Wednesday night’s race was full of little decisions. A couple of times I found heading at 90 degrees to course line was the secret to staying in the race.

A majority of the field had a hard time making goal after testing the bolts holding their wings on or venturing into Cumulous granitous. This reduced the number of people keen to send in their tracklogs. Speedy was also hard done by - his PC had a fit as he rounded the last turn point. It would have been a nail biter between Speed, Andrew and I if he had finished.

Great race

Google Earth flight tracks for 29 Aug 2007

Condor flight tracks for 29 Aug 2007

Yesterday, Deb, Dave and I headed up to Tongara with high hopes of heading XC south along the ridge. 25 degrees was the forecast and they were right on the mark. Launching conditions were perfect with a NW wind up high but as usual the was a nice breeze being funnelled up the valley and straight up launch.
I went first but end up bombing out after scratching below ridge height for the 20 mins or so. Dave launched next and scratched like a champion and managed to get up above the ridge. He bounced between the ridge height and 500ft (one climb up to 100 above) above for the next 2.5 hours. A great effort on what what proved to be a very tough day. Dave is flying really well at the moment. The time he has been putting in over winter is really paying dividends as we approach the flying season proper.

As testomony to the difficulty of the day, Deb picked me up from the bombout and I had another go. A similar result awaited me and I was once again watching Dave from the bottom of Macquarie pass. Thanks must go to Deb for driving up and down the pass all day to pick me up.

Dave makes his first top landing at Tongara just behind launch to top off a great flight.

We finished off a fun day with Blue Tongue Larger on tap at the Robertson pub.

My calendar must be broken. It thinks that it is still winter…

Over the weekend Dave and I headed up to Newcastle in the hope of maybe going round in circles with some of the locals. Ryan, Dan and Karl also drove up to to check out the night life.

Saturday, started out pretty average. 8/8 cloud cover and base below the hills. We head out to Freeo’s at 10am but things still weren’t looking good. After a whole lot of procrastination eventually it was 3pm and it was on at Scenic on the coast. Low ridge runs were the order of the day. Not booming but at least it put a smile on our faces for the BBQ at Mon and Scott’s that night. That night the food was great as was the mix of a nice bottle of red and Scott’s stories from the World’s the week before.

Sunday, we wake a little later than usual to the nice surprise of sunlight streaming through the curtains. Conversation revolves around heading out to Brokenback. There’s a whole lot more enthusiasm amongst the usual crowd today. Dave and I are stoked as we’ve had some great flights from the North facing cliff launch.

Mon and Tink graciously offer the drive for us (A big thank you girls!) so we head off to launch. Along the way things start to look ominous with cloud base getting lower as we head inland. Our fears were short lived though as once it started to burn off it dissipated very quickly.

Arriving on launch saw many of the familiar smiling faces we come so accustom to when travelling to a random hill in the Hunter. It’s great to catch up with everyone who missed out on the BBQ the night before. Our thoughts soon turn to flying when Cam lobs off and goes up.

Launching today could have been pretty tricky but everyone knows what they’re doing and we’re all off the hill in minutes despite having to wait for nil wind cycles as it was predominately blowing from over the back.

At first, lift was pretty good but I failed to commit to my first solid climb with Scott and Cam among others. I saw which direction they took off in but being 200ft below them I was not sure how much height I would have up my sleeve to make the next ridge south along the range.

Things got slow and scratchy after that. Several guys had a go at getting back but they were not having much luck landing at a few km away. Eventually Dave and I were left on the ridge together. For at least half an hour we scratched at ridge height in little more than zero sink. The day was still relatively young so we hang on for a good climb. It came in the form of a messy 2m/s climb to about the same height as Scott left. So that was enough for me.

I tracked back to a cloud along course back to Newcastle (the optimistic goal) but was greeted with the climb of the day along the way. Huge, smooth and 3m/s to cloud base. With the recent rain in the area I was keen to stick to the relatively dry mountains. This worked for a while with a couple of low saves along track down the range. I ended up landing a couple of km short of where Cam and Donny ended up - Bellbird (not that I knew it’s name while I was enroute). Scott made it back to Cessnock and landed at one of the ovals in town. Dave managed to get high as I was heading off and had a dig at heading down the ridge.

A fun day sharing the air with a whole lot of great pilots and even better retrieve crew. Thanks again, Tink for driving to random paddocks and picking us up, Scott for putting me up for the weekend, and especially Monica, for all the above.

Mon also managed to take some great pics of Scott, Dave and I.

In bed by 11pm!

Chesty set a great little task starting in the flatlands and finishing with a blisteringly fast ridge run perpendicular to the wind. A large ridge just before the turnpoint proved to make things interesting. Andrew and I managed to scrape over the top which set us up nicely for the final leg.

To top off such a fun race I also managed to snap some of the coolest in game shots I’ve taken.

Google Earth flight tracks for 22 Aug 2007

Condor flight tracks for 22 Aug 2007

Yesterday Dave and I joined Andrew on his first flight after breaking his arm at Christmas. Needless to say he flew like a champ and was climbing like a fart in a bathtub in the scattered thermals along the ridge. Good to have you back Barnsie!

Wind was quite cross from the south and reasonably strong which prevented John D from flying. The wind was perfect for his floater just half an hour before he got there. Bad luck - always next time.

Chesty sent through the map that will be used for this year’s Canungra Classic. The following file contains the jpeg version and the Google Earth overlay.

Canungra Classic map

It’s great to think we’re only 7 weeks away from flying with friends in the first comp of the season!

Yesterday Dave, Simon and I had a nice little fly at Lake G after first casually calling in to Stanwell on the way. What started on BOM on Saturday as being isolated showers around Wollongong had develoved into showers by Sunday morning and full blown rain by the time we got there. After calling into Dan and Bianca’s we head back inland with our tails between our legs.

With rain pretty much everywhere, our perseverance eventually paid off when we reached Lake George. There was a nice breeze from the SE. Simon flew a little too far out from the lift band on launch but had a fun walk out from the bombout. Dave and I made our way up to the winery and ridge raced back. I was not much competition as my light wing loading is far from ideal when you are trying for speed.

There were two heart racing moments during the flight. The first was not a lot to do with me but I may have caused it. First I heard a massive screeching of tyres. I looked down in horror to see a car spinning out of control along the highway around the first rest stop directly underneath me. After two revolutions he was moving pretty slow but hit the fence with the back of the car as they attempted to stay on the road. Luckily there were no other cars for about 300m either side of him. The car then turned back the right way and sped off.

The next incident was a little closer to home. Following Dave’s textbook top landing I lined up and came in with my usual approach setting up a little higher and further back than the usual approach. As I descended through the rotor I was ready for it and punched through with speed but I was too far back from my desired landing area. I then went back into prone to penetrate a little further forward. That worked but I was quite low and still had my hands on the basebar. I reached for the upright but got caught on the rear wire a couple of times which saw me stall still 8-10ft off the ground. Not Cool!

I never did get a grip on the upright instead all I could was through my forearm forward from behind the upright a I arrived with quite a whack. I deserved to break the base bar or at least an upright but nothing was bent. Very lucky - Not at all good planning. In hindsight I was silly to leave the transition to hang so late. A lesson I will not forget in a hurry.

It was a great flight even despite this stuff up and the best bit is that it looks like the lake will be on a couple more days this week. See you there.

This weeks task saw Speedy and I scraping our way into goal after some very interesting moments on the last leg.

Google Earth flight tracks for 15 Aug 2007

Condor flight tracks for 15 Aug 2007

Peter Bowyer forwarded this info re the Brauniger Compeo+ (Flytec 6030):

We are glad to inform you about our new high-end instrument IQ-COMPEO+ ( HG and PG version ). Even it’s basing on the former COMPEO, it was complete new designed and provides latest controller and GPS technology. Optional features are a SD - slot for memory cards and Bluetooth technology for an easy handling of any data transfer.

The new high precision speed pressure sensor now allows a TAS speed indication up form 20 km/h!

The case is designed comparable to the famous IQ-ONE series and is as rugged and highly comfortable to use.

Here some highlights:

Exclusive, elegant, slim and functional design

High-resolution graphic display ¼ VGA

• Precision pressure sensors for ultimate precision in height and speed and a sensible and adjustable vario
• All Menu positions are easy to be actuated by 4 central keys, individual Settings are prompted via 2 “softkey”. Important functions are directly accessible
• Easy entry of target co-ordinates/ COMPETITION-routes via PC or manually.
• The IQ COMPEO+ provides a perfect simulation mode which allows for testing and trying of nearly all functions
• Flight memory for up to 290 hours.
  
• For each flight are recorded: GPS-position with height, barometric height, TAS, GPS-speed over ground, time.
• USB interface to the PC.

The sky looked great to the north, west and east. Expecting big potential from yesterday Dave, Karl, Ryan and I make our way to Lake George nth launch only to discover the down side of the lake now having water in it - it’s now a thermal shadow

This photo, taken from the north launch bombout, gives you a pretty good idea of what’s going on.

As air moves across the lake it is cooled so the chances of finding lift in this area is minimal. If on a XC flight I would avoid this area like the plague unless I had enough height to get to the other side. This is not really an option though when you try and launch from underneath it.

So, resigned to this fact, I launched first to set up the spot landing contest. There was a couple of bumps on the way down but nothing big enough to gain more the 5 meters or so. I set up the spot and Ryan had a dig. He over shot the mark but pulled of a nice landing given it was his first flight in three months. A nice launch and landing.

By this time Karl and Dave were faced with nil winders (launches and landings).

Given that dropping the basebar is instant disqualification from the spot landing comp - Ryan won!