Sunday saw us head to Spring for some ridge soaring action. The drift on the clouds was reasonably strong from the SSE but on the deck it stayed west all day?!? It’s got me buggered.

Dave took the opportunity to fly the Airborne C4 13.5 demo. The extra glide of the new model was immediately apparent and we will be ordering our new gliders for next comp season very soon.

In the meantime Ricky Duncan has put a special price on the 13.5 pictured. It’s the nicest glider I’ve flown so I’m sure who ever snaps it up will be stoked.

For more photos from Sunday click here

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.

Andrew Luton writes:

Trent, Dave, Carl, Andrew and Ryan headed out to Binalong on a cool 20ish degree day with a very light WSW breeze and an inversion to end all inversions. Not the best day for getting high and flying far but Binalong certainly shows huge potential when the warmer weather returns.

The hill boasts many TO options and has a small, sharp and exposed valley running up the face left the by what seems to have been a landslide many years ago. This trigger was working even in very light cooler conditions and is looking to be extremely promising.

The hill has a fantastic bombout paddock as Carl showed us and has XC opportunities heading ENE to Crookwell and really in any direction you want to go.

One point to note is that access to the hill is limited to the relatively rough track to the top of the hill, not to mention you could rollerblade down if you really wanted to. Doesn’t make sense, well no not really - you’ll have to make the trip one day soon to find out for yourself and then enjoy the little beauty that is Binalong!!! See you on top soon…

A little test of the ACTHPA Oregon Scientific camera. Edited in half an hour (and it looks like it)

Email to Armand/Davis:

Thanks heaps for the weekend and all the time you have put into getting us all in the air over the past few months. Really appreciated mate.

Saturday, as you know, was great. A tail wind run to Condobolin. Most of the crew landed at town with Grant, Tove and myself stretching it out to 100km. Phil continued on into the boonies for 160km and a character building retrieve in a constantly overheating van.

Sunday, the wind was blowing us towards West Wyalong. Once again almost everyone made it to goal landing at WW Airport. Base 7000 amsl.

Tove was high over West Wyalong but Grant “persuaded” her to land in order to look after the kids while the rest of the crew returned to get the cars from Forbes. A shame, as I was looking forward to sitting in a pub in Hay with the person that originally taught me how to fly one of these things.

I missed West Wyalong (some bugger moved it) as I only had Hay in my 6030. By the time I had a visual on WW I was downwind. I couldn’t fight my way back SE (wind was 30km from E by this stage) so just headed South instead until I met up with the Newell Hwy – Lucky Peter Garonne gave us a description of where the Hwy tracked as it went south so I knew I should hit it sooner or later. This would make for a much faster trip back to Canberra that night. I ended up just short of Grong Grong – of Forbes Flatlands 2008 fame. Andrew, Nath and Deb were in my landing paddock as I descended on final glide.

Scotty Hannaford replied:

… I had the same issue with the downwind drift, but realised I was losing touch with the course early enough to correct it - my track when you look at it is going to be pretty ugly - there was plenty of flying backwards to find lift, following wrong roads and generally faffing about. Of course there was oodles of lift over the airport when I arrived, making it very difficult to get down. If I wasn’t already buggered I would have followed you down the road, but in hindsight it was probably wise to land where I did rather than risk a boonies expedition!

I was flying Dave May’s Airborne C4 13 as opposed to my usual C4 13.5 on both days. A nice feeling glider but it does not do the whole self coring thing that makes the 13.5 such a breeze to fly. Glides were quick as you would expect from the higher wing loading. Following lift lines in this glider also seemed to be easier due to the super responsive nature of the glider. Landing either glider is a pleasurable experience with generous flare windows and a crisp rotation with a bit of VG on.

Flights:

http://xc.dhv.de/xc/modules.php?name=leonardo&op=show_flight&flightID=26840

http://xc.dhv.de/xc/modules.php?name=leonardo&op=show_flight&flightID=26839

A great weekend, thanks for making it all possible. Please also pass on my thanks to Bill Moyes for letting us have all this fun in my favourite place to fly.

Ed writes about his first XC last month. This commentary follows on from the day before.

My First XC Flight

As we drove up Mt Buffalo my hopes for achieving my first cross country flight weren’t great. I had been very hopeful the day before, taking of at the Pines only to find myself landing in the bombout about an hour later, but not so much today. The previous days efforts combined with a question mark over the suitability of the conditions to even take-off from Mt Buffalo left me with a real “lets just see what the day brings” attitude. We drove through the toll booth at the bottom and I met Carol who looked after us as we went through the gate. Carol is a bit of a hangliding icon in the area and at that time she was about 2 weeks away from becoming a Mum. A couple of things occurred to me as we drove up Mt Buffalo. It is absolutely beautiful. Hey were still driving - it’s bloody huge. There are lots of big rocks and dead trees - there are very few landing options. Trent pointed out a couple of key features.

“That’s the Hot Rocks - it’s always working and you’ll find good lift there. That’s the other side of the mountain - apparently there are a couple of places to land if you have to but there are no tracks out. A couple of guys have landed there but it’s about a 2 day walk out and unless you can find a couple of Sherpas you’re leaving your glider behind. There’s supposed to be a couple of gliders still there from the guys who have landed there. I wouldn’t recommend landing there.”

As we got to the plateau on top of the mountain Trent pointed out a beautiful big open area.

“You can land there if you have to but it is a bit bumpy and you’ll have to remember that you are at 4000ft AMSL and it’s pretty warm - you’ll have to land pretty fast”.

We arrived at the top to find about half a dozen other gliders at various stages of set-up. Having only done one other cliff launch before at Tongarra I was a little nervous about doing a cliff launch. Everything had gone very well on my previous cliff launch - the nerves were more from doing something relatively new. The shear height and openness of the rocks at the launch didn’t help to alleviate the little lump in the back of my throat. After meeting a couple of the locals Trent and I got to setting-up. Trent, like a lot of the good guys, has a capacity to set-up in about ten minutes. So while I was just finishing off and getting close to stepping into the glider Trent gave a great demonstration of how to do a cliff launch properly. With a few other gliders backed up on launch I thought I’d take the opportunity to watch a few more good launches. The next launch was a brilliant example of what not to do and I really appreciated the pilot risking his neck to demonstrate such an important and effective lesson. A very casual stroll down the ramp with the nose high, lobbing off the hill almost at the stall and getting a right wing drop that required a lot of pilot correction to avoid hitting the cliff to the right of launch - I’m sure it took the pilot a couple of minutes to “unpucker”. The crowd of on lookers gasped/sighed in unison. Now I understand why all my friends think I’ve got a death wish doing hang gliding - I’m sure they’ve all seen an effort like this at some stage. It was a great reminder for me - keep the nose low, wings level, wait for the wind to be straight on launch and run with commitment. I think that the popularity of our sport would benefit from less of these public demonstrations.

Shortly afterwards I found myself on launch - the last one to take-off. A couple of local pilots, Mark and Glen, had volunteered to help everyone off. I really appreciated their help and when I catch up with them around the traps it’ll be my shout - thanks guys. When you are standing on the edge of a cliff contemplating running off it there are useful-thoughts and there are not-so-useful-thoughts. As pilots we must have the mental ability to discipline our minds to focus on the useful thoughts. “Bugger me it’s high up here. Is that little paddock way over there the bombout? Gee that other guy nearly died doing this and he’s a more experience local pilot. This is only my second cliff launch. Rocks are really hard. How fast can a cheetah run?” None of these were useful thoughts. Some of these thoughts ran through my mind before I strapped in however I couldn’t afford to be thinking about these things as I took off. The best way to clear them from my head was to acknowledge and mitigate the risk prior to stepping into the glider. “Yes it is high up here - but really, falling any more than ten metres, which I’ve taken off from heaps before, is deadly - check. That little bombout paddock is perfectly adequate to land in and within glide - check. The other guy, regardless of experience, had very poor technique. I will keep my nose low, wings level, wait for the wind to be straight and run with commitment - check. My first cliff launch went well because I focussed on nose low, wings level, straight wind and a committed run. I now have even more experience cliff launching - check. Yes rocks are hard - don’t hit them - check. About 120km/h - check.” Now after zipping into the harness all I had to think about was safely getting the glider over to launch and - nose low, wings level, wind straight and a committed run.

Running of a cliff is a great buzz. I’m in the air, all is well and the take off felt good. I’ll ask the girls how it looked when I land. Now the fun begins. I work the rocky outcrop immediately to the right of the launch, slowly building enough height to get further around to the right where the rest of the gliders are. They are working on a face more directly into the wind. After about ten minutes or so I’ve got enough height and move over to where the other guys are. By now it feels like there are a few less gliders there. I work this face and get some good height (about 1500ft above launch) only to have to taken from me in some big sink - this happens a few times till one of the big sink cycles has me scratching around back at the little rocky outcrop near launch again. In the air for 45 minutes and right back where I was after only one minute in the air. Hang gliding is funny like that - sometimes being where you were 45 minutes before (ie. still in the air) is an achievement in it’s own right - a lesson I start to appreciate as I notice that I’m now one of only two gliders on the hill. I can see a few gliders low on glide and landing in various paddocks in front of the mountain and over near the airstrip. So I settle into a cycle of scratching around the rocky outcrop and occasionally stretching my circles back around to the other face to see what’s there - nothing. After doing this for about 15 minutes a felt some lift out in front of the rocky outcrop and follow it a fair way out to a pretty good thermal. I look down to discover that I’m over the Hot Rocks. I should listen to Trent more often - although he is packing up in the bombout right now. I work this thermal and a series of thermals that follow slowly drifting across to the left of launch - the two day walk out side of the mountain. Finally I get to a height where I’m thinking of drifting back with the wind to achieve my first, albeit very meagre cross country flight. However, every time I extend my circles out in that direction I hit massive, massive sink. Before I get to decision time (ie. I’m still going up in the thermal) a lone paraglider comes drifting past on glide in the direction that I am contemplating going. Great I’ll just watch him and see how he goes … “Holly crap, did someone just hand that guy an anvil?” As he appeared to fall from the sky I decided that I could wait a while and work for the extra height that I thought I’d need. Part of my problem is that because I’ve not done any cross country flying I have no judgement of what I can or can’t glide to. Ridge soaring into 20-30km/h winds distorts your judgement Yes I can look at the ground and see if it is moving up, down or staying still to get some idea but there’s a guy up here handing out anvils. I don’t know how many anvils I might be handed between here and there. My Sonic and I are a good team but “anvil transporting” just out our thing. As for me and my glider - we will err on the side of caution. Eventually the lift I’m in dries up and, having decided left to the valley of anvils is not my thing, I work my way over to the Hot Rocks. I was planning to head back over to the launch area however by now there was a gaggle of paragliders drifting towards me from the other side of the Hot Rocks in a pretty good thermal. One anvil later I am over the Hot Rocks below launch height looking out and up at the paragliders thinking “Hmmm, bugger, I may have just missed the bottom of that beautiful looking thermal”. After scratching around for a bit and taking the average of a couple of thermal cores the vario started to make a very nice noise, a noise I like to call “going off it’s nut”. I had found my own thermal and I felt a little like a fisherman sitting on the shore with a 10lb line and a whale on the other end. The thermal was a monster. It was very wide and going up like a champion. I think I averaged around 7ms for quite a while. It seemed to take only 5 minutes to get way above launch and another 5 to get ridiculously above launch. As I approached 7000ft AMSL I was joined in the thermal by the biggest Wedge tail eagle I’ve ever seen and we shared the ride to cloud base. I’ve shared thermals with wedgies before but this was different. For significant periods of the climb we were perfectly in synch in the thermal both circling in the same direction, exactly opposite each other at the same height with a great view of each other. Very cool! Cloud base was at about 7800ft AMSL and formed a very cool concave shape where you could fly around up in the middle of the cloud just below it but be circled by the lower edge of the cloud. Very cool!

At about the 7000ft mark I tried getting Trent on the radio to help with the upcoming decision - go/no go? Although I was very high I had what appeared to be a reasonable distance to cover back over Mt Buffalo and in the straight back direction I couldn’t see the terrain on the other side of the mountain. I could potentially arrive quite low above the back edge of the mountain only to discover that there was no where to land. The only terrain that I could see in that direction was covered in pine forests and it didn’t look like a land filled with free beer, ice cream and landing paddock for everyone if you know what I mean. The only patch of ground that I could see that had heaps of landing options was NW across the mountain towards Myrtleford but would require a slightly longer glide. Hurry up Trent and help me make a D (decision). Decision time comes when anvil number 2 quickly robs me of a couple of hundred feet while I search to regain the whopper that got me up here. I can’t find it - D time - Options 1.stay here go down and eventually land in the bombout; 2. go on glide to the known; 3. go on glide to the unknown. Question - do I really have a glide to the known? I believe that I can achieve the glide to that paddock - an under informed yes. Right - glide to the known it is. I now do one of the most intimidating things I have ever done in a glider (actually it’s one of the most intimidating things I’ve ever done full stop). I go on glide over the back of Mount Buffalo, looking down and seeing a few landing options initially but the land quickly becomes full-on tiger country (remember: rocks, dead trees and 2 day hikes). It starts off well as I fly across the top of the lake, the chalet and the beautiful big open area on top in close to zero sink. As I drift further across the mountain towards Myrtleford and am now committed to the glide across, as I have passed that point of no return due to the wind factor, I take receipt of anvils number three and four simultaneously. Just what I needed. I am going down quickly and I can see a relatively clear patch (big open rocks with gaps in the dead trees - not pretty) on the top of the evil side of the mountain (2 day walk side) and seriously consider landing there. D time - there is a cloud ahead within glide that looks like it is building and if I’m getting this much sink there must be some lift nearby. The D - continue on glide towards the cloud but move sideways to try and lose one of these anvils. I try moving left, then right, then left in response to my glider only to discover that I have simply zig-zagged down what appears to be a great sink line. The anvils remain. My decisions and lack of judgement has developed this situation into a real sphincter moment. I am getting very “concerned” (euphemism). The paddock I’d picked out to land in, the first paddock on the other side of the tiger country was most definitely moving up in my vision so I took the most logical option left and started to pray real hard - seriously. Literally a matter of seconds later my vario made the best noise in the world. I didn’t think it was possible for a vario to make a better noise than the “going off it’s nut” noise” but I learnt that there is a better noise. “Beep …. beep, beep …. beep …”. It wasn’t a rocket going up … it just wasn’t going down … and the landing paddock was now staying still. That is the best and most appreciated sound my vario has ever made. I searched around and eventually found some air going up a bit better than the odd solitary “beep”. I took a couple of turns in the thermal to a height that I knew I could make the landing paddock and then I headed out to the clear ground. I probably could have taken that thermal back up to near cloud base again but by this stage I was a spent force.

I ended up getting to the valley with a bit of height and found a good line of zero sink to just slowly meander down the valley towards Myrtleford. As I floated along I kept an eye on the power lines and updated my choice of landing paddock. Eventually I found myself low at a bit of a bottleneck in the valley and picked a paddock. I set up for a landing into the easterly I’d been flying in for the entire flight but at about 40 ft discovered that it was from the north. Luckily I’d set myself up along the south side of the paddock and it was easy enough to turn into the wind and land. The landing wasn’t the prettiest one I’ve ever done and tried to run it out. I just nosed over at the end. Too many landings at Lake George in 20km/h winds had eroded my practice at flaring. I had landed at Nug Nug, only about 10km from where I had taken off.

I stepped out of the glider in a surreal state absolutely hooked on cross country flying - that was too much fun. After a couple of minutes I came back to earth and SMS’d the guys my co-ords, took some commemorative photos of my glider with the back of Mt Buffalo in the back ground and then got to packing up. I was nearly finished when the guys arrived and Trent trekked across the 150m from the road to where I was with a grin as big as mine and a Southern Comfort and Coke in his hand for me.

“Congratulations mate. Well done! How was it?”

“That was great but bloody scary. I love it but I don’t think I could cope with it being that scary all the time.”

“Don’t worry about it, you’ll never do another flight that scary again”

“What do you mean?”

“Mate, you just did your first ever cross country flight going over the back of Mt Buffalo, on a scratchy sort of a day in a Sonic. Everything you ever do from here is going to be easier and less intimidating than that. But what a great storey - your first cross country flight ever from Mt Buffalo. Man there are experienced hangies that won’t even fly off Mt Buffalo and you just did your first cross country flight from here. Dude I’m so happy for you.”

“Well when you put it like that - cheers” and I took my first sip of the congratulatory Southern and Coke.

“Man, before we left the bombout I told Carol that you were off on your first cross country flight - she was so stoked for you. Well done Dude.”

I realise that 10km downwind over the back of Mt Buffalo barely counts as a cross country flight, particularly to experienced cross country warriors. Hell, I’ve done far longer flights at Lake George. But this does count as my first toe in the water and I learnt a bunch of lessons that may be of value to people who are yet to take their first step. So to the most important part of this story - what did I learn. Lots! In priority order, my lessons were:

1. Cross country flying is fantastic. The difference between ridge soaring and cross country flying can be likened to a domestic and a wild dog. One stays in place and gets the easy food and the other has to use all his faculties to survive. Using your faculties to survive is hard work but very rewarding. If you haven’t done it have a go … but in a less intimidating manner than my first flight … and with experienced pilots around to help.
2. ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS have a landing paddock that you KNOW that you can glide to … ALWAYS.
3. Baby steps are good in hangliding. Small incremental advancements are generally a better/safer way to develop rather than big bold steps which can be very intimidating and dangerous.
4. Beware of panic. Let me get one thing straight - I wasn’t a blithering panicking mess, but I’m sure that my anxiety levels had moved beyond the optimal to the point where my performance was being detrimentally effected. My mind certainly wasn’t relaxed and my decision making was less than it could have been. Too much of my glide was probably spent looking directly at the chosen landing paddock. I did look around but no where near as much as I should have. I’m sure that there were many indicators that the good pilots would have easily identified and used to find lift lines or booming thermals etc. I probably wasn’t too far away from having my performance and decision making get exponentially worse.
5. Even experienced guys get it wrong. Work systematically at not allowing yourself to become a complacent experienced pilot. Develop a system of mental and physical checks to ensure that your focus is where it should be and to ward off the evil of complacency.
6. Work hard to rid yourself of anvils by moving sideways - don’t just zig-zag up the middle of a sink line.
7. Be ready for the next D and anticipate it - have an action plan in place if you are forced to act and no new information comes along. Update the plan.
8. Get your approaches and landings right. Picking the wind direction correctly and doing a quality evaluation of your proposed landing paddock is the key to landing safely from a cross country flight. If you have the confidence to know that you can always land safely there is no limit to you’re ability to practice flying cross country. Don’t be afraid of doing a big committed flare - you really need them in light thermic conditions. Practice nil wind landings - even if it means going out for a sleddy.
9. Get your take-off right. Focus on your technique (there is nothing more important that you have to do while taking off so you may as well give it 100% of your concentration/effort - it’s a reasonably simple formula - nose low, wings level, wind straight and a committed run.
10. Sometimes being exactly where you were 45 minutes ago is a positive achievement
11. Wind direction can change, particularly in mountainous areas, and it tends to flow up a valley during the day.
12. Use other gliders to find lift and avoid sink
13. You can only fly as far as you plan to. I had focussed so long on making the landing paddock that even when I found a thermal near it which in all likelihood I could have taken back up to somewhere near 7000ft AMSL I left it to go and land. I had my excuses but really I failed to update my goals and think a few moves ahead.
14. The theory books don’t lie. The cliché textbook examples are out there - there were plenty of dams to tell the wind direction and I even got a bit of lift above a harvester moving around a paddock. Read and learn so that when you get in the air you will have a bucket load of info to inform your decisions and start matching the theory to the real world.

Safe flying.

Ed

Ed is writing a little something for Soaring Australia about our recent trip the Bright. So far he is up to the Monday where they chased me out to Toc but I am hanging out for his account from Tuesday where he heads off on his first XC - and what a flight it was.

After 2 days of rained out flying (don’t shed too many tears for me - wine tasting, cheese tasting, berry farms, nut farms great company and much talk of hangliding made for a pretty bloody good 2 days) we awoke to a beautiful sunny day in Bright. After breakfast we headed out to the airfield. Our hopes were soon subdued and eventually shattered. “Too windy and damn bumpy up there”, was the quote from Shane who had just landed his trike after a very bumpy flight to test the conditions. Bugger ! Someone suggested that we could go to The Pines.

“The Pines, The Pines sucks donkey balls” Trent’s replied with absolute contempt.

“What’s wrong with The Pines?” I queried.

“Let me put it to you this way, every time they have a competition in this area, and the only place that it’s on is The Pines, everyone votes for a rest day. That’s how bad The Pines are.” Trent added.

“But if that’s the only place it’s on we may as well give it a go”.

“The Pines it is,” Trent relented.

So not particularly enthused we went to The Pines. Once at the bombout of The Pines we found some very helpful people who advised us that Trent’s Santee Fe couldn’t possibly make it to the top of this behemoth mountain. There is a a “boggy patch” and a really “gnarly section at the top”. We would have to cross load into a “real 4WD”. The same people were kind enough to offer to take one more glider on their roof (I think it already had about 5 or 6 gliders on the roof) but buggered if we could find anyone to take the other glider up. There were some serious 4WDs with some serious racks that couldn’t possibly fit anymore than the 3 gliders that they already had on top. It’s not like the brethren to leave a pilot swinging. Where I come from in Canberra, pilots help each other, regardless whether you are of “hangi” or punter persuasion. Anyway there was nothing else for it but to struggle as best we could up as far as we could to the top before getting out and carrying the glider up this beastie hill. After about 10km of driving we discovered the “boggy patch”. It looked like someone had spilt a bucket of water on the track …. not quite the scary, snorkel necessary, periscope required bottomless loch that was described. Next we encountered the “gnarly” section at the top. It did admittedly get pretty steep and rocky … for about the last 50m. Suffice to say we ended up driving right to the top no problems at all.

Trent and I were among the very first hangies setup so I went over to inspect the launch and time the cycles and generally get a feel for the site having never flown here before. The Para guys started taking off around the time I walked over and some were getting some real snippets of lift but some were getting some horrendous sink. One Para particularly was heading out over the pine forest to the bottom left of launch a bit low and dropped like a rock for what must have been about 50ft and luckily wasn’t too far in over the trees as he did an immediate 180 and got out over the bomb out and landed not that far into it. I’d just finished saying to the Liz that it’s getting about as good as it’s going to get when Ollie fronted up at launch, strapped in and ready to go.

“Ed can you move your glider” Trent asked/demanded quite urgently.

“Is it on”?

“Mate, if Ollie’s taking off then it’s on. Let’s go.”

With that we got in line behind Ollie. Stuie jumped in in front of me at my invitation. It couldn’t hurt to watch a couple of good launches before mine.

Naah, you can go before me Stuie. Then I’ll get to see how the professionals do it”.

“If that’s what you want then you better not watch mine then”, Stuie jibed.

With no further fuss Trent then Stuie and then I were all in the air trying to catch Ollie. My goal was to do my first ever cross country flight however it wasn’t to be. After about an hour of scratching around the hill and missing a few opportunities I ended up landing. The best I’d gotten was about 500ft over launch however it was one of those “really good crappy flights”. It was really good because I did some things well and learnt a lot. I started with a well timed, good strong take off. I was finding the thermals reasonably well, infact, for most of the flight it felt like everyone was flying towards my thermal at a height way below me. One of the most satisfying aspects of the flight was the fact that many topless gliders that took off after me were on the deck long before me. I great confidence booster for a non-local in a Sonic. I did have a couple of opportunities that I squandered that I learnt’ from. The times when I did get high I didn’t use well. I should have made bolder moves once the thermals topped out, although my feeling was that the thermals were further over the back and I wasn’t prepared to look for them in the Sonic till I got that bit higher. I simply had no glide out if I was wrong - I’m not that ballsy yet. I never got that bit more height that I wanted to feel comfortable drifting further back. Eventually I landed and I was that keen to go again I deliberately landed at the top end of the bombout with the intention of carrying my gear back to the top to go again. It looks like it is only about 250m walk up the face of the hill. After landing I realised that it was only about 250m up but that it was going to be a lot of work for what would probably only be another sleddy. Just as I was making that decision Trent radioed in that “he and Ollie were 8000ft over Wangaratta” and that he was heading further west along the road to Tocumwal.

So after that Deb and Liz came up to help me pack up and carry the gear down to the car so we could go and get Trent. The radio calls just kept coming…

“This is Trent. I’m 20km west of Wang.”

“This is Trent. I’m over a huge lake on the Murray about 50km west of Wang.”

“This is Trent. The thermals are getting weaker. Don’t know how much longer I’ll be in the air for. I’m about 20km east of Tocumwal.”

“This is Trent. I’m over top of Tocumwal at 6000ft. I’m going in to land and give Tove a call.”

Deb (and all of us really) had been after a toilet since before Wangaratta, we eventually found one at a pub about half way from Wang to Toc. Other than that it was an uneventful trip out to Toc. We stopped in town at the Pub to get Trent his well earned congratulatory beers. By the time we arrived at the airfield Trent was half way through packing up his glider right beside the pool at Sportavia having a chat with Tove, who was looking very professional in her business suit, and her daughter Hanna. Tove invited us back to the newly built Heaney palace for a drink and nibblies. We arrived to see Grant and Thorry flying their remote control Zaggy’s. At times it appeared as though they were attempting to knock each others planes out of the sky … great fun. After a few hours of socialising with the Heaneys we left, promising to return for a weekend of flying. You see, after a season away from hangliding to recover from the whole Sportavia thing Grant and Tove, particularly Tove, were keen to get back into the flying. We left, waited half an hour in town for “the regions best hamburgers” to be made and then drove off. We got back to Bright spot on midnight.

To be continued…

After news of the great flights Barnsie, Dave, Karl, Ed, Pete and Geoff had at Tumut on Saturday the whole crew were keen on Sunday.

Pig Hill was the call with light northerly winds forecast. Deb and my parents, Trish and Terry came along to watch proceedings. Ed, Nick, Andrew L, Dave, Karl, Ryan, Barnsie, Nath, Pete and I provided the entertainmant.

It was to be Nick and Andrew’s first thermic flights. So we ran through what to expect and how to stay up:

• Pick a cycle where the wind is blowing straight up the launch
• Keep the nose down during the run in order to maximise your airspeed before leaving the ground.
• The best trigger point is the spur between the two launches
• Don’t turn back toward the hill until you are sure you have plenty of room to make the turn
• Leave the hill with enough height to make the bombout with plenty of time to set up a good landing approach.

A task was called - off to Yass then back to Dick Smith’s place at Gundaroo.

There was some hesitation on launch so I kitted up. I had to wait a while before there was a weak cycle straight up launch. The slight breeze up the slope was only just enough to get me off the ground even with a strong run which meant I only cleared the shrubs by a couple of feet. Exciting.

Off launch I was straight into a 1.5m/s climb over the usual spur. Even though the clouds up high were drifting to the NNE, the air down low was being sucked back into some rather intimidating looking clouds back over the Brindabellas. That made for a reasonable drift to the SSW at my altitude. Conditions on launch were still not that great so the others are forced to wait a while before they are able to get airborne.

A few times now I have been flying at Pig and watched the storms build over the range. I have noticed that hearing thunder while in a hang glider it not that easy so do not rely on your hearing as an indication of the severity of developing storm. Instead I am looking at the changes in size and colour of the building clouds. Though there is no imminent to the rest of the guys still on the hill I relay my concerns over the radio.

Not wishing to hang around I push north away from the real dark bits. As I was pushing headwind away from the storm that was growing in my direction, I was forced to go into race mode stopping for nothing less than 2m/s climbs. As this was stronger than day was producing it would be inevitable that I would hit the deck but at least at that pace I would be far enough in front of the nasty bits to be safe. Eventually, the ground and I became one near Murrumbateman.

At about this time the storm had moved away from launch. Rain was sheeting down between our two locations but conditions seemed to have improved enough for everyone to get off the deck. Unfortunately sled rides were the order of the day but it was some good scratching practice for everyone and safe landings all around.

A fun day out.

Pictures courtesy of Deb and my parents.

Here’s a link to all the photos

Monday morning we call in to the strip but the rain had been replaced by a moderate breeze out of the SE. By this stage Pete Wilson had left and none of the remaining tug pilots were up for towing in the lee side of the some of the biggest hills Australia can throw at you. Their position was understandable but it was going to be a great day if only we could get off the ground.

Various options were toyed with. Towing in the flats somewhere, driving to another hill closer to Melbourne, anything. Eventually we settled on the Pines.

The Pines is one of those sites that I had heard about but never been off. Flying over it looked like it would work but at comps in the past, whenever it was a choice between the Pines and rest day the consensus from more experianced pilots would be to head to the river.

Arriving on launch I was actually quite impressed. I think these Mexicans are spoilt when it comes to the height of their launches. We made several references were made to getting a cup of…

About 50 punters and 20 hangies were out to give it a dig. A great turnout for a free flying weekend.

So we set up and talk tasks. Mt Beauty is decided as goal but landing in the mountains with this wind would not be all that much fun. So alternatively heading out to the flaties was also on the cards. Schmitty, Sam, Tony, Oli, Stuie and I, among others, were keen for some ks. Ed was also busting for his first XC.

Of the hangies, Oli launched first with me straight after. Together we climbed through several punters before reaching airspace directly above launch. Everyone else streamed off soon after and the usual suspects were soon up with us ready to go on glide.

A couple of punters headed west for Wang. Oli and I followed for the first 500m before we pulled on some extra speed make the overtaking manoeuvre all the more dramatic.

Our cockiness left us a little low at the end of the ridge. We dived in for a lee sider off the end of the ridge and climbed out to airspace once again. Decision time now, back into the mountains or tail wind into the flatlands. Oli topped out before I did and headed SW.

“Ok, flaties it is” I thought.

We went on glide until Oli stopped for a slow climb. We were both still high so I ploughed on through out to a cloud over Milawa and a good climb.

That was the last time I had company.

All alone now I thought about my options. “Been a while since I’d caught up with Tove” I chuckled to myself.

I had not waypoints in the 6030 so navigation would have to be from memory and what ever I could see on the ground. A high climb later and I could see a lake in front of me. In a moment of disbelief I thought that it was the lake along the Murray near Yarrawonga. Surely it’s not that close - it wasn’t.

My memory was now jolted from one of the tasks from Sportavia. We flew down past a lake near the Hume highway and that was the one I was now looking at. So I looked north for the other lake. Ah, that’s the one another 50km up there. Tocumwal should be just over to the left a bit then.

So that’s how it went for the next couple of hours. Get to base just short of 7000ft, look around for something I knew, line some nice clouds up and glide along them until I low enough to think about doing it all again. The 6030 was calling a 15-20kph breeze from the south so I stayed upwind of where I thought Toc was.

As towns started to appear along the Murray I tried to work out which was which by asking Ed, Deb and Liz in the retrieve car for some rough distances from the lake.

Still unable to spot Toc I track along south of the river. By this stage climbs were easing off but the air was still quite buoyant. Flying at this time of the day is very enjoyable providing you stay high.

Two great bits of news then came my way. The first was that the airport appeared in view and, second, even better was that when I finished this climb I should have it within glide.

As with every other time I have flown at Sportavia there was a strong climb directly over the hanger. Isn’t that typical?

Eventually I find a bit that’s not going up and land beside the pool. The place is somewhat dielectric these days. Pool is bone dry, grass all dead and cob webs seem to populate the hanger. A real shame after all the work Tove put into this place.

I jump on the phone to see if the Heaney’s are in town. As luck would have it Tove had just arrived home from work and was out at the hanger within minuites. Ed and girls were not far behind.

It had been way too long since we had caught up these guys. Hanna still has the worlds biggest smile and Thorry has become a real little Grant in the best possible way.

The new house is quite a site. Tove has put a lot of effort into getting everything just right. It has really paid dividends.

It was great to see that everything is going so well out there and we promised that we would soon be back out for a fly. I for one am looking forward to it.

So that’s Monday… Ed will soon be sending though a write up for Tuesday as he certainly did Canberra proud.

Tracklog

As the long weekend approached so did the rain. The charts were dominated by several low pressure systems across the country. Phil Schroder warned us to pack umbrellas and people from all over the place were pulling out of heading down to Bright.

Keen on a long weekend away Ed, Liz, Deb and I head down to Victoria anyway. We were resigned to a wet holiday but held out hope that we could get a few tows in with the guys from Airborne that would be in town.

Saturday morning, as expected, we woke to rain on the roof and cloud base well below ridge height. After a quick detour past the airport a consensus was easily reached that this would be the perfect day to visit a couple of wineries in the district.

For self proclaimed non wine drinkers Liz and Ed certainly went through a few reds. Ed and I drowned our earth-bound sorrows and as the girls lived it up on the gourmet food. There are certainly worst places to be stuck on a rainy day.

There were plenty of flying type people in town for the long weekend and most of us descended on the Alpine hotel that night to compare wineries.

There was some interesting stories being told by the guys that decided to fly trikes down from Tumut. Not really suitable for regurgitating here but worth asking about should you run into one of the guys.

Sunday, ended up pretty much the same but Stuie and I managed to sneak a slightly damp tow in the rain. This was the first time I had landed with a totally soaked glider and I was surprised by how well it still handled - lucky as there was still quite a crowd watching from the dry hanger.

So here we were, half way through the four day event. Though the rain was supposed to ease off the ground would still be very wet which would dampen any thermal activity. Weather had been very cruel to us so far so we were not the hopeful for any great flights over the next couple of days.

“Sehr optimistisch”, as Jorg would say, was required, and Ed and I would reap the rewards of a bit of positive thinking over the following two days. More on that tomorrow.