Catch-up continued...

Mar 18 (cont): Jim and I flew a couple of hours, getting familiar with the Phoenix. It's quite different than the gliders and motorgliders I've flown before, including:

Side-by-side seating vs a single, centered seat: The sight picture (what it looks like ahead and to the sides) means I have to relearn where "straight ahead" is, and be able to determine drifting left or right of the runway center line, even though I can't see the runway on the right side of the glider (the pilot sits in the left seat in the Phoenix).

A main landing gear with two wheels about 5 feet apart (left and right side) vs a single, centered wheel: The two wheels mean it's best to land with the wings level, so the wheels touch down on the runway at the same time; the single main wheel of most gliders is insensitive to the wings being off-level. The advantage? When the wind doesn't blow directly down the runway, it tends to push the glider towards the downwind side. Banking the glider slightly into the wind will counteract that drift, and - if it has a single main wheel - it can be held in that bank while it lands on the runway. The Phoenix, with the two wheels spread apart, makes that manuever very difficult, and a good landing harder to do.

But before we dealt with the landings, we took advantage of the sea breeze induced lift to do some soaring with the engine off:

At the end of the day, Jan and I visited the beach near Melbourne, where the sea breeze produced a "Kramer effect" with my hair.