First asymmetrical collapse

This morning we went up the chair lift. The weather was good but the temperature is still not as hot as it was a few days ago, I think we're still getting the remains of the occluded front that past over the last couple of days. There was a headwind at the take off site so I managed to take off ok. My task was to perform an asymmetrical collapse, which involves sharply pulling down the A risers to deflate half the wing. I flew out over the landing site and Christo told me to pull an asymmetrical on the radio. I weight shifted to the opposite direction and reached up as far as I could and grabbed the 3 a-riser lines, twisted my hand and pulled them down as far as I could. It wasn't as scary I as I thought it was going to be as these gliders are designed to fly with as little as 30% of the wind inflated. When the collapse happened the wing tries to turn in the direction of the collapse, that's why you weight shift and apply some brake on the opposite side to counter it and keep the glider flying straight. To recover I just let go and let the glider fly, stabilising slightly with the brakes. I did it a couple of times and managed fine. I then went down to land in the west, larger landing site. The wind was coming from the south west, but was very light. I did a full flare at the right moment and did a nice gentle landing about 10 yard from the van. The guys on the ground said that the asymmetrical collapse looked very dramatic, but it never really felt dangerous and I felt I had it in full control, and was happy with it. Christo said that I managed to collapse 60% of the wing, maybe a bit much for the first time, but it made me realise how well these things are designed to fly and it filled me with confidence. Asymmetrical collapses are very important to learn how to deal with as the can occur when you leave or enter a strong thermal where one side of the glider may be in rising air and the other side in sinking air. My Ozone Atom deals with it very well and I very safe flying it. I also practiced some pitch control. Total flight time was 25 minutes.

One of the younger pilots.