So after a total of 2 hours coached tunnel time, my position in sit-fly has improved dramatically, but I'm still not stable by myself for more than a few seconds. I really need to get into the air to practice properly but the UK weather really isn't playing ball with that - currently gale force winds howling around on the first weekend I've had free in a while. And it's cold...... I have a baggy winter FS suit for fitting lots of thermals underneath but not sure how I'm going to attempt any kind of FF suit for these conditions. My super-cheap 10th anniversary tunnel time is all used up and Paul is in Dubai until 14th December for the FAI World Air Games so time to get back to FS for a bit.
Had a couple of 4-way sessions with the new line-up for Aeronauts (Niels has now replaced Rod) which proved somewhat challenging in terms of sorting wind speeds and fall rates. We had forgotten to note down our wind speed after the previous session so went with the recommendation of the tunnel rat at 68%. I was first in and despite wearing lead, instantly popped up high enough to get my feet stuck in the top of the doorway, lol. The others didn't fare much better so we had the speed dropped down a bit but it was still rather hit and miss as to who was popping up and who was sinking down to the net, partly due to differences in body positions and flying techniques. By the end of the first session, at the break we decided that I would swap weight belts with Niels so he had more lead and I would arch more. That improved things quite a bit though Jonathan still struggled to get off the net several times. On watching the videos, we decided that we could really do with some formal coaching. We had improved over the sessions but there are probably lots of things we can do to fly better together as a team. Since Tarn was coaching another team, I asked her if she had availability for our next session - luckily she does, so on Saturday we have 4 sessions with a break between each to attempt to make some decent progress. And somewhat optimistically, we have agreed to check the weather forecast to see if we can get in the air on the Sunday!!
In the meantime, having watched the aptly named Mayhem-ites creating havoc in the tunnel at Bedford last month, I am now fully healed so it's time to join in the carnage :-) They didn't actually manage to get any further than 4-way groups last time, so there will be more focus on individual skills this time, then hopefully build up to 6- and 8- way sessions. The idea is to improve everyone's flying skills so that when we build the Speed 8, each person joining is under control and is not "combat docking" and threatening to take the whole team out :-D
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