Earlier: – Looks like we’re in for a nice little boat towards the coast.

Debrief for the day:

It was pretty hard going. Andrew B, Dave, Jon, Alex in his punter and myself line up.

Climbs were only taking to 3500ft so leaving the hill was pretty tricky. The recent rain has really taken the sting out of the climbs so patience was the call for the day. It’s like April conditions have come early.

In such tough conditions it was always going to be tough crossing the dam… brb

Tracklog here

Steve’s gives us a quick run down on that little slice of heaven we like to call Forbes…

High Flyer’s,

Last  Forbes was just the usual boring Forbes. Sure Phil Schroder broke the WORLD SPEED RECORD over a 200km triangle on Tuesday in the Swift with an average of 46.19km/hr. Previously this was held by Robin Hamilton with an average speed of 45.5km/hr. The rest of the flyers this week were very considerate in staying local (within 200km of the AD)  and all landing at the field.

By Friday it was decided that I needed to go for a drive !!!!!!!   Armand and Phil decided to battle it out around the 200km/triangle again with me as the Official Observer and tow pilot. Task dec’s completed, GPS units cleared of tracks and way points entered, Armand was the first to tow up, releasing quite low in good lift over the field. Phil was a bit later as he was still getting organised.

Len, Guy, Julia, Peter Eicher, Blaino and Simon all towed up and headed North. Bevo was practising in the Dragon Fly and drove for Peter whilst I packed up and waited for Armand and Phil to return so I could witness their landing and collect the flight recorders and GPS for download.

Armand arrived back in 3hr 55min.44sec claiming a NEW WORLD RECORD average speed around a 200km triangle of 51.94km/hr.

Phil wasn’t too far behind, though it was later discovered that one wrong number in the GPS had caused Phil to fly a considerable extra distance and invalidate his record attempt. I’m sure this will have Phil more keen than ever to have another crack at the record.

Meanwhile the rest of the boys and Julia were spread out to the North with most flying around 270km. Blaino was the only sensible one landing at the Narromine Aerodrome and scoring dinner and a beer, or two, at the aeroclub. Simon though not finding as good a landing spot as Blaino at least was thoughtful enough to land at an intersection with road signs making an easy retrieve. The other 3 were miles out in the never never. Len had landed on a property and I feel he would have been quite comfortable had he never been found. He was quite well looked after by the farmers daughter who cooked him a nice dinner. Len was in no hurry to leave. Meanwhile Guy and Julia had circled two houses deciding which one to visit. Not that hard a decision as only one had a swimming pool. Once again the owner, though not as pretty as Len’s, made them feel at home, cooking them a BBQ whilst they lay in the pool drinking his beer. He even seemed sad to see them go and invited them back. I’m sure that Guy will car tow up from just down the road sometime just to take advantage of this hospitality in the future. Julia plans to Jilaroo for them later in the year.

The next morning after getting to bed at 4am the crew were a bit later getting out to the field and joined by the Canberra boys didn’t launch until after 12.30pm. Grant, Pete, Andrew B. and Peter D. had Liz as there driver, Beavo drove for Peter E. and Tim had agreed to drive for Len, Guy,Simon and Julia.  A declared distance task of 313km to Hay was set. Simon stayed local and decided to land at the field whilst Peter Dall bombed out after only covering 162km IN A MALIBU. Trent and Andrew Barnes landed at the  Hay airfield whilst the trio of Len, Guy and Julia were racing for the NEW AUSTRALIAN DECLARED DISTANCE GOAL. Julia was the first in, having lost radio contact, she had raced for goal whilst Len arrived at goal with 10 000′ so just kept going with Guy somewhere in the middle. After claiming goal Julia continued for about another 40km finding a swimming spot to land at whilst Len and Guy were keen to keep flying as they still had light. Len and Guy landed close together after flying for 406km straight line distance.  This Duo must really hate landing. 2 big days in a row.

Dave May was unable to make it to Forbes this time but did manage a 300km XC of his own from Canberra. Well done Dave.          

As can be seen by this brief report it’s just business as usual at Forbes where  record flights, great company in the air and on the ground are the norm rather than the exception.

Thanks to Bill Moyes, Forbes Aeroclub, the retrieve drivers and all the great pilots and locals who make these times away possible.

I’m watching the weather and will be back out to Forbes soon so watch this space.

Curt will be running another aerotow training week at Forbes mid April. Contact Curt at www.warrenwindsports.com.au  for further details.

Still High,

Steve.

What an amazing week last week was. Dave topped it all off by pulling out an amazing flight from one of our favorite local sites:

It was the previous Friday that  the forecast was calling  Eastery winds extending inland all the way to south Australia for the start of the following week which is exactly what I’ve been watching out for to do a big flight from my favourite site-Lake George is best known for its after noon and early morning flights because its an amazing dry lake bed with a 40km ridge  facing East so its perfect for  ridge soaring the Sea breeze that pushes  inland on a regular bases. The Canberra club has no shortage of keen pilots who cruise out after work or even get up early to soar the ridge.

As for going XC from the Lake all you need is a prevailing Eastery, which doesn’t happen too often so when I saw the forecast for Monday &  Tuesday I planned to have those days off work. Over the weekend the weather was looking better & better and I was  getting real keen. I got a call from Jonny Durand making some final plans for the Manilla comp, and knowing he was in Sydney I suggested he shoot down the Hume for a fly with me. Jonny had some Red Bull things to sort out on Monday so I said i’ll test the water on and we both have a go at big one on Tuesday which did look like the better day.

Kind of a nice looking day:) Prefect conditions to help Ed crack a new PB. He recently cracked the 100km mark down at Corryong. I we were sure he would better that today.

I was the last to launch at 1:30pm but the four of us (Barnsie, Ed, Pete in the Malibu and I) soon met up near the clouds to begin our day of fun.

With Barnsie at base. Ed’s not far behind so we wait at the top for him to join us. We stay together for the next 70km or so until Ed’s radio goes flat. What a bugger. With the break down in communication Barnsie and I decide to push forward a little faster as the day is prooving to be a real cracker. By now Ed almost had glide to his PB so we knew he would be a happy boy in the car on the way home.

Dustys crack off every where but that’s to be expected when the sky is full of 1000fpm climbs. A real standout was a rough as guts 1400fpm up to base. Luckily, going up at that rate you don’t have to stay in that air very long.

At about the 100km mark we lament not launching earlier and going for the 300km to Hay.

At 4pm the sky still looks good so I make a deal with myself. If I can make the 200km mark by 5:30 I will continue to push through for Hay. If not I will call it a day and land to make for an easy retrieve. RASP was saying that the next day was looking better anyway.

I made my intermediate goal with 15 seconds to spare! Wow thing get flat and samey out here. You really get that idea that you’ve flown off the map when the paddocks are 30km across and not a road in sight. Gulp.

After crossing some pretty inhospitable country eventually I hit the main road running to Hay. What a relief. Barnsie was still 10km or so behind but I spend a long time real low. With 38km left to go we are back together for what was looking like a really tough final leg.

Amazing, we hadn’t seen each other for 200km and here we meet up in the middle over some of the most barren terrain this country can throw at us. This is one of those moments in flying that will stay with me forever.

This climb ends up being very special indeed. 7:20pm at night and we climb from 1500ft amsl to 11500ft at 800fpm. Amazing.

Thoughts now turn to the final glide.

We cross the 300km together as we cruise toward our goal at Hay.

We arrive high and set up a landing at the Airport. The clock tick over to 8pm as we land.

After we land we’re straight on to the phone to see how the other guys faired. Ed pulled out a cracker, after splitting with him at the 80km mark he must have flown like a daemon. He landed not long before us and made 245km!!!

Pete manages 160km in the Malibu and sets a new record for the glider. Great work all. A big thanks to Liz for the huge retrieve!

Tracklogs

Barnsie and I land at Hay Airport for 315km… Full write up to come when we recover.

Brendan had a fun weekend in Bright. Looks like he snagged some of the great weather we missed during the comp:

Hey happy flyers, greetings from not-so-sunny Melbourne.

Just thought I’d better inform as many hangies as I know, that I am hooked.… line, sinker.. the whole farken shebang.  The weekend’s flying out at Bright was definitely the best flying I’ve ever done and I’ve finally figured out why you guys jump off inland hills without any ridge lift in sight and then start searching (aimlessly I used to think) for these elusive things called thermals.

Saturday afternoon I launched off Mt Emu, did some determined scratching for a while, before finally hearing “the sound”.  I really hadn’t had a lot of luck (or skill) with thermalling in the past, but after a few decent rides in the right direction, and about 7,500’ of air between me and the bomb-out, I felt like I’d finally figured it out.  I drifted down wind following the valley to the south and then east, only to realise that unless I was going to cross tiger country and try to make Mystic (like Marty did… a novice pilot… in a Ventura… with no vario) well, I was feeling on top of things, but not that confident.   And as for confidence, well, Marty tripped on launch up at Mt Buffalo the next day.  I’m sure you guys have flown it, but for those who haven’t seen the launch at buff, it’s what, about 3,500’ drop straight down at the end of the ramp.  Luckily, people ran forward and grabbed his side wires.

So after another hour of flying and a few more very pleasant moments of heading skyward, I headed north for a while, then decided to turn around and land at Mt Beauty airfield.  I mean, you can’t do better than an bloody airport for an ‘out landing’, they have huge windsocks and nice flat manicured grass.   Anyway, after floating aimlessly for another half an hour or so and confirming that, yep, the valley wind had done a 180 and gone katabtic, I made the silly decision to land elsewhere.  There I was thinking, why land at a deserted airport, when further to the west I could see a paddock with a windsock and another hang glider in it – someone to talk to while waiting for my retrieve.  It turned out to be called Tawonga bomb out.  Not such a great decision for two reasons.  One, the unusual southerly meant I’d be landing downhill in a small paddock (not gracefully as it turned out).  And two: (and most important) I didn’t realise that Mt Beauty airport was the goal for the last day of the comp that had been going all week, and an hour or so later the airport would have become one big impromptu hangie meet with lots of beer.  Damn.

Anyway, suffice to say that spending a few hours at almost 9,000 amsl flying around those ranges, zigzagging from one potential bomb out to the next, made me realise what you guys have been going on about all this time.  Fark me it was awesome.  And the next day at Mystic was almost as good.  We had to work a bit harder for the lift, but I managed to stay up until I decided it was time to land.    This may not sound phenomenal to you guys but it was a revelation to me. 

So here I am thinking that in the right conditions this inland stuff is not so bad.  I mean, despite hot and high launches, with nil or light and variable wind.  And despite crossing tiger country to find unfamiliar landing paddocks with powerlines everywhere, down-slope landings, dusties, thermals and not to mention rotor from the rapidly approaching trees at the end of the paddock.  Despite all that, if I take it one step at a time and don’t get to big for my boots, this inland stuff is not so hard… Well, you guys already know and have done for a while, but it was pretty damn awesome.   I’ll be back there within a few weeks.

Take it easy guys.   Get high.

Brendan “Turtle” Cammack

Things have been a little quiet on the flying front since driving down to Mt Beauty from Forbes last week. We managed one task in windy conditions on Tuesday but the remainder of the week continues to look questionable. Fingers crossed he high level winds back off despite the forecast.

The lack of flying though has given us plenty of opportunities to catch up on the social side of the sport  that we just didn’t have time for back up at Forbes.

We’ve been to wineries, the Bright Brewery, Fishing and Falls creek to be snowed on. Will post some pics after the 12pm briefing today.

An out and return to Tomingley was called 185km. Conditions start off light in the padock. Eventually he usual cantidates assemble at the start gate over the quarry tto the north of the strip. We are in a good place for the start at 9500ft. The usual start gate games are played and a group of pilots leave at the first start. Most of the guns hang around for the second or third starts.

I take the second with Lucas, Noma, Pedro and Guy amonst others. We scream all the way to the turnpoint. I tracked to the east of the Nth Parkes mine and get a great run to Peak Hill before catching the guys from the start gate in front. Some of the real quick guys from the last gate catch me in the same spot on the way back after the turnpoint.

At this point Jonny, Blinky, Balaz and I get a nice little gaggle happening and cover the next 50km very fast despite the 20km head wind.

Wow it’s fun to fly like this with Jonny. I have learnt that one of the biggest differences in our flying style is the speed in which he cores a climb. We glide in at 90kph and with only minimal deviation he has found the core and in one movent it’s VG off and we’re rocketing up at 4m/s. Pretty to watch.

The fast run continues back to within 20km of the airport where a change of gears it required. It takes me 40mins to cover these last few kms. Damn I was scorching too.

After eventually making it in I find that my story of woe is a common one and we get into the beers to drown our sorrow.

Dave was also really moving around the course after taking the last start with Jonny. At one stage it looked like he was going to catch me but unfortunately he landed 40km short. Barnsie, up to his usual tricks of staying in the air forever landed just 10km short of goal. Great work Dustys!

Forbes – Grenfell – Eugowra – Gooloogong was the task for today. Given the stronger than expected westerly winds for the day it was thought that a triangle would be too tough. This zig zag task called provided a neat way of staying within a short drive of Forbes but meant that we would not have to punch straight into the headwind.

The day provided some awesome flying with all the guys in our car making goal.

The Dustys, making quite a habit of this whole being in goal thing.

Results are also in with me picking up a 16th and Dave coming in only 6 mins later in 22nd. Great flying by the whole team. Let’s see more of that sort of action tomorrow guys!

Results so far

Flights in Leonardo

Well yesterday was an interesting day with a few of the guns down early. The manditory start proved to be a bit early for a few of the top 20 that were not organized enough to get in the air early.

Being in 21st, I took the last gate but I still had not managed to get high by then.

Tony G, Noma, Len and I struggled for the first 20k before finally stumbleing into a 3.5m/s to 7000ft.

Today we’re off to Marsden (near West Wyalong), then back to a point along the Henry Lawson Hwy about 25km north of Grenfell. 130km.