Nothing shows you the deficiencies in your equipment quicker than going on a week+ long trip where you use it all day, every day. Here’s a few notes about some of my stuff:
Helmet: Awesome. I’ve got this Icaro helmet with a full sunglass shield. It’s comfy, it fits great and it keeps the sun out of my eyes better than both of my lost pairs of clip-on sunglasses. Best of all – it looks super awesome!
Clothing: If you think that you’ll be going up, up, up, layered clothing that can zip up/off is a good idea. I got up to 1600m ish at one point, and it started to get a little nippy. I see why folks wear the flight suits, but I don’t think I’m there yet. Still wearing the convertible pants/shorts, a tank and a shirt over the tank. I’ve started wearing a jacket over the tank just because of the extra neck protection from the sun, and the zip-factor.
Flight deck: I was going to say that the one I bought was a piece of shit, but I think I’m the piece of shit. Flight deck is clipped between your carabiners. There is a strap that goes between these as well. If the flight deck is clipped tighter than this strap, that means that your poor flight deck is taking the stress that the strap was designed for. Hence why it broke twice now. HOWEVER, having the bag there in front of me is great. Vario is perfectly placed and I no longer have water, food, camera, etc in my harness. That stuff was weighing my harness down.
Vario: I love this thing. NUMBERS! I love noting altitudes and comparing them against where I am on the mountain. I love watching the climb numbers. I love knowing the wind speed, my ground speed, and where the wind is coming from.
Something else interesting. It beeps a certain rate depending on your rate of climb. It buzzes at -0.2-0.0, beeps at 0.0-1.0 and beeps faster at 1.0-whatever. If you consider a thermal to be an area of lift in a cross-section of the atmosphere (so you have a 2D plane of lift), then the beeping creates an area in that 2D plane. Needs a drawing. But if you fly in a straight line, it will buzz, then beep, then beep faster, then go back to beep, then back to buzz. You just flew through lift. You’ve created a line in that plane. So turn around and go back and draw another line. Do that again and again until you’ve mapped out the area of that lift. (then watch it go away :)). I think this is a really neat thought.
Radio: I’m carrying two radios right now. A little FRS that is Tom’s since I didn’t bring mine, expecting that we’d be using the HAMs. It’s worked great for a crappy little radio. Better than mine, even though it’s the same damn one :P. The HAM…so far has been an expensive, stressful, waste of time. I’m told I’ll use it later. But I’ve barely turned it on. I rushed, I researched, I Craigslisted and the thing is just a paperweight right now.
Harness: I both love and hate this thing. When I need to move it somewhere, I love it. When I need to pack up, I hate it. It’s back-breaking putting my things away. But I couldn’t bus with a regular sized pack, nor carry it on my scooter. Tom and Guy have these pod things, but I don’t see the need right now.
Wing bag: My concertina bag has proven it’s worth time and time again. It’s just plain awesome. The only downside with it was that it made closing my bag a little bit harder. But it made folding the wing up much easier!
Wing: I’m flying an obsolete model wing that everyone says is a great wing. It’s a DHV 1/2, which means something to some people, but not a whole lot to me. (even though I’m told it should mean something to me). I care more about how it works in comparison to reality, rather than what the numbers say. (which is odd, given the vario discussion above :P). This week I’ve given it a lot to deal with and it’s done well for me. Not as well as a Wildcat, or whatever Joe is riding. But I’ve had moments where I’ve done good things, and part of that is equipment.
