All you end up with is a long weekend like the last one…
It goes a little something like this:
Saturday
Karl, Scott, Dave, Andrew B, and I meet Steve at Forbes airport after dropping some gear off at Munjal on the way through. Not too much later Bill Moyes turns up with Noma.
A nice warm day to kick things off. It reached 27 degrees on the ground. No clouds. Dave and Andrew reached Munjal. I landed short trying to reach the range in the photo below. Apparently I had to be higher than tree height to try and soar this thing.
I went about 50km that day. Barnsie landed at Munjal first as did Dave who tracked back after reaching the ridge behind home but finding nothing going up.
Tracklog
Sunday
A little more wind. We each had a tow to no avail. The thermals were being blown apart down low.
A strong climb would be required to get up today as anything weaker would be broken up by the wind. There were no such climbs near the strip and with the wind increasing the chance of having more tows would be slim.
The best chance of a good climb would be over town so as soon as I released I headed that direction. I then just hang on to what ever I could for as long as I could. It was rough in the air so I wasn’t disappointed about landing just short of the 50km mark.
Tow conditions in the paddock deteriorated and the other guys chose not to tow again.
Tracklog
Monday
Scott has headed home and Nath has joined us today for his first flight in his new AirBorne C4 14.
The nicest looking day by far. Nice cus and big streets. Base was about 6500ft a fun day but we all ended up on the deck after getting to cocky on glides and finding conditions down low pretty tough.
Dave makes it 70km, 60km for me and 50 km for Barnsie. A very fun day with great conditions for racing.
Tracklog
Tuesday
Nath heads home and Guy comes out to play.
Dave tows first. Looks stable as he finds nothing and pulls off a nice landing right in front of us.
Andrew tows next and finds light lift. I decide to get in. Just before towing Andrew calls that he is now going up at 500fpm… Get me up there Steve! We tow straight into Barnsie’s climb. Nice.
Guy tows but breaks an upright after leaving the dolly a little awkwardly.
Dave tows and joins Barnsie and I. We top out at 5000ft and head off for Parkes. We have lots of fun team flying until we drop Dave just before town. Barnsie and I continue on getting very low when we take the turnpoint at Parkes.
It is always great flying with Andrew. We make the most out of having two of us in the air. We find some good climbs by working together and have a lot of fun in the process.
We decide to try and get back to Forbes. A tough call given we weren’t getting that high and it was headwind coming back. It was hard to make progress but after a couple of low saves we found ourselves half way back along the main road.
At this point Barnsie pushed a bit harder than what I was comfortable with and he ended up landing 20km short of Forbes.
At about this time we get news that Guy had fixed his upright flew and landed in Parkes. He must have went past us but we didn’t see him. Charge your radio Guy!
I keep on tracking towards Forbes and, with the help of the odd truck driving along a dirt road to mark thermals for me, I make town pretty easily. I setup to land at the ovals in town but got a little climb and decide to try and make the airport. It was an optimistic glide and I end up landing two paddocks short of the hangers.
What an awesome flight!
The worlds slowest 70km out and return at 4 hours and 31 seconds. This takes my total air time for the four day weekend to 8.5 hours - Very nice for September.
Tracklog
In all, nine hangies turned up for an awesome weekend of flying. The best bit is it’s all happening again on the 11/12th October. See you there for some more awesome fun in the flatlands.
Thanks to Bill Moyes for letting us use his dragon fly to drag us into the air.
A very very bit thanks to Steve for towing us into the sky and picking us up again when we fell out. Without Steve’s incredible enthusiasm we would all be on the ground fiddling with our navels. Thanks heaps mate!
