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Friday, August 21, 2009

#328 Simms

The low pressure is gone and we are enjoying a couple of days of "High Pressure System" Bliss. At 6:00am the wind was too high to fly but it came down nicely while I set up. Simms has dried out and there are patches where the grass/weeds are low enough to launch the trike.

The launch was allot like last night, I got up to speed and used a little brake to get me out of the weeds. Of course, when I do this I'm going to float at 5 feet for awhile before I start climbing. This time was no different except that I felt an obvious pull to the left. When I looked up there was a fairly large tumble weed caught in the lines, up high, near the left tip. I have no idea where it came from. I'd policed the area and relocated several large twigs during set up but somehow it found it's way into my flight. I couldn't tell for sure but it looked like it was distorting the lines and possibly drawing a few together. I noticed a slight pucker in the airfoil and that was enough to convince me to abort the flight.

The air was moderately bumpy, but I still took two laps before landing. The landings are getting better. I just have to really muscle the brake during the final flare.

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