iCamp: Monte Baldo/ Malcesine: SIV No 1 and a difficult desicion

Sunday started (again) with much better wx than had been forecasted so already at 0800 we left for Malcesine on Lake Garda. At the LZ we received another briefing about the conditions and manouevers, with special emphasis on the local wind system (Ora); also the harnesses where checked. Then we headed for the cable car to Monte Baldo.

LZ looking NW/ N

waiting for the cable car

Malcesine / Lake Garda at middle station

TO on Mte.Baldo

Most of us did 2 flights, some 3; on my first flight I just did several wing overs and spirals: both of them with much room for improvement, as this glider (a 2-liner) needs much bigger/ stronger imputs. On the second flight again wing overs and spirals - a bit better, as well as frontal collapses.

Reserve parachutes left hanging to dry...

Quite a large number of pilots got their feet wet - but only one of our group :-) ; but 

1 pilot i our group got his feet wet, where as a surprisingly large number
of other pilots either had to throw their reserve during
a badly executed manoeuver or underestimated the influence of the
increasingly stronger Ora on approach and therefore landed short...

At the end of the day I have deciced to return this Leeloo to Michael, as it simply is too performant for me: the glider is very easy to launch and even easier to land; its performance, especially when using speed bar is very impressive. But it also needs bigger and stronger inputs on the brakes/ controls to make it enter a good spiral or to make high wingovers... It has not been an easy decision, but I had to take it as I simply don't feel confident enough to handle the glider in strong thermal/ bumpy conditions or when it would be necessary to make a rapid descent, be it because I needed to get down due to wx (ie CB etc) or of the danger of breaching an airspace restriction without descending... Furthermore it would have been very tempting to keep on flying this one-of-a-kind glider.

Many thanks to Michael (Profly.org) for being so kind as having designed this glider especially for me, and at the same time sorry that I don't keep on flying with it!