Tuesday, March 29th 2022
Club members Nick Hoffmann, Phaedra Ovdiyenko, and myself continued our adventures in Minden Nevada with aerobatic training.
Nick went first in the morning and after donning a parachute, was towed up to 10,000’ MSL (-5300 ft AGL). Immediately on release, the ASK-21 was put into a dive to build airspeed and Nick proceeded to be instructed on loops, hammerhead stalls, wing-overs, and mostly-inverted flight. Our instructor Gabe didn’t like the feel of things on the aileron roll so we abandoned inverted flying for the day. After his flight, we had to wait for clouds to clear out for an open area to perform the maneuvers.
Phaedra was in the front seat doing more loops and hammerhead stalls and wing-overs. Gabe then also demonstrated a high speed low pass with a climb into the base leg of the pattern immediately afterwards - trading speed for altitude and seamlessly transitioning into the landing.
I went last and did more of the same. We all loved it. It was exhilarating to put the glider in unusual attitudes, speeds in excess of 100 knots, and feel in control the whole time.
Club member consensus—highly recommend.
