One day I show up at Soar Minden hoping to fly, but it’s kind of a nasty day with wave, but lots of moisture, primary moving around, just not conditions that were appealing. I’m hanging out just killing time and in Tony’s never-ending quest to put butts in seats, he says you should go fly with Hod… I said, why? Hod says, we’ll go play in the rotor. I said, you want to do what!? He says, all those *%$# pansy pilots are afraid of rotor, but if you know what you’re doing it’s no big deal.

So we fly. After getting thrashed on tow we get to the rotor and we’re getting even more thrashed. I’m thinking, well at least I’ll die doing what I love… right? Hod says, here I’ll show you, and he proceeds to accelerate to the front of the rotor and descend, then slow down and climb up the back of the roll and across the top. The whole time we’re doing this he’s using full control deflections to keep us upright while I’m cutting off my blood supply tightening my belts. He hands the stick back and says that’s enough for me… you do it. We spent an hour in that rotor in what became the most confidence building time I’ve ever spent in a glider. I actually relaxed while getting hammered and using full control deflections, even to the point of adding rudder when I ran out of aileron. Hod sat in the back seat, humming, telling me about all the dysfunctions of the operation, and describing his travels like he was talking across a coffee table.

To this day, I don’t know whether he was crazy or good, but I had a transformative experience.

Bob Lacovara