I just spent the weekend down in Canberra doing some private instruction for a friend. She is very close to getting her private pilots certificate and we just need a few more flights to get it finished.
Unfortunately the weather only gave us one flight on the Saturday morning but it was good to get another hour done and a good excuse for me to get out of Sydney for the weekend.
The interesting thing though was that this was a city flight and the landing was in a car park - not really an issue, indeed two other balloons landed in the same car park that morning. We very successfully used a drop line to make sure we got in, talked about what was going on and how to control your crew and fly the balloon, the risks and times to try it and when not to. All very important stuff and a great experience for the student.
What was interesting was in the flight debrief, there is no box to tick for handling line use. It appears that there is no need to know how to use one or as an instructor, no need to talk about it. Very odd. Even weirder that I have never noticed this before with other students.....Anyhow, now I have a question to pass onto the ABF Operations/training manager.
