I took the trek to Leamington to meet Phil Brown, a lone HG pilot in his area. We've exchanged lots of emails over the past year as I've had interest in flying from his area back to where I live (and beyond) as he's got some convergence lines that set up as he's squished between two of the Great Lakes.

So I figured since my local club isn't up and running quite yet, my instructional scooter winch isn't ready yet and it was a long-weekend, I'd take advantage of it all and get down there and try out his stationary winch. I've only been introduced to it recently this Spring in Florida and a couple weeks ago at High Perspective.

I had to work out a tow release for my harness and wanted to get some practice in in hopes of getting it all sorted out for when there was a better cross-country forecast. I drove the 2.5hrs down there as early as I could and Phil and I worked out rigging my Moyes Matrix harness for his towing.

It was just he and I and the plan was for him to tow me and then I tow him. The winds were forecasted to be right down his South running field but when we had got there, it was quite cross from the East and the wind was higher than the forecast. We set up anyways as the winds were more than manageable. By the time I was ready, the winds were rather switchy but was mostly South.

I took two attempts - both were pretty much a carbon-copy of each other - very short with my right wing getting lifted just as I started my run. The second attempt resulted in a broken downtube so that was the end of my day. We decided to pack it in after that as the winds were a bit gusty and neither of us felt like attempting to get Phil in the air.

So I drove another 2.5hrs home in shame! :(

Oh well, live and learn. In hind-sight, we felt we were both a bit complacent and should have done the tows in the earlier morning or later evening rather than MIDDAY (a big no-no really). I hadn't stationary winched my glider ever so mid-day wasn't a good time to attempt it.

I'll be back to try it again soon tho. Phil's winch is the best I've seen (he's a process automation engineer) and he did a great job operating the winch (aborting the tows pronto).