After recently reading Pete Bowyer’s www.paraglide.com.au site in full I am starting to come around to see that paragliding would be a far superior way to get in the air. I Intend to take a lesson some time over winter this year in the hope of being a fully fledged punter by the time next season rolls around. Woohoo!!!

So what prompted this decision? Fuel prices for one. Removing the roof racks from the car will substantially increase the number of glass offs I can afford to catch out at Spring Hill. Conservatively, I estimate that I will be able to save $3 a year with the increased aerodynamics of our vehicle. Not to mention the savings made from not having those long retrieves associated with hang gliding – with paragliders, such retrieves are simply not required. Awesome!

Floppies are toppies!

Dave sends in a bit of a write up of the last few days of flying here in Canberra:

Well the days may be getting shorter, the mornings colder but that sure isn’t slowing down the Canberra Club’s enthusiasm.

As we near the end of March, the flying has been great and heaps of fun with Spring Hill, Lake George and Pig Hill the launch pads for some great times.

Pig Hill on Saturday saw Karlos, Andrew L, newbie Brendan, Ed and myself having a shot and what could have been, but good launches and landings made for a fun arvo anyway. Brendan who has recently been let loose from Curt Warren’s school is showing good safe skills, keep it up mate.

Sunday saw a similar crowd at Pig Hill with the inclusion of a couple of big guns, Trent and Barnsie.

Conditions on launch were a little testing but eventually Barnsie and Trent were off the hill and on course to the first turn point near Yass. Ed had a ball with several climb outs from low down and searching around the hill for a solid hour.

Barnsie and Trent team flew up to just south of lake Burrinjuck before heading off on their own tracks. Bansie took a course further to the east and more on course line. Trent, thinking that we may have under called the task flew west straight over the main part of the lake giving him a great vantage point to spy on the water skiers below. Turning near Carols launch site he then headed back for Yass aiming to meet back up with Barnsie for the tough looking return leg.

… And tough it proved to be, the guys hit the deck around Murrenbateman on their way back. Nice flight guys.

Monday had a bunch of guys setting their sights on a ridge soar at Lake George after work with Nick and Dan Watters joining the crowd this time round. I decided to give myself an early mark after seeing the sky showing signs of serious XC potential.

It was a 20kph easterly making it easy to ridge soar heading north from Gearys Gap until I got a ticket out and over the back.

Once in the air I had a feeling that I should have organised a driver, as the lift was good and clouds to the west were still lining up.

It was after 3.00pm when I found a boomer off the north launch area and followed it over the back.

With 25kph wind I was finding good lines not stopping until I hit active clouds, getting 3m/s plus.

It was a fun flight ending up not too short of Harden. Being only 23^oC and the end of March, the sky died quickly in the end. But going over 100km in a little over 90 minutes made me think I should have canned work altogether and launched at midday. Anyway, there’s always tomorrow.

Ah, and thanks Karlos for the retrieve. I’m sure you would have rather stayed on the lounge recovering from your big weekend.

Dave