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

What a turn out at the lake today! Ed, Barnsie, Jeremy, Micheal T, Geoff, Pete L,, Jon, Allan (Jeremy’s old man from Inverell) hit Nth lanuch for a day of flying fun. Almost everyone left over the back. Barnsie made it furthest landing near foal at Young. Jeremy managed a PB landing at Harden and.breaking the 100km mark. Nice flying all around guys!

Another great weekend at Forbes. Sunday proved to be a real standout with 4 different triangles of greater than 160km being completed by the various groups of guys that gave it a bash.

Cirrus threatened to shut down the day but to our surprise there were still some great climbs under the high cloud even though the CU development had been somewhat suppressed.

A standout effort was completed by Guy. He stuck with the original course of Forbes – Grenfell – Marsden – Forbes (180km) despite the decorating conditions and made it around! A great effort Guy!

A fun day out for all involved.

Tracklogs up here

Barnsie is really in form these days and flew like a daemon last weekend to claim his latest PB!!! It’s just a shame that this one will be broken again this season …

Friday

After 2 weekend at home with bad flying weather, A 3 day weekend was coming up at Forbes.

Friday it’s Trent Dave Pete D and I. It was going to be windy so we set a bit of a zigzag task down to Woodstock. It was only 98k but knowing that the next 2 days were just going to get better it was a good starter. The air around the thermals was really ruff. I was working on fly these conditions a little safer, trying not to let the glider get pitched up, avoiding not spat out and searching around for the better air etc. I was nerves about the landing with the strong wind and ruff conditions, but in the end everyone landed safely, mine was a vertical decent all the way to the ground.

Saturday

You know your in for a big day at Forbes when you see Guy and Len are there setting up early. They’d set a 312k task NE to Mullaley. Wow I love a task that will bet my PB. Wind was a little less than yesterday, but it was still 30k up at the boundery layer to push us along. I found my self at the back of the que to tow. Steve did a grate job as it was one of the wildest tows. Strait though a booming thermal, we got through it and then climbed in some smother air before going around to drop me back in it and I was on my way. Everyone was already on task and it was a going to be another day of catch up. I tryed to get to Trent and Nath. Nath landed at parkes and trent took a more north track and landed on the other side of range to the NE of Parkes.

Once I got my self over that range, Dave Guy and Len where my next target. The thermals were very rough like the day before, but I was determined that that would not put me off. Dave landed around the 190k to go mark. So I decided to stay high, stopping for more climbs than I probably need too. Most climbs were only 5 – 6500ft. The ’stay high’ trick was working… I was slowly catching Guy and Len. It would be grate to finally have people to fly with after all this time, but it wasn’t not to be.

About 5pm and the day was starting to slow Len had called a town to the north of course line, It was right on 240k mark my PB distance. So I flew on another 8k before turning around and landing at the town.

Thanks to Dave (who was ment to be back in cannberra that night) and Anet (who was only ment to have to do a short retreive) doing the long retrieve to come and get us. We got back to munjal by 2am.

Flight here.

(after 5.5hrs and 248k)

Sunday

After yesterday I would have been happy enough to drive for everyone, but it was a light and variable day. Good for a triangle. Guy and Trent where well underway. We had 3 week-link brakes in the paddock. So by the time Len and I were climbing out we decided to take a short cut and meet up with them half way along the second leg. After a scratchy save at parkes mine we all joined up and went on glide to Trundle. For some reason I was finding some of the best lift lines on the way. Putting me on the top of the stack for quite a few thermal (this just never normaly happens, but improving my gliding is something I’ve been working on for quite some time). Being just weekend flying, I hung back at the top of the climbs for the others to climb up to me. This was probably a bad move coz later on, with only one really bad decision I was left behind. But never the less I still made it home and pulled of a text book landing to finnish off an awesome weekend. 14hrs in the air, a PB that’s taken me 5 years to brake and  440 some-thing ks, I’m a happy man

Flight here.

Stuck for ideas on how to impress the other half in the lead up to the big season ahead? Steve gives us the hot tips on how to really wrack up those brownie points…

High Flyer’s,

A couple of weeks ago my wife, Anet, asked, as we have never celebrated in any way our wedding anniversary over the last 21 years, if this year we could do something memorable – maybe go away somewhere ?   At once my romantic side got carried away as I told her it was already planned. I was already going away and she would be more than welcome to join me for a romantic 3 days in Forbes. Anet could not wait and promptly organised time off work.

Friday was a warm day with a North West wind when we arrived at the airfield at 10am.

As we were staying in Grenfell and Pete would be going home to Canberra the boys decided that a zig zag down wind run to Woodstock would be the go as this would give plenty of cross wind practise and keep them close to home.

Dave, Trent, Barnesy and Pete all headed off together after leaving me a list of turn points and goal co-ords. Anet hooked them up, did the ground marshaling and then drove Pete’s Land Rover whilst I drove Dave’s Nissan. Pete made Woodstock in the Atos then flew head wind back to Cowra. The retrieve could not have worked out better. With good radio contact we were able to track him down and then check out the landing paddock just ahead of Pete’s landing. The owner was very excited to have a practising Forbes competitor land in his paddock. Anet then got to ride shotgun with me in the Nissan for the next part of the adventure.

Meanwhile the other boys had also made Woodstock then decided to float around and check out the local farm land to look for a good hiding spot eventually landing in a paddock of very solid stalky Canola stubble next door to Fred Fayes massive Ag strip, just out of Cowra. This was great. When combined with directions from Trent, Anet and I finally got a bit of time together as we played hide and seek retrieves.

Saturday saw Nathan, Noma, Evgeniya, Michael, Len, Guy, Roger and Dave with the Millennium join us. As I did not know the little Russian girl, Evgeniya, I made her wait until late in the day for the air to settle down before I towed her in her new Litespeed 3.5. She towed and flew exceptionally well and was keen to join the boys for Sunday. It was great to see Michael has his Aeros all sorted and after a small adjustment to remove a left turn he was flying very well. Thanks also to Michael and Deb for helping out Noma after his car broke down on the way out to Forbes on Saturday.

With Saturday’s South West wind a task was set for Mullaley near Gunnedah. Anet was again Ground Marshall and Retrieve driver for Dave, Len, Guy and Barnesy who flew a new PB. What better or more memorable way to celebrate your 21st wedding anniversary than driving for this great bunch of hangies, on a romantic outback all day, all night adventure. 

Nathan flew over to Parkes to visit his rellos and the rest stayed local, landing back at the field.

Sunday saw very pleasant temps, light winds and the boys even returned my wife so she could enjoy more time at the field. Dave May had to go home, sacrificing the best day to be with his family. See I’m not the only romantic, considerate partner.

A rather challenging triangle task was set and completed by Len, Guy, Trent and Barnesy with Trent pulling off a tree top height save at the first turn point. Meanwhile, Nathan having had a very pleasant visit the previous day decided to fly to the rellos again on Sunday. The rest of the flyers set their own tasks and most landed back at the airfield. Michael and I did the retrieves giving Anet a bit of time to just hang out and enjoy the relaxing surrounds and great company that was to be found in the Dragon Fly hanger at Forbes air field. Although the thief was unable to be there and was sorely missed the other Dusties tried hard to make up for him with many great vanishing tricks of their own. Sending co-ords then hitching a ride to town or landing in difficult retrieve sites then moving. This was extra exciting for the retrieve driver who didn’t have a phone with him. On Sunday the disappearing trick almost backfired on Nathan as when we got back out to his glider, a local was just about to load it onto his vehicle, thus making a glider disappear.      

Thanks to Bill for the Dragon Fly, Anet, Dave Phillips, Michael and Roger for the retrieves and to all the guys that helped to make such a memorable 21st anniversary. A special thanks to Anet for the marshaling and keeping all the paper work records in order.  Finally a big thankyou to Terry and Trish for having us at your house yet again.

I hope to do it all again soon and may even let Anet come with me, even if it’s not an anniversary as every trip out with you guys is a very special time to remember.

Steve

A few pics from Nath to set the mood…

View Full Album

Dan Watters fill us in…

By 9:30am there was 7 hangies on launch at Geary’s (Dan W, Nic W, Thief, John D, Bobby, Michael I, Geoff R, Johnno W), rubbing their eyes at the early start and waiting for the hoards of punters to stuff their washing away.

The Thief was the first to take to the air, buzzing the punters in hang whilst attempting to hump his base bar like a dog. The increasing wind strength and Thief’s maniacal laugh was enough to send ‘em packing.

Nic and others joined him shortly afterwards, heading north. Launching 5 minutes behind, I found a thermal almost immediately and took it to 3,500ft… at 9:45am!

I watched the Old Farts Flying Brigade of Bob, Michael, and John launch a good thousand feet below me.

Converting my height to speed, I caught Nic and the Thief at the second rest stop with the Thief already corkscrewing up. I joined the thermal and we hit cloudbase at 4,200ft, now only 10am. The blanket of cloud from the overnight seabreeze was starting to breakup into streets coming from the NE. John joined us at cloudbase and we all pushed headwind, with the Thief and I skirting the edge of the cloud street, and ducking underneath to top up occasionally. John took a more easterly route. We all reached the other side of the lake before racing back to the second rest-stop to find the resident thermal still pumping.

By 10:30am cloudbase had lifted to 4,500, and the clouds were breaking up even more. Everyone was hooking lift left, right and centre. The day was looking awesome. My initial thoughts were to hang at the ridge for another hour, by which time the whole place would be pumping, the cloud would have lifted further and the prospects for a super XC would be seriously on the cards. Just as Nic joined our thermal, the Thief topped out 100ft above me and declared his intention to go on glide. In the excitement, I abandoned the plan to wait and decided to join him so we could spread out and find lift together.

A couple of turns later I was at base and on glide. Wisps of cloud obscured my view of the Thief. I decided to stick to the breaking street. The ridge was chopping the street up, and soon enough I was getting low near the next ridge to the west of the lake. The Thief’s luck wasn’t much better and he radioed in that he was hitting the deck near Dick’s place. My line proved only marginally better, and I drifted in zeros long enough to get me over the next ridge and landed just near the Gundaroo tip shortly after 11am, I was close enough to the pub to smell the beer.

Back at the ridge all the other dudes were having heaps of fun with everyone topping out and flying sorties out over the lake.

After packing up I strolled into the Gundaroo pub at 11:56am, and was delighted to be served a frosty beverage several minutes before the official opening time. The beers and banter with the locals flowed with the rest of the lads joining us for a counter lunch, retrieving the Thief en route. I let the beers cloud my vision of the clouds which only seemed to be getting better and better. The season has well and truly arrived!

Dan.

Yet another top notch weekend has been had at Forbes as the fellas write below.

Barnsey Writes

180km triangle in October!

BOM had predicted light and variable winds with isolated showers and thunderstorms, so it was either going to be really good or OD and shit.

Guy turned up early with task in hand. He’d worked out how to keep us out of the any over development and set a 180km task. Forbes – Marsden – Grenfell – Forbes.

Guy and Len where already on task when Dave and I where climbing out. Our next thermal was nothing special and soon after I found myself scratching up out of a paddock with the aid of 2 big eagles. By the time I got my self back up, Dave was already at the top of the next thermal and on the way to catching up with Len and Guy… charging!!! So for the rest of the flight I spent playing catch up on my own. I got with in 6 km at the first turn point, but got slow on the next leg and their lead just got bigger. By the time I go to Grenfell they had 30k on me.

At around 5pm the guys were calling they were on final but I still had 40k to go and the day was slowing down and I was regretting not having had anything to eat since breakfast. I really didn’t think I was going to make it, so I took a cloud street toward Forbes town keeping the main road underneath my rather than following course line and landing in the boonies.

I got to the edge of town with not enough height to get over it. I called that I wasn’t going to make it and chose a nice paddock to land. But as so often the case, just as you’ve given up you find lift. It was only going up to 4g but that was enough to give me a 10/1 to the airfield. I landed 100m short in the next paddock but seeming it was just weekend flying the guys reckoned it was close enough to claim the 180k triangle.

Dave Writes

Well after Guys ridiculously precise forecast yesterday we all arrived at the airfield with anticipation of today’s task. Guy and Len sorted out another Triangle task of 150km. Starting off with light NW then apparently swing SW by the time we where on the final leg for a tail wind finish. Attila arrived to test fly his new Moyes LS5 and so too Gerolf, Katherine and Noma. So the towing began and I joined Guy, Pete, Geoff and Len at base which was only going to a blue 4500asl at this time. Pete getting used to the Moyes LS5 (hopefully converting from the Atos) stayed within glide to airport with the others to get some airtime up, while we thought as a gaggle we should set off on course as we had good searching power and a long flight ahead. With a Light X wind first leg we were going fast until clouds starting popping ahead, the inversion lifted leaving the ground in front to heat up from scratch and dumping sink in front of us. I got low with Len just above and Guy and Geoff a bit higher. Almost out of the race I was working some broken crap averaging zero. The guys above slowly climbed out in something a bit more solid and with enough height headed for the clouds over the hills. Still scratching low Len made me feel better by saying "well I’ll say bye Dave cause where off and we won’t see you again" thanks mate!!! But my persistence paid off and the thermal cracked building up to a 4.5m and going to 8000ft/asl. So I glided straight past the others to TP1 (how your day can change with one strong climb). Now we had clouds so from there it was a game of join the dots, the dots being beautiful Q’s at 8500asl and if you chose the right ones it was slow but steady X wind leg to TP2.

Just as Len and Guy said it would the wind had turned SW, so the light tail wind and nice lines made it a fast run home. Geoff smoked the last leg catching up to Len as they both made goal. Attila got round and almost chased us down after leaving later and flying on his own. Unfortunately Guy landed a frustrating 14km short.

Monday brought more pilots with Nick from Canberra and Jorg from Stanwell cruising up for day. Wind was also on the cards and hoping it would have north in it I planned to fly home and thanks to Geoff who after a fly would retrieve me on his way back to Canberra. But when Len told me his thoughts on the weather I wasn’t so confident. Len called storms to the south and with WSW wind. His forecasting had been spot on so things didn’t look great. But for Geroff and Noma it looked awesome as they planned to fly east so they some fun ahead. Geroff, Noma and I launched into a blue sky with a 5000asl base to get a head start on the over development, I headed X wind to the south with caution until the clouds starting forming lifting the base to 9500asl so I started pushing harder but with 25k wind form the WSW up high and overdeveloping ahead I could only stop for strong climbs and after pushing through some average lift I found strong sink between streets and quickly ended up on my ass 90km on course.

All in all it was yet another amazing Forbes flying weekend with everyone having an awesome time in and around the airport. The highlights for me were Barnsy’s gutsy effort to never give up on the 180k triangle flying it solo and making it round in more than 6 hours. Also Len’s dominating flying after a year on the side line. Guys precise forecast and task call. The great laughs and atmosphere with my flying friends.

And Steve’s endurance and skill in the dragon fly to get everyone safely in the air, with out the support of Moyes and Steve’s time, Forbes would be just another dusty paddock.