Yet another close finish. Less than a second between Andrew and Speedy for second.
Andrew is off to Newcastle to learn how to fly his hang glider next week so the rest of us might have a chance to get on the condor podium while he’s away. Have fun earning your wings mate.
Andrew Greatbatch, Pete, Cam and I have cameos in this little video from Forbes earlier this year.
Hoping for a similar day to the day before. Dave, Deb and I head to Pig once again.
Today the the wind is from the North and quite a bit stronger.
We launched. We got beat up and we landed. A exciting flight. We both managed a few circles in the rotor but neither of us had the feeling that this was a flight that was worth perusing. Two safe landings though I missed the bombout.
Off to Spring in the afternoon for possibly the most sedate air we’ve had this season. A nice relaxing flight after this morning’s excitement.
This first photo shows the great respect Dave has for these sort of conditions.
Saturday
It was one of those days that was blowing up every hill in town. So rather than heading out for a fly, most pilots stayed at home clicking the wind talker hoping it would tell them which hill to drive up. It didn’t so they stayed at home.
Be decisive on days like this. Make a decision and stick to it. If it does not work out learn from it. It is positive either way.
On this note, Dave heads to the lake. Pete, Deb and I head out to Pig.
Dave is banking on the wind staying as strong as it is in the morning. The early moderate SE breeze seems promising for the lake.
Pete and I are backing it to die off during the day given that a few indicators at altitude (Mt Ginini and Thredbo top station) are not reflecting the winds on the ground.
Pete is out for his first flight for a while and true to form he has once again been tinkering in the garage over winter. He is now sporting a new instrument pod and an external vario speaker fitted to the basebar directly under his chin. Very nice fibre glassing on each of these additions.
Wind was perfect on launch so we stuff set up and run off the East launch. We both climb out to 1800ft above launch before heading north. Given that there was lift everywhere on Pig, we head off on glide low expecting ‘up bits’ on the way. Nothing. 6km later we are both on the deck up the road.
A nice flight if not long. Pete is happy to be in the air again. Deb picks us up and short time later and we make it back for the hockey grand final that afternoon. A fun day.
Dave’s day can best be summed up in his own words:
“There was a young guy named Dave May,
who went to the lake for a play.
Not real smart, there’s more wind in a fart.
Can’t even launch this frick’n dart”
Chesty takes line honors!
Looks like it was a good battle last night.
So, you want:
Will this do?
Karl thinks so…
Binalong is the place… And it looks like it will be on this weekend. Give us a call if you want to join us.
This site has awesome potential for going XC. To get you in the mood here is a Google kmz file to plan your XC endeavours.
Here are some pics from the air show on Saturday. As usual use the left and right arrows on the picture to look through the images. Photos by Brenden Geeves.
After spending Saturday out at the Temora air show (more on that later), Sunday was forecasted to blow out some time in the afternoon.
We decide to head down to Lanyon in an attempt to avoid the already increasing winds on the north side of town.
By 11:30am Dave, Dan, Ed and I were on launch stuffing battens. Wind was still in the “nice” range by were ready to go. Dave launched first scratching a couple of hundred feet above launch. The air looked pretty rough as Dave faught to stay up. Ed followed with a nice launch but flew too far from the ridge to stay in the narrow lift band caused by the wind swinging around further to the north. This was understandable as with air this rough being near the hill is not an attractive proposition.
Dave and Ed slowly lost their respective battles with gravity and ended up in the bombout. Seeing this, Dan and I had to make a decision. We could launch now while the wind was not yet too strong but we may not get much more than a sledie, or, we could wait until the west facing ridge heated up but this would also bring a strong possibility that we may be blown out.
We decide to wait and are rewarded with a nice flight around the hill. The wind was too strong for us to head XC despite getting to 2000ft above launch. With the increasing winds I did not want to be landing in a rotor filled paddock by myself. So an hour or so later Dan and I land back in the bomb out.
After landing the wind increases significantly and we are happy to be on the deck.
Another fun flight with more personal goals met. This is shaping up to be a very exciting season.
A great race with Andrew L proving to be quiet a sailplane pilot. Nice flying.
It was a nail biting finish with Dan who lead most of the task but was just pipped on the last leg.
This task seems to have returned the most number of tracklogs (even despite my machine crashing before I could save my own). Nice work guys, keep them coming!
This a question that I’m sure most of us have found ourselves asking when watching a fellow pilot attempting to locate a solid climb. Over the weekend, Jim - a local paraglider, and I found ourselves in this situation while we watched another punter scratch on a spine below launch. While the wing was not experiencing any obvious lift in either direction and proximity to terrain was not issue, we both though that the lift was in certain direction relative to the position of the glider. This may be dismissed as us doing too much thinking and not enough flying but I have a feeling it may fit quite nicely with something I am working on with my own technique.
When low, with a thermal in the vicinity, I am becoming increasingly aware of the variations in lateral winds aloft. In effect I am finding that I am being pulled into the strongest lift. Quite often this does not mean making variations to your track based on the vario beeping, rather I let the glider go in the direction which achieves the highest ground speed after excluding any prevailing wind. This can mean leaving a slow climb to fly through an area of less lift or even sink to a stronger climb on the other side.
This effect would be caused by the air rushing in down low to replace the air that is being displaced vertically. This is something that we all know but I have only recently realised how handy it is for locating a solid core.
I have discussed this situation with more experienced pilots in the past but until now I have never really known why I thought there was a stronger climb in a certain direction. It seems that until recently my subconscious has been working this out for me to some extent. I am now trying to train myself to be more sensitive to this sensation.
So, back to the original question. Why did they turn that way? I am unsure if an observer from the ground would be able to see the slight variations in track involved in this model. Maybe we can… Maybe from the ground we have a better vantage point to observe this lateral than the pilot themselves… Or maybe not and I’m just imagining it all.
These sensations can be quite subtle. With practice, airtime in thermic nil/light wind conditions and some thinking about what is going on this could prove to be a useful feather in your cap.
