June 28/17 am – Tandem with Eric

It was beautiful morning. Grass was dry and no wind. It took me six tries to get off the ground. Grrr. I could not figure out why but then I have realized that I left my baseball cap on and put my helmet over top of it?! The sunshield was restricting my vision. What a dummy I am! I’ve done this once before.

Flight itself is quite bumpy near the ground even though it was very early in the morning. We end up climbing to about 2000 feet to enjoy very smooth air but not a lot of penetration up there. We have worked our way towards Welland canal but it was slow On our way back though we were clicking about 70 km/h per hour. Very bumpy and quite thermally on my landing approach.

Great flight after while. I’m glad we finally got to do it because we had to reschedule about five times. Not very good season this year for PPG

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June 24/17 – PPG course day 8 pm

Mike and Kevin went home so it was just me and Konstantin.

He managed 10 flights and many touch and goes. We have practiced forced landings and big ears.

Well done! 25 flights in Konstantin’s log book.

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June 24/17 – PPG course day 8 am

Great morning. Kevin completed his 30 flights. Congrats and finishing the course. Congrats, well done!

Konstantin was on fire – 9 flights! He has 15 now.

Mike was helping out as his shoulder will take a while to recover.

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June 23/17 – PPG course day 7 pm

Training cancelled – too windy again. Very windy season. Very unussual.

June 23/17 – PPG course day 7 am

Training cancelled – too windy

June 22/17 – PPG course day 6 pm

Training cancelled – too windy

June 22/17 – PPG course day 6 am

Pretty good flying this morning. Kevin was hammering flight after flight trying to get his 30. Managed to do eight touch and goes and four full stop landings. We have also practiced big ears emergency descent maneuvers and several forced landings. Well done, he’s got 28 flights now.

Konstantin managed three flights he’s taking it tad slower because he doesn’t have as much experience as Kevin but he’s very solid. His total is 5 flights.

Mike was standing by taking video and helping out. His shoulder is still very sore.

Fun times. We have some crappy weather coming our way – it looks like next possible flying won’t be till Saturday morning. I think the students are planning to get drunk tonight. Ha

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June 21/17 – PPG course day 5 pm

Last night was finally one of those late afternoon and evenings that is perfectly suitable for PPG training. Three hours before sunset when starting to come down, the cummulus clouds disappeared and wind started to get smooth. Kevin was anxious to put more flights in his logbook and Konstantin was hoping for his first solo.

The plan was to send Kevin up first to see how windy it is above and if the conditions are appropriate Konstantin will try. Is it exactly what we did. Kevin did two quick climbs can landed for a short break and that was a time to get Konstantin flying.

We set up, and after couple failed reverse inflation Konstantin locked in the glider, turned around and I told him to apply power. He did without hesitation and after a few short steps he was in the air.

Meanwhile Kevin continued flying including several touch and goes. I gave Konstantin good half an hour to enjoyed year because conditions nice and smooth and he worked really really hard for this. After half an hour I have assisted Konstantin into land and I have to touchdown I have seen one of the strongest emotional reaction to this milestone in Kontantins life. It was very powerful.

Kevin kept on flying and improving to the point where he is now landing on his own, doing touch and goes and thanks for working for him really well. He ended up with 10 flights last night. That makes it 16 for him.

Log book Kevin Dybka

Replanted practice big ears. emergency forced landings and straight climbing. Kevin will be done soon and that is a good thing because he came for this course all the way from Winnipeg.

Very successful evening, went for a bite to eat and beer and celebrated Kevin and Konstantine’s achievement. Mike is standing by mostly taking video and helping out because his shoulder is really sore hey will take a while to heal it properly.

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After pretty good landing we set up again this time for forward insulation

June 21/17 – PPG course day 5 am

It was an excellent morning today. Nice and cool, grass was little bit dewy but sun burned it off very quickly. When we started to set up we only had 5 km/h wind. Kevin were first to go, he tried few forwards but they didn’t work for him. After those failed attempts I went to Mike. He was ready to go and since the wind started to get up to 10 Km/h we went for it. On his first inflation glider came up with ear under line. I told him to stop the take off over radio but he was too into it and took off. So there was a small disturbance in this canopy that was causing him to constantly turn left. He was having hard time dealing with it and also was not fully seated even though we paracticed this in the simulator and he didn’t have any issues with that. He flew couple circuits like this and then we decided to land. He had unstabilized landing tripped and fell down on his knees and his side. The problem was that his left shoulder was injured long time ago and now is susceptible to coming in and out of the socket and that is exactly what happened. It was hurting him but he was willing to go up again.

Meanwhile Kevin get ready and since there was more wind he was able to reverse and in no time Kevin managed five amazing flights. He is steadily improving every flight and take offs and landings are better than the previous – ones he’s also loving it. I can tell. It’s going to make a great pilot.

Mike tried again to take off, perfect inflation, perfect stabilization but as he started to off the power and start to run do you end up jumping in to see Julie. This again aggravated his shoulder to the point where it starts to hurt that he could not try again.

Konstantin was working on his reverse inflations with the motor on once Kevin and Mike were done with their flights I spend an hour with Konstantin cleaning up his technique. He has improved to the point where he now feels confident to go on first solo. I’m pretty sure it’s going to happen for him this afternoon.

Congratulations to Mike on two more flights. Congratulation Kevin on five aditional flights. Good luck Konstantin on your solo tonight.

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June 20/17 – PPG course day 4 pm

After much back and forth over texts and emails checking the forecast till 7:30 PM we have decided to cancel evening training session because of high winds and thunderstorms.