Our Friends at Aeros continue to need our help.
As the completely unjustified action of the Russian Military and its WAR against the people of Ukraine continues, the Ukrainian needs our support. Well governments around the world provide military assistance, the needs of day to day life continue. Please see the message from Aeros below and help if you can. Thanks..... Martin and Mia
For Sale, Rotor Havana
If your a short skinny assed pilot, this might be a sweet option for a good price. After a few years of trying to enjoy the benefits of this well made harness I decided to sell it. I'm 5'11" and 165 pounds, right out on the very limit of the fit.
If your 5'9" up to 5'10" and weigh less than 160pounds it could be the perfect harness. (Manufacture came very close to making this a perfect harness but missed by just a few cm's... )
The Rotor Havana is super well made but they are a race harness and need to have an exact fit. My fit made for a super clean rig but did not make for a comfortable "butt lever pitch control". Stuffing on a couple extra layers for spring flying and it simply won't work.
Zipper setup is the smoothest of all the harnesses. Getting upright is supper easy. I'm right out at the very end of the adjustment, a shorter pilot might find it to be a perfect fit. (Because of the fit, I did add a trim lock system that is easily removed)
I'm asking $1200 USD, essentially "new" with less than 50 hours air time. I will not ship and I would want anyone interested to pick up and fit the harness before purchase. I will be in Mansfield (Washington USA) for the first 3 weeks in July if anyone cares to send me a note via the blog and arrange to drop by... Or if you are in Canada, I will be in Abbotsford through to the end of the month... Cheers!
(BTW, I'm planning to go back to my old smelly Moyes Matrix for now.....)
So... the other day I decided to "charge" my flying junk......
Thinking back to them "Old Days" when a helmet was considered an option I get the feeling we certainly have lost site of the concept of keeping it simple! What inspired this little assessment was my new Bluetooth headset system which has 3 devices that need to be charge.... so laying it all out (and looking for another wall outlet to hook another charger to...):
Finding 10 electrical outlets... not easy! Would not come as a surprise if one day something in this mess does not simply burst into flames.... 😆
After nearly 3 years away from Mansfield it was the perfect conditions to get back in air.
There has been plenty of windy unstable weather around but there was a brief window, a day where light winds, low chance of overdevelopment. Mia stepped up to run the rig (the best tow op in World!)
The glider, harness, rig had not changed during the Covid time out but I tossed in the usual long list of little changes that could create some challenge. After all, at the base of the tow system is our 1990 Ford F150... you never know when its going to have a snit (like its owner). We have a new towline recovery chute, new Bluetooth headset system in my kit, some toasty electric gloves that I have never used, a Garmin InReach Mini GPS tracker, first time I've used an Android backup (running XC Tracker)... it was cold so I layered up and was like a stuffed sausage in my harness.
Conditions turned out to be perfect for a "low drama" flight. Managed a nice 180km FAI in 5 hours, L-Road to Wilson Creek, up past Wilbur to Sherman and managed to pick my way back across the top to L-Road (lift was dying and a headwind was picking up). Top of lift for most of the flight was 8000 asl, tho I did manage 10,000 late in the day. Radio with its BT headset worked perfect. I fired up the Electric gloves a few times, they kept the cool air from freezing the fingers. Being stuffed tight into the Rotor harness left the Butt lever not working well "butt" I managed ;-).
The Garmin InReach failed to track the flight? Not sure what was up with that, thought I turned tracking on but? Guess its back to the "manual" to see what step I missed.
Thought it was going to be an easy landing with pretty good breeze at L-Road but it thermal blocked just as I turned final, botched my landing and skidded in like a Euro, no harm to the glider but did manage to tweak my shoulder. Oh well. (Looks like Motrin, Ice, Heat and Scotch for a few days).
I've decided to end my participation in the OLC (DHV, PG and such... ), Plenty of reasons for this change but mainly it comes down to not wanting to be part of a "game". Going to shift over to personal goals. If people want to read about our flying in central Washington it will be their choice. Hopefully this SeeYou snap will work (as a flight summary)? I do have a online log book with OLC server, might post the link at a later date.
For now, it looks like it's going to be a bunch of windy blustery weather for the next week. Likely won't get big bird back into the air until end of June. Felt nice to get some airtime....
Cheers
In the fall of 2019, we closed up our little shack in Mansfield Washington. As usual, we felt sad to be ending our time in town but as always, looking forward to "Next" year and another season of flying. The "lock-up" included all the usual preparations for what can be brutal winter weather. Little did we know just how long it would be before we could return.
It was January of 2020 when there was a departure from what we had always known as "normal". Late winter, early spring we would begin planning for another season, typically including a March or April blast down to re-open the shack. The world wide pandemic called "Covid" changed everything.
Covid the beast taught me a great deal about people and community. I witnessed everything from selfless commitment to the war on this virus to selfish disregard to others and the future. Some governments reacted in a way that any giant bureaucracy can, health and science, others with denial and ignorance (one famous leader was quoted as saying "it will go away in spring"....). Right or Wrong, lockdowns, travel bans and border closures became the tools used to combat the early stages of the virus. The first Vaccine would not arrive until early 2021. In that year, Covid did its damage.
Learning to live with this new era of reduced contact was a challenge for us all. When the virus was not the problem, the effects of social isolation was not far off. My mother, at 94 years of living became confused by the world around her and passed way June of 2020. She had a very long and wonderful life but like many in our medical system at this time suffered from the changes that Covid brought to our world. (I work in the Hospital, Health Care and Hospitality industry, I witness the carnage the "cure" would bring to our society). I'm not saying I know what was right or wrong, I do know the choices were hard. I also know that human selfishness made this world wide problem much more difficult than it would have been had we all worked together.
For 2020, the option to travel to our property in Mansfield was pretty much out of reach. Testing and travel/border restrictions made the task so difficult we could only watch our favorite summer place via a fleet of cheap web cams that we left on and connected... at least we had the pleasure of seeing the flocks of birds and deer that took up residence on our property! (including the building and battles for nesting supremacy "on" the cameras ;-) ) Also want to say THANKS to our "Guy" Donny and is crew for taking up the lawn cutting, keeping the place respectable and presentable.
After the somber summer of dealing with the passing of my mother it appeared the twists and turns of fate were not done. Early September 2020 brought the giant Pearl hill fire. This astounding beast in Washington State was actually the combination of the Cold Spring fire (Near Omak) jumping the Columbia river and creating the Pearl Hill fire. With an unseasonably strong Red Flag north wind, a careless man made fire on the Labor Day Long weekend sparked near Omak and ran all the way to southern Jameson Coulee.... over 50 miles in days to create the largest complex fire in the history of Washington State. Right in its path was Mansfield and our summer shack. This is my Video that captured the events of the fire passing around Mansfield. Amazing work done by both fire crews and farmers in the area. There were structures lost but they were few. Sadly the Cold Spring portion of this fire caused two deaths in a young family trying to get out of the way (my condolences) . Locally, several old homesteads (including L+13, one of our staging areas were destroyed), and a local landmark/home in Saint Andrews were lost.
Done with 2020, in came 2021.... the Americans had a small problem with the attempted overthrow of their government?... Blame it on Covid, everybody was just a little stressed and had to take it out on something... or somebody? Oh well, democracy at work.
Spring 2021, travel restrictions continued, Vaccine started to kick in (and so did the anti vac people... ). Trusting the science we got our shots (and tracking chip used by Bill Gates?).... we gave hope to the science.
By Summer of 2021, a mass heat wave kicked off in British Columbia, estimated to have been responsible for 700+ deaths. The heat wave brought record temps across the Northwest (Hanford WA recorded 120f). Lyton BC recorded the highest temperature ever recorded in Canada , 121f and the next day caught fire and burned to the ground, setting off a summer of monster fires across the province.
Fall 2021, things started to calm down when it came to world calamities. Another round of Covid, a wave less than the last leaving some hope. Then mother nature dished out something special for southern BC and Northern Washington State... an "atmospheric river" , this caused mass catastrophic disasters included severed major highways (shutting down connections to the west coast), biblical flooding in the Fraser Valley (near our home)... and pretty much disrupted life for another 3 months..... oh and that Covid thing, kicked out another surprise... Omicron, dwarfing infection rates greater than every previous wave of Covid.
Arrive 2022 (holding our breath for "what's next"?). Finally a little light at the end of the tunnel. Travel restrictions were being amended (tho... lets just say people were becoming mentally unhinged and were traveling regardless of the risk... which brought us the smash hit Omicron). Logistically using self administered Covid Testing the option to visit our place in Mansfield appeared doable, so we committed to this two week stay. Of course, not a time of year to go flying but at least a chance to chase out the mice, clean up 2.5 years of dead bugs and dust and turn the shack back into a home. All in all the place did well (and my cheap web cams and network continue to work!).
Ah but not all smiles and roses.... What next? The idiot Putin and his Russian gangsters decided to invade Ukraine. Our worlds newest member of the Adolf Hitler club. He even used dark warnings suggesting if the "The West" came to aid Ukraine, he would start using the nukes. This is as his army lobs shells back an forth over his old Soviet era atomic power facilities (including notorious Chernobyl). 10+million people displaced, 3 million refugees escaping to the west. Madness.
The Russian army is slowly laying waste to Ukraine, Our friends in Kiev, the employees of Aeros, one of the few hang gliding manufactures left in our sport, have had to take up arms or flee this senseless destruction. Well the west ponders and pontificates its support for Ukraine, there is hope the the Ukrainian people and their will, is enough to stop this criminal act committed by the Russian leaders and military.
As to what could possibly be waiting for us in 2022?... God only knows.
Strength to Ukraine and its people.... (my mother was born north of Odessa)
