Nic Welbourn, on the back of making the award winning “Show us you limits” video, continues to do great things for hang gliding by getting on the radio and really getting the word out there about what we do. Great work Nic!
Incase you missed the actual video
Get on to Twitter. It’s where a lot of the flying talk is happening these days you will be missing out on the flying action if you are not on board. I even got retrieved after a tweet the other day. How’s that for service!
Just to get started, follow the local guys on the Dusty Demons list. From there, you will get the idea and start to work out who else to follow.
A reasonably smart phone is the best way to use Twitter. Most phone operating systems have applications to run twitter. If you will be accessing it from a PC there are also many clients available. I use TweetDeck which I find quite nice.
If it all seem to complicated, ask any of the guys who are currently on there and I’m certain they will be able to get you setup in no time.
It appears that the organizers of the classic have “over looked” the now common practice of uploading the competition area controlled airspace into competitors instruments. This omission leans the odds greatly in favor of the local pilots who deal with the exact locations on these areas on a day to day basis.
Maybe Attila has a point?
Luckily though, the punters have come through and posted the airspace files on the Canungra Cup website. Whack these files into each of you instruments and we might even be able to give those local boys a run for their money without getting smashed with airspace penalties this year.
I take no responsibility for the data being correct so don’t come to me if you get zero for the day because of using these files – I probably got zero too.
Also, their map seems to be a bit better than ours so grab that as well.
Good luck!
Heading to Binos tomorrow.
Meeting at Harcourt at 9:30am.
If anyone is keen on flying a little (or not so little) instructional type XC, I’ll do what I can to help you on your way to goal.
Good radio comms are a must for this to work. Charge you batteries tonight . We’ll be on ch14 -71.9
Punters also welcome.
For a rough guide, tap Taralga into your GPS
Taralga – 2800ft amsl – 115km
34° 24.209′S
149° 48.796′E
Climbs should be to around the 7500ft mark and the wind straight up our bums.
See you there.
Like everyone else in Canberra with more exciting things than cars in their garage, we ventured out this morning to find the car covered in dirt.
Dust storms are not uncommon in the summer months, but given the ground cover is usually as dense at it gets out west at this time of year, it’s very strange to have such an event in September.
What does it mean?
Obviously, apart from the strong to gusty winds. It also means that there’s plenty of air getting airborne in western NSW.
Dirt rising = Air going up = Gliders climbing = Happy hangies.
The season is here boys!
It’s that time of year again boys… Andrew get us in the mood by letting us know about the first one!
Dave called me at 1230 letting me know a seabreeze was on it’s way in. I was on a course with work and would not be able to make it and told Dave to go for it.
1500 came and my course finished early. I was straight on the phone to Dave who was still waiting for it to come in. I arrived at the lake at 1630 and greeted Dave with a few loud Wilson’s. Dave instantly pointed out that the wind turbines on the eastern side of the lake were spinning in different directions. The ones further east were spinning anti-clockwise and the ones closer to us were spinning clockwise. This told us that the easterly was sitting somewhere in amongst the turbines. After about 45min all turbines were turning anti-clockwise indicating that the easterly was now at the eastern edge of the lake. It was awesome to see the turbines slowly stop spinning rotate then steadily speed up again spinning in the other direction. Out of all of this the point to note here is that when the turbines are spinning anti-clockwise the wind is east. With all the anti-clockwise action going on and the sun now about to set it on the horizon it was time to set up.
Once set up I hooked in and stood on the easterly launch facing west ready for a text book reverse launch as the westerly was still driving through the west lake edge. After a joke and picture of me ready to launch up the hill I sat down in my harness looking east to see the moist haze getting closer. Finally she hit, about 40min after all the turbines went anti-clockwise. Dave raced to hook in and we both launched. I jumped the gap south and came back. Dave stayed playing over launch and as I came back over launch he pulled off a usual perfect top landing. I then made several attempts to top land. For me the break of flying the lake over winter meant my skills at lining up the top landing needed dusting off. I approached too high and couldn’t quite get the angle of the approach correct. As the conditions were near perfect I persisted and adjusted my approach each time until I was happy then moved each approach a little lower each time until I nailed it.
An awesome 30min flight with Dave, both of us snatching the first easterly of the season. This seabreeze hunting season is going to be better than ever thanks to the wind turbines and the fact that from my driveway in Gunghalin I can see 3 wind turbines out at the lake with my naked little eyes when the sun is high up in the sky.
An awesome flight and even better company haha – that’s what the lake is all about!
Til next time – the Thief >:-)
So, you have friends and relos that have no idea why you are so obsessed by Hang Gliding? This video may go some way to showing them what it’s all about:
Click the image above and follow the instructions…
Just like offer a special note of thanks to Steve for hosting the Easter weekend at Forbes. His boundless enthusiasm and willingness to just ‘get out there and do it’ was instrumental in keeping us motivated despite pretty average weather conditions.
Have a look at this picture to see the conditions on Sunday morning.
This is how things changed later in the day.
Goes to show, never write the day off too soon…. Thanks for the nice tow above cloudbase, Steve.
Thanks also to the folk from the aeroclub. They are a friendly bunch who made us very welcome.
Certainly hope to do it again soon.
Cheers,
David “Millman” Phillips
News.com.au has some potentially good news for us flying folk:
A $30 million, four-year project to create Australia’s biggest weather computer is underway.
The new supercomputing system, being built for the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) and Australian National University (ANU), will make weather predictions more accurate.
The BOM machine will have the capacity to make about 1.5 trillion complex weather calculations a second as it crunches through weather data from around the country.
So I finally score my first decent commendable XC flight which just might be better than sex!.
Quadey, Danny Deck Chair and myself arrive at the launch on Pig at around 11.30am and observe a very nice cu just out in front of launch. The cloud was flowing up in the middle and sinking out the edges at a very nice rate of knots which was a good sign. We set up and watch a paraglider take of and be thrown around and go up and down – another good sign. I hook in, stand on launch for a few minutes then felt a cycle come up the hill and bang off I went. I flew out in front loosing height at first before hitting the thermal and climbing up to about 1500ft above launch at which point I lost the thermal. By this point Quadey had taken off and was climbing in front of launch, so I pulled on the VG and headed his direction. I arrived about 1000ft above him and managed to climb out nicely. When I again lost the thermal I decided to head south downwind as I had a fair bit of height by now.
My first glide was about 6km or so and towards the end of the glide I was drilled with some fairly strong sink and then hit a small climb of about 1.5m up. I boated around in this for 10min or so where I was going up then going down and I wasn’t really gaining any great height. I decided to head another kilometer or so south where there had been some earth work going on which paid off as I was treated with a very nice climb which brought me up nearly 1000ft higher than I was when I left the hill. From here I headed on a 4km or so glide to Bullen Range which runs north/south. I had to make a decision here to stay on the east or west side of the range. The east side looked the safest as there were plenty of landing opportunities where as on the west side I would have to glide for 5 or 6km to get to the first landing paddock. I decided to fly along the ridge line hoping to hit a thermal which I did. The thermal felt fast and sharp. I managed to gain about 1000ft at which point I lost the thermal but had plenty of glide to now to head west into the valley.
This glide was long, fast and the smoothest of the day for me and I took the opportunity to take a happy snap of the Tidbinbilla Tracking Station. It was really really cool to fly near the station. I flew west of the station between it and the Brindabella Ranges. About 4km SW of the Tracking station I got to about 500ft above the ground and was flying above the paddock I had picked as a possible landing option where I was treated to another climb. I managed to climb about 1000ft in this one that was weaker than the others and drifted a lot quicker. Once I either got to the top or lost it I went on glide and flew over what I think is the Tidbinbilla Visitors Centre. Here I needed a lot more height to keep going as the was now a few hills and some tiger country in front of me. I flew around the visitors centre where turn after turn I found no lift and when I was a couple of hundred feet above the ground I opened up the harness to get ready for landing. All of a sudden BEEP BEEP BEEP the vario went nuts and the nose of the glider popped up, gold! I had hit a short sharp climb which took me up the side of a rocky hill. I climbed about 800ft and had drifted behind the hill. From here I reckon I needed another 1000ft to get over another hill down wind to get me safely into the next open area. I made the decision here to head back to the visitors centre and hope for another climb as I had dropped out the side of the thermal I was climbing in. I found nothing and 10 minutes or so later went into land and landed pretty well which topped it all off!
All in all a bloody top flight with a straight line distance of 24.6km. This flight has taught me a hell of a lot. At all times throughout the flight I always made sure I had a paddock within glide that I knew I could reach easily if I needed to land for any reason. When on glide I headed towards hills, treed areas and open bare ground hoping that a thermal would be pumping up off them. I think this worked for me twice which was pretty cool (the other climbs were pure luck). When getting low to the ground over the paddocks I had picked as possible landing options I looked closer for power lines obstacles and had a good look at the slope of the paddock. I found that picking the slope of the paddocks to be hard the higher up I was, in fact the paddock I landed in was nearly flat even though from higher up looked as though it sloped away a little. The wind on the day was all over the place too. I took off from a north facing hill while there were others flying off NW and even an east facing hills all within 40 odd km’s of each. As I approached for my landing I did a few 360’s and watched my shadow on the ground to see which direction my drift was and how fast the shadow was moving along the ground. I picked the wind as being NW and when I landed in the paddock I had picked it perfectly which was comforting as I can see how hard it could be to pick the wind direction in variable conditions.
So in summing up I’m hooked! I must add here too that I am flying an Airborne Sting 3 154 which I am very impressed with in all respects. I’m off with Quadey later this week to get our aerotow endorsements which I have no doubt is going to open up yet another door in this awesome sport. As for being better than sex, well I’d probably have to say no but the thrill certainly lasts a lot longer!!! hehehe :p
Happy Flying
Andrew >:-)
Leonardo at www.paraglidingforum.com :: Latest flights