The picture above is of Andy and I sharing the same elevator up. Highlights today were sharing those turns with Andy, getting my first flight on the Matrix Race, joining 2 PG’s (Kiernan and Chris?) in a late day boomer over the Coors plant (smelled great), getting a first flight in a cocoon harness.
Above pic, catching the first climb out from launch for my second flight. Might be Kiernan in the background (middle right).
There’s 3 pg’s in this picture..
2 in this one… Chris on the red Maverick and Kiernan on Chris’ wing?
It’s cool to look at this harness where my eyes can’t see.
The Sport 2 is so nice to try new harnesses with. In the Matrix Race (new harness), once I rocked up to come into final and land, I didn’t notice my helmet hitting the harness backplate at all. I thought I rocked up as much as possible but when I flared, I didn’t have the arm length quite as good as I’m used to with my old single point so I’m going to lower the leg loops an inch and see how that changes things.
This was an iterative process with the previous single point harness too. Leg loop length, and making sure you rock up then “schimy” down a bit so the leg loops are snugged up were the first steps last time. Then, fine tuning leg loop length until it’s just right. Longer loops lets you sink down in the harness a bit and doing that puts more weight on the feet end of the hang point. More weight in the back helps create the best head up position possible. Also makes it easier for the arms to be up where they should be.
After sweating so much in fleece and bala clava etc for the first flight, I just wore a T-shirt and speed sleeves on the second flight. Naturally, that’s the flight I got way high on and I froze my fricking tail off. Ain’t complaining tho and used the altitude to play around with wing overs coming down to 7-8kft to warm up. The adrenaline also helped push the shivers back. There were a couple thermals that were noticeably warmer air than the surrounding which kept inviting me to go up again. Late for poker night in Boulder, I boated around down low waiting for launch to go back to SE wind for toplanding and doing away with truck retrieval but it had locked in N so I opted to cruise over the main LZ to see what the deal was. Tried to hang out watching for a while but it was pretty solid N-NW so I landed in the miners given that I was landing a foriegn harness. Rocking up in the cocoon took me by surprise at how head-up I was. Man was that cool.
Always clear the power lines!
1 minute video, Launch, great footage circling w/Andy, and landing. Adobe won’t let me have sound today.
Looks like the week is shaping up to give us some flying finally!
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