SAM 303a wrote:
Had one of these 6 weeks ago.
Both of us 15-20' off the ground with 1500+ ft of runway ahead and the
window popped open on the Pawnee. He shut down, angled left; I released,
angled a bit right and banged into a thermal that bounced me to about 80',
providing a little short field landing practice.
Here's the stupid part--my hand was on the divebrakes and I was about to
deploy them, but when the ship started rising I took my hand off! Something
in me said "dive brakes aren't used in thermals".

If you had thermalled and climbed away, you'd be a true legend--maybe
even gone down in history has having taken the shortest successful (in
one sense) areotow in history.

But it's a good thing you didn't try that...

Jeremy