A vario is arguably the most important tool on the glider pilots instrument panel.

I always have a backup vario when racing. Sometimes redundancy is a good thing.

Many do this with a mechanical vario, Winter is the most

I fought the light and the light won...

Fine, don't sing it with me, just sit there and cringe, it's understandable.

With open class gliders it is common to see a wing wheel on each wing.

This really helps when you have to make a turn with strong wind and the wing wheel is no longer on the downwind wing.

When the wind is gusty or strong it is important to place the

Cruising at 55 the trailer was fine, at 57 mph it was a whole different story.

My mom was behind us as the trailer started touching the yellow and white line at very close intervals. She called on our hand held radios that the trailer was swaying. "Yeah no #$(&" was the response.

We accelerated momentarily, then drifted into the center of the two lanes. The semi trucks behind our

Rolling down the I-8 in our Blue, White and Rust colored van towing a Discus back from the Standard Class Nationals in Hobbs NM, we heard a loud bang as the back window exploded. We thought we were shot, it was Arizona, so we didn't rule it out.

In the rear view mirror I witnessed the fender returning to earth and rubber tire pieces flying through the air.

It was at least