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.

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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.

Full text here…

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 >:-)

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He’s done it!! Scott maintained his lead to win the pre-worlds flying his Airborne C4. Congratulations from all of us and I can’t wait to have a chat to him when he returns from his successful adventure.

Results and further interviews can be seen from the pre-worlds site:

Chabre pre-worlds blog

The organizers of the Pre-Worlds are maintaining a great little blog of competition with many great interviews and photos.

Chabre 2009 Blog

Among the interviews is Scott releasing a few more pearls of wisdom:-

Interview with Scott after the first task

Just been going back through some old emails and I came across this… Damn it has been a fun ride getting a foot into this sport.

Saturday

Karl, Dan and I headed out the lake intending to get some ridge soaring in. Winds were a bit light for that sort of action – none of the 20 or so visiting punters were getting up so I didn’t think that we had much of a chance. I was keen to try out the Blitz that Scotty had so graciously given me but decided that I would have enough problems trying to stay up in the Sonic this would not be a great time to complicate the issue by stepping off in new glider.

As expected that was a short sleddy. Time to try something different.

We headed to the north launch. At least our sled ride would be a little longer from there. After setting up, the wind had still not picked up much. The butterflies had set in to my stomach. This was the first time I had flown in anything other than my Sonic (other than one of Tove’s funs). How would it handle? I had no idea what to expect. My plan was just to run like hell to get the thing off the ground and flare like hell to make the thing stop. Anything I learnt in between would just be a plus. Dan launched first but had a bit of bad luck and ended up heading straight down to the bombout.

My turn. Hang checked and ready to go. The lack of wind up the face was doing nothing for the nerves. I waited for a while hoping the wind would pick up. No luck. Great, a nil winder in an unfamiliar glider.

Off I ran. It took a little longer to get off the ground than what I’m used to but it was a lot less stressful than I had expected. Landing gear up. Immediately you notice the glide ratio. I was moving much quicker than in the sonic and was sinking much slower. For an old glider it felt great.

Ok let’s try turning this thing. I had been told many times that I would have to get used to a new method of weight shifting due to the slow response time of these more advanced gliders. Weight shift, return to the centre and wait for it to respond I had been told, so that’s what I did. It was a little strange as I made my first turn but nothing unexpected.

Then beep. Cool. Beep beep. I knew that sound. Playing on the side of caution I started with a few figure eights careful not to get too close to terrain. A few passes and I was above the ridge. Time to hook in. Thremaling felt pretty much the same as what I was used to but it took a bit more effort to stay in the core. By this time the punters were streaming off the hill. Some going up, some going down.

A punter with a white wing and a red leading edge soon found my thermal. We took that up to 1500’ above launch. I took this opportunity to try a few things in the new glider. First I tried pushing out a bit more to increase climb rate. I do tend to push out a fair bit in the Sonic to milk a thermal for all that its worth – you hardly notice when it stalls anyway. I knew that this would be different in the Blitz but with this much height I didn’t really care. Edging the bar out while in the thermal was fine but as you venture to the edge of the thermal the wing in sink tends to fall out of the sky. It recovers itself ok but you lose a bit of height in the process.

Karl was off. He was in another thermal off to the left of launch. I wanted to join him so off I set. Let’s try out this vg thing. I pulled on the rope – bugger. It was stuck. I hadn’t checked it in my preflight as I didn’t think there would be much of a need for it in the sled ride I was expecting. Oh well, I was still moving a lot quicker than I was used to and maintaining more height in the process. We circled around for a bit then ventured off on various sorties but encountered nothing in any direction.

By this time I was fairly used to flying the Blitz. Time to think about landing. I picked out a big area in the bomb out paddock to allow for the extra distance I would travel in ground effect. Setting for the landing was like normal just a bit quicker. A nice quick final and down into ground effect. I have watched you good guys do this a hundred times and it felt exactly like I had expected. The Sonic gives you a touch of ground effect but nothing like this. The Blitz seems to give some fairly good feedback as to when it wanted to be flared. Once again I heeded the advice of those who have been there before – When you flare commit to it. With one big push up and out it stopped, a couple of steps and the ride was over. That seemed even easier than the Sonic but I think it was only beginner’s luck. I’m sure I’ve jinxed myself for next time.

This was a very enjoyable first flight in the Blitz I can’t wait to head out again.

I was really looking forward to Stanwell the next day… 3 times I have been to Stanwell. 3 times it has been too weak/too north/too south. Would tomorrow be any different?

Sunday

It was Michael’s plan to set off early. 5:30am was the call. What the!

To my surprise, Karl turned up on my door step with Michael. On with the gliders and off we set. After a brecky stop on the way up we arrived on the hill at 8:30am. It was ON! A nice call with the early start Michael. The wind was light though, so the Blitz would be staying in the bag.

Karl and I stuffed batons and launched at around 9am. There was a fair bit of south in it but still easy to stay up. There was no traffic in the air at that time of the day – just one para, Karl and I. Michael launched shortly after in his punter. Together we flew back South over the town and railway line. The scenery is beautiful from up here.

A train passes beneath, the fumes drift up and meet us together with a rush of rising air. A few quick circles get us above the ridge and the houses perched on top of the cliff. What a place to live.

Throughout this flight though there was one unsettling thought I was unable to shake from my mind… As an inland pilot mainly flying flatlands (or close to it) I like to have options. The whole time I’m flying I’m thinking – ‘If all else fails I can land there’. This is not the case around here in my floater. I have virtually no ridge soaring experience other than Lake George where the suggestion of looking for landing options is laughable. I am uncomfortable with this feeling but everyone else is getting away with it so I’ll draw some comfort from that.

Karl and I get itchy feet and attempt to push south onto the next ridge down. No luck. All we can find is rotor off the hill out in front and we are soon making our way back around to the chute. Karl lands first. I come in over the top of him take a few steps and drop the nose into the sand. Damn.

Michael, laughing at our feeble attempt to push south, top lands and drives down to pick us up.

Back to the top we head. By this time all the local pilots were up there along with the tandems and punters galore. This was more what I expected of Stanwell. That said no one was too keen to head off as the wind was still pretty light.

Nick and Matt had a couple of great flights around while most of the others headed to the bomb out to end their elongated sled rides.

Eventually we work up the courage to leap off. Though the wind was still light it was now straight up the face. North was the order of the afternoon we gained height on the cliffs off to the left and on to the clearings where the remote control gliders and zagis were zooming about. This was pretty cool. Another strange thing though is how blasé the locals are to the gliders swooping down beside them. At the lake everyone beeps there horn and waves to you if you’re low enough for them to see you. Sydney siders though, won’t cast an eye upward even after passing your shadow over their head. That said the crowds on bald hill are pretty cool.

So we continue North and I get my first view of Hell Hole. Interesting. I’m just going to boat around here for a while before I build up the courage to take this one on. Eventually Michael leads the way around the bowl without losing any height. He made that look easy so I follow. I didn’t lose any height but certainly didn’t gain any either as I make my way around.

As I get to the northern side of Hell Hole I encounter some wicked rotor from the outcrop in front of me. I lost a lot of height as I pulled in the bar attempting to get in front of the ridge. I rounded the corner and realised that I had a problem. I was low. The guys who knew what they were doing were high on the ridge 300’ above me. To say that landing options were sparse was an understatement. There was one beach within glide. A noticeable feature of this rather tranquil landing option was that it was totally void of anything that resembled a road. With this in mind I was keen to get back up but the vario was silent. I knew I had to get in close to the trees to get into strongest part of the lift. I tried to get as close as I could but I just wasn’t game to get as close as I needed to. Still dropping I had to try something else so I headed out to the headland hoping to get something, anything off the cliffs. Still nothing. Damn I have a lot to learn about this coastal stuff.

Time to plan my landing on the beach. It was a reasonably large LZ though I would be coming in crosswind. I spotted a family at the far end of the beach so I aim to land somewhere near them. Ever mindful of the walk ahead I find some comfort in the fact the there was a couple of 5 year old kids out with their mum celebrating mothers day – If they could manage to walk down onto the beach surely I could make the walk back out.

So I setup to land South to North (god knows why, there had been more South in it all day). I attempted to turn into the wind just a fraction while in ground effect but I still managed to drop the nose as the tail wind was still a bit too strong. Bugger. I walked my glider over beside the family I had spotted from the air.

I started by asking them “I have a problem don’t I”. During the conversation that followed enlighten that I had a 2.5km walk back to the top of the ridge. Not great news but it could have been worse. Karl, by this time, had landed back at Stanwell and was on the phone. I gave him rundown on my situation and instructed them to have a beer and some lunch and that I would give them a call when I reached the car park. After being on the other end of a couple of these sort of long retrieves I was keen to dig myself out of this one.

Now packed up, off I set. The path was bloody steep – this was going to take a while. An hour later I was about a kilometre and a half into my journey. I was hot and buggered. My camel back had been sucked dry while I was still back on the beach. I soldier on a bit further when a guy, taking his 74 year old mother on their annual mother’s day trip down the beach I now know as being Burning Palms offers to give me a hand. This guy was a legend. He grabbed the back of my glider and we storm up the hill. I gave the guys a call when we’re 500m from the car park.

We reach the top right as Michael and Karl pull in. Nice timing. After telling some of the local guys where I had landed they had expected the worst and were ready of a lengthy walk. The relief was clear on their faces.

The trip home gave me plenty of time to reflect on my mistakes and just how different this coastal flying was to what I am used to. I can’t wait to have another go.

Thanks Michael for chauffeuring us up and back. Also big thanks again to Scott Hannaford for the Blitz, I can’t wait to try it out again.