Final SIV Flight

From: Brendan
Activity_Date: 06/12/01
Remote Name: 207.178.212.114

Comments

Tuesday, June 12 was the final day of maneuvers. We had started on Saturday with sustained B-line stalls and each maneuver had been a little more intense, a little more horrifying, than the previous one. This was made more obvious by the mood during the hour long ride to launch. Saturday, the mood had been light, some nervous giggles, but mostly a lot of chatter. Tuesday it was quiet. People were smoking, chewing gum, and watching the forest. I compared it to the opening scene in Saving Private Ryan when the soldiers were on their way to the beach, in the carrier, thinking about what was about to happen.

At launch there were always those that held back and those that wanted to get it over with. I was part of the latter group and generally managed to be first or second off. The fun had gone out of the exercises after the first day. I appreciated the learning process, but mostly I just wanted to get through them.

I launched second for the final SIV flight. My buckles were buckled, my life-jacket snug, my radio positioned strategically in its waterproof bag; everything ready. The 10 minute glide from the launch to the maneuvers area over the Agean Sea gave me plenty of time to think and to enter the comitted, trance-like state that seemed better able to handle the wing in the crisis situations that would follow.

I entered the zone with over 4000 feet beneath me. Jocky Sanderson was bobbing below me in an outboard boat ready to fish me out of the water if things should go terribly wrong. Oh the anticipation of it all! The tingling stomach, the sweaty palms, the deep breaths, they are all still with me as I write this.

Finally the radio crackled and I heard Jocky's voice say, "All right, you're at full trim speed, now full right break. Whack it on!"

I took a wrap of the brake line and burried my right hand under my harness. I immediately felt the right side of the wing stall and I felt the lines twist above me as I entered the spin. Then the diving, twirling madness began. I quickly lost track of the wing orientation as it whipped around me, one instant it was beside me, then it would be overhead, then behind. I was spinning, the wing was spinning, even the ground was spinning. I couldn't tell up from down, It was absolute chaos.

Through the din of the wind noise I heard Jocky's voice say, "Stall it now! Full left break!" Comitted to the maneuver, I slammed down the left break and felt immediate peace as the wing dropped uselessly and for a moment I was weightless, calm, tipped back in my harness, staring straight up at the blue sky, thankful at least to be out of the blender.

But we had already done full stalls and I knew what was next; the drop. My stomach rose as the rest of me fell in an unrestricted free fall. I kept both of my hands down, stuffed hard under my harness, as the wing flapped above me like a sheet on the closeline. The wing was in a "stable stall" (if that's not a contradiction in terms) and I was plummeting towards the sea.

Feeling I had stablzied the stall for as long as necessary, I chose to release it on my own time. Apparently I chose the wrong moment to release because as soon as I did the wing rocketed forward, I dampened it, but then was hurled to the side, then bounced around violently for several turns before finally settling into something that resembled normal flight.

The lines were not tangled, I was not wrapped up in the canopy, the maneuver was complete, it was over and that brought such a feeling of relief that I whooped it up a bit in the air. It was violent, but I had expected it to be and as long as you know what's coming, it doesn't seem to be quite so bad.

What I didn't expect was what Jocky said next, "Well that was a bit messy wasn't it? Let's try it again then, full left brake this time, c'mon whack it on hard!" I had been so focused on doing the maneuver it had allowed me to assume that I would only have to do it one time. The assumption was obviously incorrect. I stalled the left side of the wing and re-entered the blender.

I did the "amp max flat spin with full stall recovery" four times that flight. Then capped it off with three more full stalls - just for practice. After the last full stall, I finally heard Jocky say "Okay wingovers back to the beach and land." He continued to coach me on the wingovers, "Hard brake now! Flick your weight over NOW!" By the second set they were so large I was looking almost straight down at my wing, which of course deflated as the lines went slack. After I was done being jerked around through the recovery, I was so drained of energy I could barely steer it in to land. My arms hung limply by my sides as I shifted my weight in my harness, seat steering my way back to the landing mat.

I landed just in time to watch Kristi start her spin, but I'll let her tell her own story.

Brendan