Last THURSDAY the forecast was for light easterlies.  Sam from VIC was still in town so I took the day off and we headed out to Lake George.  On launch, I called Geoff,  he said he could take the arvo off and meet us out there.  Sam and I set up under a great looking sky with nice streeting clouds. The wind was light but enough to stay up in ridge lift alone.

Not long after we launched the wind dropped off but it didn’t matter cause there were plenty of thermals to keep us airborne and I made way up north getting to base several times reaching 5000ft/asl (Not bad considering it’s almost the Winter Solstice.)

Making my way up north the plan was to go XC over the back once I was up near Collector. Unfortunately pilot error and gravity shot my plan down and I landed with Sam near north launch.

I gave Geoff a call who was almost ready to launch back at Gearys, only thing was the wind dead so it looked like Geoff had left work for a retrieve and a sledy. Not too impressed Geoff left his wing set up and came and got us.

Back on launch Geoff took off into a very light breeze but stayed up surprisingly easy. The air was buoyant and even this late in day there was still lots of climbs around so I quickly set up and joined Geoff. The air was super smooth and after climbing out up north we headed south of Gearys.

Sam was belting around on his mini bike so I thought if he could retrieve it would be a great chance to try and cross the Lake. Geoff ageed.  Then I hit a climb that was just what the doctor ordered - 300ft/min right to base.

Given the time was 4o’cock this was unreal.  Geoff beat me to the top and we punched head wind under a street over to the wind farm. We both agreed this was one of the memorable days at the lake and one we will never forget.
On FRIDAY Sam and I headed out to the lake again. The wind was moderate breaking up most thermals but we found some great lift lines and had a party with nearly 2 hours of out and returns over the Lake.
On SATURDAY it was the Lake for hat trick.  It was stronger wind and a lot of north in it but that didn’t stop Trent,Turtle,Sam,Christelle,Thief and I meeting at North launch. It was awesome fun with lots challenging thermals to climb in and we stayed up for over an hour. Trent follwed a climb over the back cruised into Dick Smith’s property landing on his runway!! Very cool!
So It’s been a unreal 3 days of flying in Canberra learning a lot having heaps of fun, proving once again that the epic cross countries might be gone for winter but amazing fun of flying is here all year.

So if you packed your wing away until summer you’re certainly missing out!

Another fun winter weekend in Canberra with many hangies in the air. Dave managed to score another chapter in the chronicles of an “urban flying”. Dave tells us about it:

Well the weather felt still felt like winter but the atmosphere and turn-up was very summerish. Saturday began with a thick fog that cleared mid morning to reveal a great wind strength for Spring hill. It was a top little turn out of pilots consisting of Phil Robertson J.P, Karlos, Geoff, Sam from VIC, Jeremy (new to Canberra) and new pilot Christelle straight from learning under Rohan at Dynamic flight.

First off was Christelle and after a great launch was soaring the Fun nicely and really enjoying herself until a little increase in wind strength caught her by surprise and with help of some pilot induced oscillations she managed an unintentional top landing only bending a DT and a little confidence. Thanks to the generosity and good will of Phil Robertson lending his fun, Christelle was able have a second flight.  Full credit to her for the courage to try again, having a fantastic flight this time round. The rest of us had a great flight in light to moderate conditions. Jeremy showing great skills in avoiding the flush when the wind went light. All landing well including Sam in the Scareoss, it was a fun winters arvo.

Sunday promised to be a couple of degrees warmer and after getting a call from Trent to say he was heading out I thought I better shake the late night and join him. It was Spring Hill again and on arrival Trent was already in the air mixing it with the Parras. Nick was there so he jumped in along with Sam and Christelle and we drove up to launch. Trent, on a deadline, cruised out to land which is not so easy without legs!!! The old stuck zipper trick. So he flew across the road to the bigger paddock and cruised in for a nice long final and belly landing. Pulling it off better than could be expected, he said it wasn’t too bad at all.

I bailed off the hill next followed by Nickos joining each other in some sweet little bubbles. I stole a nice climb quite consistent thanks in part to the fire Phil had lit in the bombout paddock. I stayed in the climb to 4400 asl leaving it about 500Ft of short of its potential. I flew over to near One Tree hill and then over Nicholls choosing a footy oval to land on. It’s always a buzz to land in a new spot so it was fun little XC. Trent picked me up and we had beers while the others finished their flight for another awesome fun day at SPRING IN WINTER. 

Dave and I shared a lot of circles over the weekend – We were even going up for some of them. Check out our tracklogs.

Lets hear about it Dave:…

On Saturday, Steve, Trent, Andrew (thief) and I met at the airport for some flying fun!! Despite the cool wind we were keen as usual, and why not?  The sun is out, we have a Dragonfly and a tug pilot that’s second to none.

We cruised the sky having a ball on tow, gliding around and getting some landing practice in.
On my third tow I found a bubble, and to my surprise, it held together for a consistent but weak 50ft/min. Drifting down wind, it wasn’t long before I was out of glide back to the strip but help was on the way, Trent spotted me sneaking away so he jumped in for another tow. Lift was only going to about 1700ft agl so I was glad to see Trent join me for a bit of help.

Unfortunately as fun as it was we were on the deck a couple of climbs later. The Thief had a tow a little closer to the Stratosphere than usual and cruised over our heads like a satellite loving every minute of it. Nice one bro!

Deb came out of retirement with baby Makayla to retrieve. As impressive as always, she arrived before we had packed up. So, back to Munjal to have a drink with Terry & Trish… Oh and watch Trent crash his new RC plane. Ba Ha Haaa 

We woke on Sunday to a sky that reminded me of something you would see in Beijing. It wasn’t pollution although it still made us hangies feel a little sick.

On the bright side Geoff, Pete D & Karlos were coming up for some flying fun today.  The wind was a little lighter than Saturday and there was the odd little scrappy cloudy thing forming under the blanket of main cloud every now and then, so I was quietly confident of a little XC stroll.

While on my second tow I heard Trent on the radio saying he was in a climb with KB. Getting excited, I released in light lift sticking with it trying to get a visual on Karl and Trent. It dropped to zero’s so I glided downwind to Trent who was still doing the circle thing. Karl was not so lucky and bailed back to the airport.

It was great working with Trent to make the most of this light lift. We stayed with what we had knowing that it was unlikely we would find another climb under that unimpressive sky. Patiently, we got to 4500ft asl enjoying the challenge and the sweet view as we crossed the over the middle of the little range west of Forbes.

We landed a fun 35km away from launch, and, for the second day in row we packed up in the same paddock.
Well once again a fantastic fun weekend at Forbes and Munjal. Again we have Steve to thank for his time and skills. Cheers mate really appreciate it!

Thanks must also go to Moyes for the use of your Dragonfly we couldn’t have all this fun without your support.

Cheers,

Dave

Dave and Carl went for a fly out at Lake George this afternoon. Carl made it down to Smiths gap for the first time. Nice flight dude.

Dave flew about as far along the ridge as anyone can go with ridge lift alone.  Check out his tracklog. 80km of mid-May goodness. This sets a new bar for any ambitious souls wanting stretch their wings at one of our favorite local sites.

Dave’s even sent through some photos from the flight.

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Andrew has really been wracking up the airtime over the past week. Wracking up this sort of experience during what used to be considered the off season is exactly what is required to perform at your best as next season rolls around. Let’s hear about it:

The weekend of 9 - 10 May saw Dave and myself crack up around 3+ hours.  Sat Dave and I hit up Pig and enjoyed two extended sled runs turning in little bubbles that never managed to provide enough to climb in as they were short and sharp.  After 2 turns it would be gone and it was time to move on.  We observed two eagles fly past climb a few meters then fly off never getting any higher than the hill.  The inversion around was visible and it seemed that we were about at the top of it on the hill!  Top notch fun all the same.

Sunday Dave, Turtle, Barnsy, Marty (from VIC) and late in the arvo Porter flew Lake G (no cars were damaged during Porters Landing which was a relief ).  It was an absolute ripper of a day with smooth air and nice ridge lift.  About 1km North of Gearies Gap on the top of the ridge line there was a back burn happening and Dave managed to get up to 4500ft in a steady 200ft/min up.  I also managed to climb up but only to around 3700ft.

From here Dave flew the ridge all the way to Collector with my self and Turtle getting to the wineries a little low.  I turned back to the south to head back to the higher ridge and better lift where as Turtle kept going and ended up landing in a rather unusual landing paddock.  As he flew around to the winery he ended up lower than the ridge and lost lift and then couldn’t make it out to the lake so landed in a paddock between the highway and the ridge.  Funny as, but gutsy effort to try to punch north.  Lesson Learned here is to always have a nice place to land within glide :-D  Dave and I top landed back at Gearies a little later and Dave headed home.  I stayed on to keep flying and enjoyed a number of top landings and flying on the south side flying in the air around my mates R/C gliders.  It is always cool flying around with R/C slope gliders.  I managed to grab one of my mates planes and turned it tail wind and let is go hahahaha.  Not nice I know but he was high and had plenty of height to recover in - fun times!

Tuesday 12 May saw Dave and I head to Stanwell Park for a leisurely Maz.  Our enthusiasm paid off with both of us cracking up over 2 hours.  After about an hour in the air Dave headed South to the next ridge.  I decided to go hell for leather for it also and was defiant to the end, which was a very low end at that!!!  I go to the south ridge very low and ended up having to turn back and land on the south side of Stanwell beach.  Lucky for me Tony Armstrong was on his way back to launch so after he confirmed that I was a Hangy I was in the car and on the way back to launch to get my car.  I drove back down to get my glider and after the quickest pack up and and then set up once back on launch I was airborne again.  By this point the wind had eased and the chance of flying up and down the coast any great distance had gone.  After a while Dave went into land approaching over a pond on the Southern side of the beach.  From the air it looked cool and once down he was straight on the radio telling me that I had to make the same approach as it was awesome.  After 20min I decided to land and came screaming in over the pond and landed on the beach.  It was nice to land in the silky smooth coastal air as it feels like you are landing on a bed of foam as it is so smooth you wouldn’t know you were flying which is a little different feeling after flying inland all summer!!!  A big thanks to Tony for taking me up to my car and having a laugh or two on the way.  Cheers.

Anyway a great week has been had as usual with the Canberra crew.  If only we were all keen we might get out there and fly more often !!!!!

Thief >;-)

The thief sent in some pics from first trip to Stanwell.

Dave and I headed to Stanwell Park for a relaxing day yesterday!!!  Its a hard life

What are you strapping to your head? Ed is up with another review:

I wanted to get a new full-face helmet as a recent heavy landing had jammed my sunnies onto my face, causing a pretty bad cut above my eye. It made me realise that sunnies aren’t the best solution for hang gliding - goggles or visors would be better.  I had ordered one full face helmet from a manufacturer in Germany who never sent it (I’ll be doing a separate article on that one - long story short - Paypal found in my favour and sent me a notice saying what could best be summarised as ‘good luck getting your money back - we couldn’t'). The choices from REPUTABLE manufacturers seemed to be the Icaro or the Charly, and I preferred the shape of the Icaro.

For a number of reasons I was inclined NOT to go a longtail helmet. A lot of my friends have the Icaro 4Fight Longtail and I noticed that when ever I saw them flying they almost never seemed to have their head in the correct aerodynamic position for the helmet - negating the supposed main advantage of getting one. Arguably, it really doesn’t matter until you are on glide, however I started to notice that even when I’m on glide I tend to be moving my head around quite a bit, looking over at the vario and keeping a look out. I’ve also had concerns with the idea of having something so long hanging off my head that if it got caught on something during a bad landing etc that the leverage effect on my neck could be fatal. Furthermore, the tail looks like it has the potential to limit visibility by limiting how far up you can look before the tail jams on the top of the harness. So for all these reasons I opted for a ‘cut’. Much of my flying is in darn hot conditions so after much deliberating I opted for the Grid Cut as it has ventilation holes.  I also love the matt black. I asked for the darkest visor they have which was the blue one.

So how does it stack up. It is expensive (about $420AUS delivered), it is very noisy, the paint scratches off pretty easily but it looks great and I love it. The ventilation works well and works when you need it the most - waiting to take-off (either the hill or in line to tow) and when scratching down low. For those of you who might be concerned about getting a cold head - my head has never felt cold in the helmet, even flying in Canberra during winter.

Of course non of these factors are reasons to buy a helmet - after all it is first and foremost a safety device. So when Trent met the ground pretty hard out at the Forbes comp wearing his 4Fight Longtail I was impressed when I saw how well his helmet worked. The helmet itself seemed to survive quite well but most importantly - Trent’s head fared very well considering the speed that he impacted the ground.

I DO have a real problem with the price - I could pony-up once for the $420 but the problem would really come to the fore if I were to have a ‘minor’ accident in the helmet. At $420 it would be very tempting to just keep using the helmet, which is obviously not wise.

My other main gripe is the noise, which is annoying and makes it difficult to hear the vario. I have a Brauniger GPS/Comp vario and I can barely hear it most of the time, but particularly on glide where I find I am constantly looking over at the vario because I just can’t hear it. I do seem to have gotten used to the low volume and my ears seem more atuned to the the vario for the most part - but glide is still a problem.

Soon after purchasing the helmet it developed some marks in the paint - it was as if the paint layer had been scraped off (a bit like a Scratch Lottery ticket). This was disappointing as you expect more from such an expensive helmet. The 4Fights have a lacqured/sealed finish that this just couldn’t really happen to but for some reason the Grids don’t.

I have found the visor takes a bit more maintenance to keep clean than my previous solution - sunnies. When I first got the helmet I’d put it on just before I was going to launch but after a few incidences where the visor was particularly dirty I have developed the habit of checking the visor as part of my pre-flight, while I still have easy access to cleaning devices.

I do really like the helmet but would have to think twice before buying another one as they are just so expensive. One every 5 years - yes, one every year - no. At least from a price perspective, it’s hard to go passed the Charly. If anyone out there has a really quite helmet I’d love to hear about it.

Cheers

Ed

Arrh winter, time to sort out all your gear for the next epic season. Ed get us underway with a couple of articles about the gear he’s flying with:

For the most part, most hang glider pilots seem to have their gear pretty well sorted, except for their bloody radio set up. Many pilots seem to be perfectly happy to get around the sky with really crappy comms. One local pilot in particular tends to get extremely excited in the air and wants to tell everyone all about it - and all we hear is ‘muffle, muffl, muffle, muffle’ screamed over the radio - I think you get the point. It drives me nuts. For some reason most pilots don’t seem to put much effort into their comms. I guess it’s because they never have to listen to themselves - their crappy comms are always someone else’s problem. I guess this will be true until the day they outland in an area without mobile coverage and no one knows where the hell they landed.

Well during last winter I upgraded my helmet to an Icaro Grid Cut and needed a new radio headset to connect it to my radio. I just happened to have a couple of days off work sick at the time which I spent in bed - and searching the web for the best value headset I could find. The best one I found was the XHH750C - available from ‘ixcessory’ (http://www.ixcessory.com/Merchant/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=I&Product_Code=2WS-HH750C&Category_Code=XHH750C). I’ve now had it for nearly 12 months and this is what I’ve found.

Price

The unit  was the cheapest I could find by a significant margin, priced at just $43.90US for the basic headset and $63.90 US for the 2-way-switcher model (more about that below).

Modular

The headset is very modular and the basic model comes with 4 functional components:

• the helmet fittings (2 speakers and a mic),
• the chest volume/press-to-talk (PTT) switch,
• the radio specific connector,
• and the finger PTT switch

The X2WSRM 2-way-switcher model includes the above as well as a:

• 2 way switch that allows you to connect an iPod into the system so you can listen to music through your helmet during flight. The iPod sound comes through the speakers however when receiving a radio call it cuts out the iPod so you can hear the incoming transmission. There is also an on/off button to mute the iPod during flight for busy times (like take-off and landing) 
  

All of the components can be purchased individually quite cheaply. The kit comes in both full-face and open-faced versions (the open-face version includes a boom mic). The chest PTT has a volume button so that volume can be adjusted in flight. The radio connector (tail) must be specified for your particular radio so if you change radio models a new one to suit your new radio can be purchased (quite cheaply). The kit also includes a choice of 4 remote PTT buttons. I chose the finger PTT, however you can also choose a handlebar PTT, a plunger PTT or a line control PTT. The line control PTT looks very cool and provides access to volume and other functionality on a finger PTT. I didn’t opt for this one as I thought that it might be too ‘fiddley’ and get annoying in flight - having to locate the specific button or hitting the wrong button (in hindsight I wish I’d had a go at it and will probably get it on my next headset).

I have only used the 2 way switcher twice to hook up my iPod Shuffle and it made for two very enjoyable flights out at Lake George listening to music quietly in the background. I did a pretty untidy top landing out there at the end of the first flight (bent upright) which I think having the music on may have contributed to so I’ve been very careful about when I use it ever since. I think it’s best used judiciously - after take-off and not during landing.

Quality

When I first ordered the XHH750C it looked so good and was so cheap that I figured that something had to be wrong with it. After 12 months of use I can say that it is an excellent headset that is well suited to hang gliding. I’ve not had any problems with any of the components. Installation into my helmet was easy and took little more than 10 minutes. I did end up modifying the chest PTT as it had a metal clip that didn’t suit the way I wanted to mount it onto my harness, so I had to cut it off (I have a Moyes Contour harness and I have mounted the chest PTT onto my velcro patch just below the tow point - it is mounted with some permanently mounted elastic cord and velcro glued onto the back of the PTT). The only problem that I’ve had with the system was that the two connectors into the chest PTT (the finger PTT and the helmet connector) both look similar but have different pins so I nearly broke them soon after installation when I tried to join the wrong ones. To be safe you’d be best to paint the matching connectors in unique colours so that it’s impossible to join the wrong ones.

If you have problems with your in flight communications (as judged by feedback from those who have to listen to your static filled ramblings) then take the move and get an XHH750C - it’s a quality, low cost solution.

Safe flying

Ed

It’s just a shame it doesn’t count when spread over two days Great flying never the less.

Highlights for me were flying with Geoff on Saturday and Ed on Sunday. Both of these guys are flying really well at the moment.

Here’s a couple of happy snaps from the flights.

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Tracklogs from the weekend here

Ed flew like a champ on Sunday:

Sunday was looking awesome, warmer than the day before and the sky was looking great with a band of Cus way of to the northeast but slowly building and getting closer to the airfield. Having failed to leave the tow paddock after a couple of tows on Saturday, and left on the ground listening in on the radio as the other guys do 70km plus flights, I was really keen give it a good run on Sunday. I had the dubious honor of having my glider already set-up in the shed so was able to get ready before the other guys and I wanted to take advantage of that by towing up first. The day before I’d towed up last so when I failed to connect with any lift on the first tow and needed a re-tow I was already 40mins behind them. By towing up first, if I needed a re-tow I’d simply re-tow at the end of the other guys and then be only 15 minutes behind them. Before I could jump in and get going I needed everyone to agree on a task so I could punch in some coordinates. The task committee met and decided that a place just past Condoblin was the goal (100.5km) so that we could have a shot at a 100km task in May - outrageous. While we were discussing where to fly to Wazza had a couple of low tows to practice his tows and his landings. His first tow left Bill less than impressed about his spot landing skills and he let Wazza know all about it. You see, Wazza didn’t land as close to the tow strip as Bill wanted so that he could re-load and go again as quickly as possible. He had a couple more tows and didn’t make that mistake again. Wazza was looking very comfortable on tow and his landings were getting better and closer to the tow point. Steve jumped in on the other end of the rope to normal, and towed up in the purple XT. He towed off the chest and at a couple of hundred feet the tow pressure got a bit much and he released. He spun the glider around and put it on the ground beutifully. If there is a machine that Steve can’t fly well I’m yet to see it - he is a natural aviator.

Steve quickly stowed the XT and jumped in the Dragonfly - Game On. With a "go, go, go" I was away. I released at 2000ft and sniffed around in some very narrow lift that was impossible to do a complete circle in for a while and managed to stay up for about 20 minutes scratching all the way down to the ground. It was a great flight where I got to practice those all important scratching skills and work on my tenacity while being relaxed. It was confidence building to be on the ground and find that some of the best pilots in the country had had the same experience that I’d had.

The wind had shifted a little so Trundle was adopted as the new goal, but we waited a little to give the day a chance to improve, as the day was proving to be not quite as good as it looked. On my second tow it took a while before I myself in zeros after releasing and I very slowly scratched up from about 1000ft to about 3000ft as I drifted steadily downwind from the airfield. While I was scratching up Trent and Dave were towed up to the thermal I was in above me so we were steadily joining up. Just as we were coming together at about 3000ft Trent headed out on course. I was just about to follow him when the lift I was in turned on and increased to about 400ft/min for a bit and the climb to 4000ft was a lot quicker than the previous 2000ft. Dave stayed in the thermal as well and was pointing  out some of the key indicators that he was noticing. Dave and Trent, and in fact all the Dusty Demons, are always willing to share their knowledge - great blokes to fly with. The lift slowed up and got patchy after about 4200ft so I headed off down course towards where Trent had been scratching over a big brown ploughed paddock for a while. I’ve been working on following lift lines ever since Scott Barrett taught me some great lessons on using lift lines at the Forbes comp. I was able to get over near Trent in pretty good shape and picked a group of brown paddocks with a rocky high ground in the middle, but as often happens, I found lift just before I got to where I was aiming. Again, it was very patchy and difficult to centre. Trent had dove in on another big brown paddock a km or so of to the right of course where he was getting really low. Eventually our thermals met up which surprised me a bit because we would have started in our respective thermals about 1500m apart. Eventually I noticed a very nice little cloud forming over us and again the 3000-4000ft climb was considerably better than the lower levels.

We headed off on glide again, cutting a bit more west to intercept the course line. It was fun gliding along beside Trent, working together to find our next thermal. Eventually we got into an area of lift and I wasn’t sure if Trent thought it was worth stopping for but I thought it was so turned in to find the centre. The thought had occurred to me that I could stay and mark this thermal and put in the work to centre it while Trent looks around for something a bit better. Great minds think alike (or fools never differ) so Trent read my mind and continued on for a couple hundred metres more looking for better lift. In the end the best lift was about half way between us and we searched there for a while but narrow zeros and a slow decent was all we found. We both "scedadled", but in different directions. Trent again ended up about a km or so right of course line while I moved over towards some high ground that appeared to be the trigger for a cloud downwind from it but found nothing. I moved on to another high point and then on the the north-south ridge that runs about 15km west of Forbes. I was hoping to get over the other side of the ridge to some big brown paddocks I could see but in the end I was a bit too low to get over it and had to land on the near side of the ridge in a big flat paddock between two ridges - out the back of some farmers property and no where near a visible road. I thought that I might be there for quite a while before my retrieve arrived - not ideal for a Sunday afternoon flight with a 3 hour drive back to Canberra.

I packed up and headed up to some high ground and was very lucky to catch a glimpse of a farmers house hidden in some trees - I would have walked another 5kms in the wrong direction had I not seen it. I arrived at the farmers place just as they were completing a livestock sale - alpacas of all things. The guy buying the alpacas agreed to give me a lift down to the front of the property where Brendan was on the way in Andrews 4WD.  So on a beautiful Sunday afternoon there I am, having had an awesome flight with a great mate, learnt heaps and standing in the back of a tray back Hilux holding on, 3 people jammed in the front on the bench seat and 3 alpacas jammed in the horse float following us down the road. I remember thinking to myself "Hang gliding is a great adventure - you just never know where you are going to end up". Just as the farmer was stopping to let me out I was surprised to see Dave’s Patrol go flying past so I got on the radio and turned the boys around to come and get me. Geoff had just been up to pick up Trent and Dave who both made it just over the other side of the ridge.

It was great fun flying with someone and working together. It’s something I’ve not experienced a heap as I often seem to find myself in the air alone, or occasionally with people who want to leech of me, which I’ve always thought strange, especially given my current skill level. I also love flying on my own - it is awesome because it’s completely up to me, it’s my decisions etc that keep my up there. But I also loved flying as part of a coordinated team. It’s a different type of buzz - it turns a solo sport into a briliant team sport. I would love to participate in more team competitions - they tell me that they used to have them.

I learnt a great lesson - if you can establish a pattern for the day - like the lift is over the brown paddocks - then keep using that until it doesn’t work. After finding lift over big brown paddocks I searched over high ground and surprise, surprise it wasn’t there.

Cheers

Ed