VERY GOOD at what she does...
Friday, 19 May:
Well - we didn't get to fly, again, today, because the weather was too windy for us - but maybe on Saturday afternoon. The launching, today was very very
"messy" because of the strong west wind without a lot of lift - and a long launch-window-open, etc. etc. etc. etc. - lots of things more technical that we should go into on a public-distribution-web-site.
However, we did - this afternoon pick up Mr. Armand and his 'SWIFT' glider (in the second picture below) - from near Leesburg, Florida - he'd landed in a field and called us on our cell-phone and we drove his BIG VAN and BIG Trailer (a SWIFT must be taken-apart to transport and put in a specially built trailer) - anyway - it was an Adventure for May and myself to use the GPS to find him. Like a lot of pick-ups - we found (especially here in Florida) a small 'lake' in our 'way' - and finally - once we got AROUND the lake (on roads that were, of course, not on the map) we found him easily...
Thursday 18 May:
- at Quest Air - first day of the Women's World Championships and the Rigid Wing World Championships as well as the SWIFT World Championships...
we have a 'just a few' pictures of the launching today -
This is a 'SWIFT' - it's a particular type of 'foot-launchable-sail-plane' and we have a fairly good friend who flies one - he's from Canada.
This is a picture of Mr. Frank (he owns the property (and the orange-groves) in/around Quest Air, and this is someone's 'random dog' that got involved in the flight-line, today and so the dog had to be removed... - Mr. Frank does this work, gladly
and we have one or two pictures of our 'early morning adventure' with Mr. Carlos Punet of Madrid, Spain - who we e-mailed with a month or so ago - but he was supposed to fly today - but had no glider. It was 'stuck' in (US) Customs in Orlando Airport - so we left Quest this morning at about 06:20 a.m. with him and went to 'do our thing' and were back here at Quest by a bout 10:30 and so he launched at about 12:50 and he's flying now...
A few pictures of Mr. Carlos & Mr. Bill opening his (very well built box) at Forward Air services and left the box there.
then a picture just before leaving there to bring Mr. Carlos and his rigid wing glider (on our Trailex Trailer)... back here to Quest...
O.K., O.K., everyone (including us) is 'bored' with all these 'static' pictures... - a good friend of ours - James - from the United Kingdom (also an 'ex-Motorolan (like Mr. Bill)), has a Sony Video Cam that records directly to a DVD right in the camera. - He's used this with his custom-made (less than $10) camera mount to get some excellent digital video of himself flying around Quest Air here in Groveland, Florida... The video - clips are on Google Video - here's the link: (make sure you are on high-speed-internet)
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=hangliding&page=2&lv=0&so=0
IF you get 'lost' then there is a way to get there by 'pieces'
go to 'Google' and type in 'google video'
when you get back a list - click on the first link (Google Video) and then type in: "hangliding" - press return
when you get some 'thumbnails' then you may have to scroll to the bottom of the thumbnails page and click 'Next" to then,look for three 'clips' each with "Quest Air Florida" in the title they are labelled: aerotow launch thermal
click on any one - they are each 'about' 2-3 minutes - and 'about' 20 megabytes
Thursday, 4 May:
The world's scores (Women's / SWIFT / Rigid wing) / info is at: This Web Site (CIVL / FAI based)
We learned a LOT by being there - but we also realized that volunteering is a LOT of WORK in the HOT SUN from about 11:30 a.m. til as late as 3:30 p.m., and though we got 'coupons' for tow-up it's not a bad deal, at all, for volunteer. You can't really get towed up and still fly in the 'best' part of the day (for lift) since that's when the competitors are flying. However, at our stage of learning we just wanted to fly - and though we could have - there were some days when they called it quits for the 'free-flying' and some days when the weather wasn't so good, and so-forth.
When we first learned how to hang-glide we wanted 'calm' air, but now that we're attempting to advance our skills (to learn thermalling (to take advantage of warmer-air-parcels moving "UP"...) - we need to fly later in the day in the 'bumpier' air and to learn how to utilize the thermals that are developing. Some of the competitors would go 100-160 kilometers during a long task. Some day we'll be able to do this, also, but for right now our 'challenge' is to stay-aloft 1-2-3-4 hours over the Quest field and land back at Quest so we don't have to have a 'ground crew' (a whole 'nother' episode!). An additional challenge is to learn to land on our feet - we're still using wheels mounted on the cross-bar (you can just barely see these in the set of pictures below the ones of the mini-van), but eventually we need to develop a lot of other skills - probably the first is to develop the foot-landing skill. Then we need to learn more about foot launching and windy-cliff, and so-on and so-forth...
OH: - Mr. Bill 'FINALLY' finished the "UGLY" (but fairly well engineered) front-support for hang-gliders for the Toyota Mini-Van. (with Ms. May's glider on top). Picture taken in Groveland, at Quest Air. The 'nice' thing about this front-support is that the mini-Van still gets about 24 mpg with this thing (with no glider on it) whereas the trailer we WERE pulling to put hang-gliders on yielded an MPG of about 15-16, so we're saving BUNCHES with this new 'integrated' support, and it takes less than 5 minutes to put it on/off the car - the lower-end stays on the front 'semi-permanently' but it doesn't affect the view or the gas-mileage at all.
Mr. Bill's (rental) glider - pictured here - it's an older version (Falcon 1) of May's glider which is a Falcon 2. So Mr. Bill's glider is a bit older and a bit larger, but other than that basically the same as Ms. May's glider. there were some 'towing-issues' with this glider on 28 May so - we learned a bit of something from that and after talking with our "Mr. Awesome Bob" about towing - learned even more. These new towing-things we can put to use next time we are in / at Groveland for
some more tows...
Wednesday, 24 May: - herein we pay tribute to Ms. Tigger - who was our wonderful house companion and lovely 4-legged meow-cat for just over two years... Unfortunately Ms. Tigger seems to have disappeared on Monday, 22 May - at least no-one has seen her since Monday (and now it's Tuesday, 30th) - UGH UGH UGH - We know Ms. Tigger had had a lot of kidney problems and we know she was a "people person" and we'd been away for a week when we arrived back home on Wednesday, 24th... - She was missing - and still is - I fear she is long-gone but I hope, severely, that her passing was painless and that she knew that we loved her and loved her a LOT!!! - Ms. Siew Mei - never Ms. Tigger's favourite friend now meows constantly - I guess Siew Mei misses miss Tigger just like Ms. May and I miss her?
Monday, 22 May: Competition cancelled at 2:15 (after 3 x 30 minute delays0 for lack of 'lift' - we might be able to fly at 6-7 pm but don't know - they close their office at 6pm - so who-knows? - - and because they didn't launch, today, we have no 'dinner coupon' and no 'tow-coupon' - so we now have to pay for things?
- begining of the 'last week' of the competitions - at 09:15 a.m. - there's several tandem / instruction activities going-on and lots of other 'happenings' in / around the 'air-park'... we have had breakfast, gassed the car and washed-off the front-love-bugs (Bill) and used Ronsonol lighter fluid to remove tree-sap (Ms. May) from various and sundry things.
Weather for today looks 'iffy' right now - but - perhaps - clearning in the afternoon.... - we might get to fly after the competitors take-off this afternoon, again - will Mr. Bill and/or Ms. May either one of us get a 'lengthy' flight? - who knows - but stay-tuned! - Sincerely yours, Bill & May
PS: - we had to hire some 'ground-crew' (or larger image) out of our earnings - these guys are helping us figure out the multiple button-pushing-options on our varios!
Several people have asked about 'our-camp' - well - click on the image to get larger view.
Sunday, 21 May: Today is the fourth day of the (Hang Gliding) competition(s) and we launched them, again, today, without incident... BUT _ Further - Ms. May and Mr. Bill had a good afternoon - and a 'new personal best' - Mr. Bill stayed-up over 1 hour - this is a real accomplishment - though '60 minutes' is 'just a number' it is definitely an accomplishment and several people who I highly-respect have complimented me, and my instructor "Awesome Bob" has announced this to several people, too - so I feel REALLY GOOD about this - maximum altitude was about 963 meters - and maximum lift was about 6.5 meters / second which is GREAAT... Ms. May had a couple of good flights, too, today, - we'll report more tomorrow... See Mr. Bill's on-line-flight-log-book here.
ALSO: _ Mr. Bill finally bought a helmet (after spending a total of 40 minutes trying to find a local / rental)- identical to Ms. May's helmet - but white in Color - and 'XL' in size. We thought of taking a picture with Mr. Bill 'modelling' his new helmet, but decided this model was a lot more 'beautiful' and so he's modelling the helmet on Mr. Bill's behalf. - Some Day Soon, we'll get the radio 'stuff' to do PTT and listen and so-forth - Mr. Bill's Dad is going to 'gift' us with an Icom 2-meter radio that may need some work - so - perhaps - soon - we'll be able to talk to each other in the air - and/or we'll be able to talk with our 'ground-crew' (who we have not yet selected?
Saturday, 20 May: - 07:00 raining (well drizzling to be more precise) - and overcast and chilly and muggy - but - it's 'supposed' to clear-up today and perhaps we'll get to fly this afternoon!, we hope - we'll have to set-up Ms. May's glider and the one I use is already set-up - someone used it late yesterday afternoon for just one flight - someone who had never launched off a 'cart'... Anyway we both flew this afternoon - each had two flights about 20 - 30 minutes. - we use 'coupons' they give us each day for working the 'launch-crew' job. - they also give us a coupon for dinner - normally at least 4-6 different 'dishes' and always some veggie stuff - and it's both tasty and there is plenty of food
then the next day - we can get in our 'wrap' for lunch - the left-over(s) from the previous night - like roasted-salmon in a wrap or beef or veggie-stuff... - anyway the food is
pretty spectacular for a bunch of people in a tent - led by some lady from Chicago who is VERY GOOD at what she does...
Friday, 19 May:
Well - we didn't get to fly, again, today, because the weather was too windy for us - but maybe on Saturday afternoon. The launching, today was very very
"messy" because of the strong west wind without a lot of lift - and a long launch-window-open, etc. etc. etc. etc. - lots of things more technical that we should go into on a public-distribution-web-site.
However, we did - this afternoon pick up Mr. Armand and his 'SWIFT' glider (in the second picture below) - from near Leesburg, Florida - he'd landed in a field and called us on our cell-phone and we drove his BIG VAN and BIG Trailer (a SWIFT must be taken-apart to transport and put in a specially built trailer) - anyway - it was an Adventure for May and myself to use the GPS to find him. Like a lot of pick-ups - we found (especially here in Florida) a small 'lake' in our 'way' - and finally - once we got AROUND the lake (on roads that were, of course, not on the map) we found him easily...
Thursday 18 May:
- at Quest Air - first day of the Women's World Championships and the Rigid Wing World Championships as well as the SWIFT World Championships...
we have a 'just a few' pictures of the launching today -
This is a 'SWIFT' - it's a particular type of 'foot-launchable-sail-plane' and we have a fairly good friend who flies one - he's from Canada.
This is a picture of Mr. Frank (he owns the property (and the orange-groves) in/around Quest Air, and this is someone's 'random dog' that got involved in the flight-line, today and so the dog had to be removed... - Mr. Frank does this work, gladly
and we have one or two pictures of our 'early morning adventure' with Mr. Carlos Punet of Madrid, Spain - who we e-mailed with a month or so ago - but he was supposed to fly today - but had no glider. It was 'stuck' in (US) Customs in Orlando Airport - so we left Quest this morning at about 06:20 a.m. with him and went to 'do our thing' and were back here at Quest by a bout 10:30 and so he launched at about 12:50 and he's flying now...
A few pictures of Mr. Carlos & Mr. Bill opening his (very well built box) at Forward Air services and left the box there.
then a picture just before leaving there to bring Mr. Carlos and his rigid wing glider (on our Trailex Trailer)... back here to Quest...
O.K., O.K., everyone (including us) is 'bored' with all these 'static' pictures... - a good friend of ours - James - from the United Kingdom (also an 'ex-Motorolan (like Mr. Bill)), has a Sony Video Cam that records directly to a DVD right in the camera. - He's used this with his custom-made (less than $10) camera mount to get some excellent digital video of himself flying around Quest Air here in Groveland, Florida... The video - clips are on Google Video - here's the link: (make sure you are on high-speed-internet)
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=hangliding&page=2&lv=0&so=0
IF you get 'lost' then there is a way to get there by 'pieces'
go to 'Google' and type in 'google video'
when you get back a list - click on the first link (Google Video) and then type in: "hangliding" - press return
when you get some 'thumbnails' then you may have to scroll to the bottom of the thumbnails page and click 'Next" to then,look for three 'clips' each with "Quest Air Florida" in the title they are labelled: aerotow launch thermal
click on any one - they are each 'about' 2-3 minutes - and 'about' 20 megabytes
Thursday, 4 May:
WELL a TERRIFC "PERSONAL BEST" record
