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

The results from the Classic have been added to the CIVL world rankings.

View the Aussies here 

… and everyone else here

While on we’re thinking about Canungra here’s some random photos from the 2007 Canungra Classic.

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.

A brief timeline:

Tuesday afternoon - Andrew calls to say that his new High Energy harness has arrived.

Wednesday afternoon - We meet out at spring and he gives his new set up a bash.

Andrew managed two quick sledies in the light breeze. Great launches, approaches and landings. They weren’t the longest flights but the look on his face was priceless.

He’s hooked.

Now if we can just get a few seabreezes happening his enthusiasm will do the rest.

The official Class 1 scores have been released from Canungra.

Link here

As well as removing the rigids from the results, Tim has taken the opportunity to rectify the FTV calculations to correctly handle Did Not Fly (DNF) scores.

Unfortunately, taking the brunt of these alterations are Barnsie and Kath.

Also the track logs have been released here. These are released as IGC files but I will endeavour to get them compiled into something a little more user friendly if there is sufficient demand.