I Flew!!!
Trip Start
Jan 03, 2007
1
4
18
Trip End
Jan 21, 2007
Cagas,
Ecuador
Monday, January 8, 2007
Good news! Yesterday's tongue dinner was the most tender piece of beef I have ever eaten in my life and it actually tasted great too (served in a mushroom sauce). Also, bonus, I flew for the very first time in Ecuador at 3308 meters above sea level!
We started the day in a really crappy way by driving an hour away to our usual site which was, of course, blown out from behind like yesterday! Then, we stopped by the hostel to grab our luggage and headed for Quito... On the way, Benoit and Michel spotted a nice green mountain side with multiple fields at the bottom and Henri said it was OK for us to use it as a new launch site to finally get some flights under our belt!!! Imagine that, this place has unlimited potential launches all over the place since there is no thick forest anywhere. We actually parked, climbed up to the closest peak (which was no easy task at 3200 meters above sea level!), analyzed the winds and site, laid out our wings and launched
Half Way Up...
! The wind was strong (15-25 km/h) and cross and coming over an elbow in front of our launch... A pretty challenging launch to say the least. Everyone managed to launch without problems except Michel who suffered a 30% wing collapse! Fortunately, he was able to quickly rectify the situation and got his sled in like everyone else. Martin actually had the best launch of them all, and it was his first in strong wind!!! All in all, we had some fun and I must say... I was beginning to get a little irate at my lack of flying... I feel great and I now know what to expect from future flights with the wind being less dense and all. I flew a good 8 minutes in strong turbulent conditions and managed to land safely facing the wind in a crop field. Worry not, I managed to leave the field undamaged by carefully picking up my lines from the plants.Farther on, at lunch, I had a sort of rice stir fry with shrimp, beef, pork and chicken (two of my colleagues helped me finish it since it actually resembled a mountain of food rather than a meal). It was very good and tasty. We also had to walk 4 blocks to get some beer with our meal because for some mysterious reason, none of the restaurants or shops would sell us any! They kept saying it was too late... The circus was in town and we think they may have arranged some kind of monopoly on the booze... We finally found a closed shop where the lady was kind enough to sell us some large Pilsener.
Back on the road... Arriving in Quito, we visited the landing site for tomorrow's flying on an EAST launch site! This should be interesting because we don't have any at home and since it's facing East, it means it will warm up all morning and thermal activity will pick up quite early (before noon!). I can't wait... The site is a giant ridge separating a suburb of Quito from the capital itself! We also saw some planes flying by the site... Hehehehe. I have to go eat now, but I'll post some pictures and videos later tonight. We are sleeping at the same hostel as our first night and, by chance, I am sleeping in the exact same room. =)
