27 de ago. de 2009

Caminho das Indias

Tenho um amigo na India, o Samarth, que aprendeu a voar de asa delta sozinho. Não tinha ninguém na sua região que conhecia ou praticava o esporte e ele "inventou" uma asa delta e estava planejando se jogar de algum morro na terra dele. Graças a Deus e a tecnologia de hoje, pela Internet ele divulgou sua obra e felizmente foi convencido a não usá-la. Não ia dar certo... Mas sensibilizados pela vontade do Samarth de voar, alguns pilotos lhe enviaram o equipamento e ele aprendeu a voar sozinho! Muitos, assim como eu, davam dicas. Ele foi estudando o assunto, voa e de tempos em tempos manda notícias. Já faz permanências em vôos como o da foto em dias de vento. Veja abaixo seu relato do vôo (foto) feito em 02 de agosto passado:
"Hello All, I flew yesterday ( ah ! I flying almost every weekend), the specs are as follows: Wind direction - SSW 20 km/hr, little gusty. Location - Arna (Rajasthan, INDIA). Time - launch 8.30. A.M. Flight duration about 30 minutes. I gained the highest altitude in this flight, I was about thrice the height of the ridge, I gained height by criss crossing in a thermal. The best part was that I took a 360 degree turn ( not in the thermal) when quite high, I enjoyed it a lot unfortunately it was not recorded in the video. The launch was not good as I was not pulling in and hence stalled a bit due to a gust or a thermal. I was thrown out of the lift band but somehow managed to get in. The landing was even worse I was landing perfectly but as soon as I flared I zoomed about ten feet due to a gust and the right upright hit the earth , I held the flare and the glider came down vertical and slightly tilted at the last moment,two or three feet (height) of margin would have given me a good landing, so I can say that I missed it by that margin. This was my second successive bad landing, last weekend I landed just in front of the ridge and though it was not my first landing there, I ran short of the landing zone by about 50 feet (there was deep gorge at the end of the field) and as soon as I was on the edge I opted for a wheel landing, the wheels stuck in the soft sand and I was soon between the crossbar (left the uprights) and hit the keel. I cut my upper lip slightly and there was a bruise in my chin, it was a minor accident but I came out safely. I opted for wheel landing because the glider still had enough power and it would have zoomed a lot and this situation would have been more dangerous. I analyzed the problem and found that there was wind on the hill but very less in the LZ and that I did not realize, I ground skimmed a lot, it's there in the video, had I known that there was less wind I would have taken a longer turn and burnt some altitude. The strimer in the LZ was a single strip of Dacron and hence it is difficult to makeout how strong the wind is. After that I made a wind sock and used it during this flight but I landed on a different field during this weekend flight. Attached are two pictures from the flight..there is my new Windsock... Cheers! Samarth"

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