Another Forbes, another great turnout of enthusiastic pilots wanting to rack up some serious airtime.

Dave has pretty much given us the run down of the weekend so I’ll just weigh in with a couple supplementing observations.

Firstly, with all the rain over the past couple of months the air is pretty damn mellow. There’s still nice big climbs but they don’t have the harsh edges we normally experience during the peak of the season. This makes for really nice towing conditions which can still put you in to some great air in which to spend the day. Ideal for anyone looking to gain some aerotow confidence.

Keeping in mind that I have never actually flown in Florida, I can’t help but get the feeling that it might be something like this. The substantial surface water seems to defy all my usual rules and acts as quite a reliable thermal trigger. I hear that this is along the lines of what happens around the swaps when flying from Quest Air. Novel.

The predictable air over the weekend gave me a chance to reflect on a few of the key components that go into putting a smile on the face any hangie.

Having a really nice feeling glider is essential in autumn conditions. Making the most of the air going up is more important than during the peak of the season where a single cracking climb can make up for a previous bad decision. I really enjoy this mellow type of flying. A lot of that enjoyment comes down to flying the glider I feel most comfortable in.

Moyes have really kicked a goal with the Litespeed RS 3.5. I always hear remarks about it’s superior glide ratio at speed but the stand out characteristic for me is how well it climbs. This holds true regardless of how much ballast I have on board or how allusive the lift on a particular day.

Much of flying skill is handled by the subconscious and muscle memory. A key to the really being happy with how you perform is to have a glider and harness that does not impede this process. Harness wise, I am in the process of switching makes and models, stay tuned to hear how that goes. On the other hand though, I am convinced that I have found the right glider for the foreseeable future.

Dan Shaw, is also loving his new beast, a Litespeed S5. He is climbing really well and managed a PB triangle on Saturday. Awesome flying mate!

Finally, we get to the title of the post. With two 90km triangles in opposite directions we end up with tracklogs that look a little something like this.

This is about as much class as the usual Forbes crew can conjure up.

Thanks heaps to Steve for putting us all in the air so fast and efficiently. Thanks to Simon and Steve (again) for jumping in the car when needed. Thanks Mum and Dad for hosting all the usual crew. Thanks also to the Forbes Aero Club for preparing the strips by getting rid of that foot high green stuff all over the place – someone said it’s grass but I doesn’t grow that tall out there, does it?

Tracklogs are up here

Cheers,

Trent

It’s as green as I’ve ever seen it out west. It’s never been like this since I’ve been flying. Forbes though, being in the heart of great flying country, managed to turn it on again. Dave gives us a run down from the weekend…

Well our tug master extraordinaire Steve McCarthy was up for the challenge of yet another weekend of fun flying at Forbes so with the Canberra dusty Demons leading the way it was  a nice turn up of 12 pilots including some new and old legends. Grant Heaney, Franko, Dan, Adrian, Simon, Roger, Michail, Len, Guy, Trent, Barnsy, Steve & me.

With the 8000mls of rain Forbes has had in last month we almost asked Bill if we could use his Dragon fly with floats this weekend but as green and lush as the airfield was it perfectly dry to tow off.  So I arrived with Barnsy and Trent on Sat morning to see the whole bunch keen as mustard. We set a goal for Lake Cargelligo about 140km away. Full credit to Steve for getting us all in the air so fast and with everyone doing great safe tows it was game on!! The wind at the BL was around  20kph So Grant suggested we fly a Triangle insted.  Off to Bogan gate then Parkes and back to the airport. From the air the terrain looked beautiful so green and there was water lying everywhere you looked, but despite this there was some great  lift around 800ft/min was not uncommon and base was about the 6000ft mark.

Everyone had great flights with some doing the original task and some completing the Triangle.

Steve, Grant, Barnsy, Trent and I headed back to Munjal (Trent’s Parents Property near Grenfell) to wish Terry happy 50th birthday have a few beers and enjoy Trish’s cooking. It was great night of laughs and flying stories.

Sunday gave us similar weather with lighter winds so we set a 90km triangle task to the south.  Steve once again got us all in the air fast and safe and after some soft scratchy thermals around the airport the day turned on and we all headed out on course. This was even more fun than yesterday and almost everyone made it back to the airport. Lots of happy pilots with a heap of airtime and spectacular views of the wet green countryside.

So another unreal Forbes fly-in This is what its all about for me, great social flying with with a top bunch of friends and a beer or two after. Thanks to the pilots that turned up it was great to fly with you all. See you on the next One!!!

A massive thanks to Moyes for the use of the Dragon fly and to Steve for your time once again it wouldn’t happen without you. Also, thanks heaps to Terry & Trish for your hospitality.

Dave.

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…

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