Patience and determination sure pays off

Teaching hang gliding continues to amaze me...what a great endevour this has become. Helping new people work towards the goal of free-flight is incredibly rewarding...for both instructor and student.

This past weekend's forecast was terrible up until Thursday and then showed some reasonable possibility for some ok training. We ended up having probably our best weekend of training this year. Sure the skies were grey and far from ideal soaring conditions (which are what us hang glider pilots normally look for) and there were scattered rain forecasted for most of the weekend but some dedicated and determined students came out Friday evening, camped over-night and were rewarded with a marathon training session on Saturday morning...first flights were at 6:30 and the rain finally started at 2:30 which brought a welcomed break. We did close to 50 tows by then and we all needed a break.

It sure is fun growing a great community of new pilots - everyone has such a great attitude to learn and to help others learn as well. We had another new student finally able to make it out this weekend after trying to come out all season. With the other students' help, Lonnie flew sixteen times between Friday and Saturday's training sessions. More on Lonnie's unique accomplishments later...

Rain settled in Saturday afternoon but tat didn't stop Ryan's determination. He relocated our winch an gliders to our clubs flying site and camped out there in the rain with his entire family....just to progress a couple of students to the next level. Ryan and I were both out Sunday morning and did about a dozen tows with Nick and Scott, their first high tows and first time towing in a bit of wind (upwards of 15kmh). They both did a great job progressing at good pace taking each challenge very seriously. Nice job guys - I'm very impressed and proud!

So on a weekend that I would have personally not even considered to go free-flying, we helped students fly almost 70 times...unbelievable.

I think it is a sign of s great fall flying season just around the bend - fall brings the best flying around here....mellow winds which brings both great training conditions as well as probably the most reliable soaring conditions of the year.