F3F Practise at Levisham

29th September, Levisham, Westerly, 15 - 30 mph, sun & blue skies.

Although EM style is all the vogue at the moment my attempts at Levisham last Saturday on the course had mixed results.

In practise with a good climb out, plenty of ballast and the snap flap turned off (more about that later) EM style turns were fast and good fun, on the course they were consistent, consistently slow!

I struggled with the climb outs, my pumping drifted off the course a couple of times, activating the buzzer's prematurely so I gave up trying to do that.

The run times were in the low 50's, the only run that felt marginally quicker got messed up with a cut which cost me greatly, resulting in a 57.xx run.

After that I gave up the EM style and went back to reversals where I did a 45.xx, 60.xx & a 48.xx. I learned today that EM is consistent where as the reversal is still a bit hit and miss depending on how good your air is.

With regards to snap flap, I managed to find a setting that worked better, I backed it off a couple of mm, down to approximately 1mm and have it coming in later at 30 % (previously had it coming in immediately ). Although I tried it again yesterday back on the home slope (Tow Scar) and in mega lift I ended up with it switched off again, so still a work in progress.

More practice required, but have a better feel for it, I am starting to initiate the turn using rudder with minimal aileron input, following some advice, and trying not to pull too much elevator around the turn. Just need to work on positioning the glider back into the lift band, which is a lot easier with reversal, and finding the bases again with the new style. As always a lot easier in practise than when on the course as there is a still a lot to remember as it does not come naturally, yet!

It does go scarily fast though, and I had a big scare when it nearly took my head off and got spat out into the rotor on the edge, but managed to save it and fight back through the rotor to get back onto the slope!

Video below of practice before we got the course up, still working on the other video.


Cyril at Levisham from Tom Foreman on Vimeo.