Dave and Carl went for a fly out at Lake George this afternoon. Carl made it down to Smiths gap for the first time. Nice flight dude.

Dave flew about as far along the ridge as anyone can go with ridge lift alone.  Check out his tracklog. 80km of mid-May goodness. This sets a new bar for any ambitious souls wanting stretch their wings at one of our favorite local sites.

Dave’s even sent through some photos from the flight.

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Andrew has really been wracking up the airtime over the past week. Wracking up this sort of experience during what used to be considered the off season is exactly what is required to perform at your best as next season rolls around. Let’s hear about it:

The weekend of 9 – 10 May saw Dave and myself crack up around 3+ hours.  Sat Dave and I hit up Pig and enjoyed two extended sled runs turning in little bubbles that never managed to provide enough to climb in as they were short and sharp.  After 2 turns it would be gone and it was time to move on.  We observed two eagles fly past climb a few meters then fly off never getting any higher than the hill.  The inversion around was visible and it seemed that we were about at the top of it on the hill!  Top notch fun all the same.

Sunday Dave, Turtle, Barnsy, Marty (from VIC) and late in the arvo Porter flew Lake G (no cars were damaged during Porters Landing which was a relief ).  It was an absolute ripper of a day with smooth air and nice ridge lift.  About 1km North of Gearies Gap on the top of the ridge line there was a back burn happening and Dave managed to get up to 4500ft in a steady 200ft/min up.  I also managed to climb up but only to around 3700ft.

From here Dave flew the ridge all the way to Collector with my self and Turtle getting to the wineries a little low.  I turned back to the south to head back to the higher ridge and better lift where as Turtle kept going and ended up landing in a rather unusual landing paddock.  As he flew around to the winery he ended up lower than the ridge and lost lift and then couldn’t make it out to the lake so landed in a paddock between the highway and the ridge.  Funny as, but gutsy effort to try to punch north.  Lesson Learned here is to always have a nice place to land within glide   Dave and I top landed back at Gearies a little later and Dave headed home.  I stayed on to keep flying and enjoyed a number of top landings and flying on the south side flying in the air around my mates R/C gliders.  It is always cool flying around with R/C slope gliders.  I managed to grab one of my mates planes and turned it tail wind and let is go hahahaha.  Not nice I know but he was high and had plenty of height to recover in – fun times!

Tuesday 12 May saw Dave and I head to Stanwell Park for a leisurely Maz.  Our enthusiasm paid off with both of us cracking up over 2 hours.  After about an hour in the air Dave headed South to the next ridge.  I decided to go hell for leather for it also and was defiant to the end, which was a very low end at that!!!  I go to the south ridge very low and ended up having to turn back and land on the south side of Stanwell beach.  Lucky for me Tony Armstrong was on his way back to launch so after he confirmed that I was a Hangy I was in the car and on the way back to launch to get my car.  I drove back down to get my glider and after the quickest pack up and and then set up once back on launch I was airborne again.  By this point the wind had eased and the chance of flying up and down the coast any great distance had gone.  After a while Dave went into land approaching over a pond on the Southern side of the beach.  From the air it looked cool and once down he was straight on the radio telling me that I had to make the same approach as it was awesome.  After 20min I decided to land and came screaming in over the pond and landed on the beach.  It was nice to land in the silky smooth coastal air as it feels like you are landing on a bed of foam as it is so smooth you wouldn’t know you were flying which is a little different feeling after flying inland all summer!!!  A big thanks to Tony for taking me up to my car and having a laugh or two on the way.  Cheers.

Anyway a great week has been had as usual with the Canberra crew.  If only we were all keen we might get out there and fly more often !!!!!

Thief >;-)

The thief sent in some pics from first trip to Stanwell.

Dave and I headed to Stanwell Park for a relaxing day yesterday!!!  Its a hard life

What are you strapping to your head? Ed is up with another review:

I wanted to get a new full-face helmet as a recent heavy landing had jammed my sunnies onto my face, causing a pretty bad cut above my eye. It made me realise that sunnies aren’t the best solution for hang gliding – goggles or visors would be better.  I had ordered one full face helmet from a manufacturer in Germany who never sent it (I’ll be doing a separate article on that one – long story short – Paypal found in my favour and sent me a notice saying what could best be summarised as ‘good luck getting your money back – we couldn’t'). The choices from REPUTABLE manufacturers seemed to be the Icaro or the Charly, and I preferred the shape of the Icaro.

For a number of reasons I was inclined NOT to go a longtail helmet. A lot of my friends have the Icaro 4Fight Longtail and I noticed that when ever I saw them flying they almost never seemed to have their head in the correct aerodynamic position for the helmet – negating the supposed main advantage of getting one. Arguably, it really doesn’t matter until you are on glide, however I started to notice that even when I’m on glide I tend to be moving my head around quite a bit, looking over at the vario and keeping a look out. I’ve also had concerns with the idea of having something so long hanging off my head that if it got caught on something during a bad landing etc that the leverage effect on my neck could be fatal. Furthermore, the tail looks like it has the potential to limit visibility by limiting how far up you can look before the tail jams on the top of the harness. So for all these reasons I opted for a ‘cut’. Much of my flying is in darn hot conditions so after much deliberating I opted for the Grid Cut as it has ventilation holes.  I also love the matt black. I asked for the darkest visor they have which was the blue one.

So how does it stack up. It is expensive (about $420AUS delivered), it is very noisy, the paint scratches off pretty easily but it looks great and I love it. The ventilation works well and works when you need it the most – waiting to take-off (either the hill or in line to tow) and when scratching down low. For those of you who might be concerned about getting a cold head – my head has never felt cold in the helmet, even flying in Canberra during winter.

Of course non of these factors are reasons to buy a helmet – after all it is first and foremost a safety device. So when Trent met the ground pretty hard out at the Forbes comp wearing his 4Fight Longtail I was impressed when I saw how well his helmet worked. The helmet itself seemed to survive quite well but most importantly – Trent’s head fared very well considering the speed that he impacted the ground.

I DO have a real problem with the price – I could pony-up once for the $420 but the problem would really come to the fore if I were to have a ‘minor’ accident in the helmet. At $420 it would be very tempting to just keep using the helmet, which is obviously not wise.

My other main gripe is the noise, which is annoying and makes it difficult to hear the vario. I have a Brauniger GPS/Comp vario and I can barely hear it most of the time, but particularly on glide where I find I am constantly looking over at the vario because I just can’t hear it. I do seem to have gotten used to the low volume and my ears seem more atuned to the the vario for the most part – but glide is still a problem.

Soon after purchasing the helmet it developed some marks in the paint – it was as if the paint layer had been scraped off (a bit like a Scratch Lottery ticket). This was disappointing as you expect more from such an expensive helmet. The 4Fights have a lacqured/sealed finish that this just couldn’t really happen to but for some reason the Grids don’t.

I have found the visor takes a bit more maintenance to keep clean than my previous solution – sunnies. When I first got the helmet I’d put it on just before I was going to launch but after a few incidences where the visor was particularly dirty I have developed the habit of checking the visor as part of my pre-flight, while I still have easy access to cleaning devices.

I do really like the helmet but would have to think twice before buying another one as they are just so expensive. One every 5 years – yes, one every year – no. At least from a price perspective, it’s hard to go passed the Charly. If anyone out there has a really quite helmet I’d love to hear about it.

Cheers

Ed

Arrh winter, time to sort out all your gear for the next epic season. Ed get us underway with a couple of articles about the gear he’s flying with:

For the most part, most hang glider pilots seem to have their gear pretty well sorted, except for their bloody radio set up. Many pilots seem to be perfectly happy to get around the sky with really crappy comms. One local pilot in particular tends to get extremely excited in the air and wants to tell everyone all about it – and all we hear is ‘muffle, muffl, muffle, muffle’ screamed over the radio – I think you get the point. It drives me nuts. For some reason most pilots don’t seem to put much effort into their comms. I guess it’s because they never have to listen to themselves – their crappy comms are always someone else’s problem. I guess this will be true until the day they outland in an area without mobile coverage and no one knows where the hell they landed.

Well during last winter I upgraded my helmet to an Icaro Grid Cut and needed a new radio headset to connect it to my radio. I just happened to have a couple of days off work sick at the time which I spent in bed – and searching the web for the best value headset I could find. The best one I found was the XHH750C – available from ‘ixcessory’ (http://www.ixcessory.com/Merchant/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=I&Product_Code=2WS-HH750C&Category_Code=XHH750C). I’ve now had it for nearly 12 months and this is what I’ve found.

Price

The unit  was the cheapest I could find by a significant margin, priced at just $43.90US for the basic headset and $63.90 US for the 2-way-switcher model (more about that below).

Modular

The headset is very modular and the basic model comes with 4 functional components:

• the helmet fittings (2 speakers and a mic),
• the chest volume/press-to-talk (PTT) switch,
• the radio specific connector,
• and the finger PTT switch

The X2WSRM 2-way-switcher model includes the above as well as a:

• 2 way switch that allows you to connect an iPod into the system so you can listen to music through your helmet during flight. The iPod sound comes through the speakers however when receiving a radio call it cuts out the iPod so you can hear the incoming transmission. There is also an on/off button to mute the iPod during flight for busy times (like take-off and landing) 
  

All of the components can be purchased individually quite cheaply. The kit comes in both full-face and open-faced versions (the open-face version includes a boom mic). The chest PTT has a volume button so that volume can be adjusted in flight. The radio connector (tail) must be specified for your particular radio so if you change radio models a new one to suit your new radio can be purchased (quite cheaply). The kit also includes a choice of 4 remote PTT buttons. I chose the finger PTT, however you can also choose a handlebar PTT, a plunger PTT or a line control PTT. The line control PTT looks very cool and provides access to volume and other functionality on a finger PTT. I didn’t opt for this one as I thought that it might be too ‘fiddley’ and get annoying in flight – having to locate the specific button or hitting the wrong button (in hindsight I wish I’d had a go at it and will probably get it on my next headset).

I have only used the 2 way switcher twice to hook up my iPod Shuffle and it made for two very enjoyable flights out at Lake George listening to music quietly in the background. I did a pretty untidy top landing out there at the end of the first flight (bent upright) which I think having the music on may have contributed to so I’ve been very careful about when I use it ever since. I think it’s best used judiciously – after take-off and not during landing.

Quality

When I first ordered the XHH750C it looked so good and was so cheap that I figured that something had to be wrong with it. After 12 months of use I can say that it is an excellent headset that is well suited to hang gliding. I’ve not had any problems with any of the components. Installation into my helmet was easy and took little more than 10 minutes. I did end up modifying the chest PTT as it had a metal clip that didn’t suit the way I wanted to mount it onto my harness, so I had to cut it off (I have a Moyes Contour harness and I have mounted the chest PTT onto my velcro patch just below the tow point – it is mounted with some permanently mounted elastic cord and velcro glued onto the back of the PTT). The only problem that I’ve had with the system was that the two connectors into the chest PTT (the finger PTT and the helmet connector) both look similar but have different pins so I nearly broke them soon after installation when I tried to join the wrong ones. To be safe you’d be best to paint the matching connectors in unique colours so that it’s impossible to join the wrong ones.

If you have problems with your in flight communications (as judged by feedback from those who have to listen to your static filled ramblings) then take the move and get an XHH750C – it’s a quality, low cost solution.

Safe flying

Ed

It’s just a shame it doesn’t count when spread over two days Great flying never the less.

Highlights for me were flying with Geoff on Saturday and Ed on Sunday. Both of these guys are flying really well at the moment.

Here’s a couple of happy snaps from the flights.

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Tracklogs from the weekend here

Ed flew like a champ on Sunday:

Sunday was looking awesome, warmer than the day before and the sky was looking great with a band of Cus way of to the northeast but slowly building and getting closer to the airfield. Having failed to leave the tow paddock after a couple of tows on Saturday, and left on the ground listening in on the radio as the other guys do 70km plus flights, I was really keen give it a good run on Sunday. I had the dubious honor of having my glider already set-up in the shed so was able to get ready before the other guys and I wanted to take advantage of that by towing up first. The day before I’d towed up last so when I failed to connect with any lift on the first tow and needed a re-tow I was already 40mins behind them. By towing up first, if I needed a re-tow I’d simply re-tow at the end of the other guys and then be only 15 minutes behind them. Before I could jump in and get going I needed everyone to agree on a task so I could punch in some coordinates. The task committee met and decided that a place just past Condoblin was the goal (100.5km) so that we could have a shot at a 100km task in May – outrageous. While we were discussing where to fly to Wazza had a couple of low tows to practice his tows and his landings. His first tow left Bill less than impressed about his spot landing skills and he let Wazza know all about it. You see, Wazza didn’t land as close to the tow strip as Bill wanted so that he could re-load and go again as quickly as possible. He had a couple more tows and didn’t make that mistake again. Wazza was looking very comfortable on tow and his landings were getting better and closer to the tow point. Steve jumped in on the other end of the rope to normal, and towed up in the purple XT. He towed off the chest and at a couple of hundred feet the tow pressure got a bit much and he released. He spun the glider around and put it on the ground beutifully. If there is a machine that Steve can’t fly well I’m yet to see it – he is a natural aviator.

Steve quickly stowed the XT and jumped in the Dragonfly – Game On. With a "go, go, go" I was away. I released at 2000ft and sniffed around in some very narrow lift that was impossible to do a complete circle in for a while and managed to stay up for about 20 minutes scratching all the way down to the ground. It was a great flight where I got to practice those all important scratching skills and work on my tenacity while being relaxed. It was confidence building to be on the ground and find that some of the best pilots in the country had had the same experience that I’d had.

The wind had shifted a little so Trundle was adopted as the new goal, but we waited a little to give the day a chance to improve, as the day was proving to be not quite as good as it looked. On my second tow it took a while before I myself in zeros after releasing and I very slowly scratched up from about 1000ft to about 3000ft as I drifted steadily downwind from the airfield. While I was scratching up Trent and Dave were towed up to the thermal I was in above me so we were steadily joining up. Just as we were coming together at about 3000ft Trent headed out on course. I was just about to follow him when the lift I was in turned on and increased to about 400ft/min for a bit and the climb to 4000ft was a lot quicker than the previous 2000ft. Dave stayed in the thermal as well and was pointing  out some of the key indicators that he was noticing. Dave and Trent, and in fact all the Dusty Demons, are always willing to share their knowledge – great blokes to fly with. The lift slowed up and got patchy after about 4200ft so I headed off down course towards where Trent had been scratching over a big brown ploughed paddock for a while. I’ve been working on following lift lines ever since Scott Barrett taught me some great lessons on using lift lines at the Forbes comp. I was able to get over near Trent in pretty good shape and picked a group of brown paddocks with a rocky high ground in the middle, but as often happens, I found lift just before I got to where I was aiming. Again, it was very patchy and difficult to centre. Trent had dove in on another big brown paddock a km or so of to the right of course where he was getting really low. Eventually our thermals met up which surprised me a bit because we would have started in our respective thermals about 1500m apart. Eventually I noticed a very nice little cloud forming over us and again the 3000-4000ft climb was considerably better than the lower levels.

We headed off on glide again, cutting a bit more west to intercept the course line. It was fun gliding along beside Trent, working together to find our next thermal. Eventually we got into an area of lift and I wasn’t sure if Trent thought it was worth stopping for but I thought it was so turned in to find the centre. The thought had occurred to me that I could stay and mark this thermal and put in the work to centre it while Trent looks around for something a bit better. Great minds think alike (or fools never differ) so Trent read my mind and continued on for a couple hundred metres more looking for better lift. In the end the best lift was about half way between us and we searched there for a while but narrow zeros and a slow decent was all we found. We both "scedadled", but in different directions. Trent again ended up about a km or so right of course line while I moved over towards some high ground that appeared to be the trigger for a cloud downwind from it but found nothing. I moved on to another high point and then on the the north-south ridge that runs about 15km west of Forbes. I was hoping to get over the other side of the ridge to some big brown paddocks I could see but in the end I was a bit too low to get over it and had to land on the near side of the ridge in a big flat paddock between two ridges – out the back of some farmers property and no where near a visible road. I thought that I might be there for quite a while before my retrieve arrived – not ideal for a Sunday afternoon flight with a 3 hour drive back to Canberra.

I packed up and headed up to some high ground and was very lucky to catch a glimpse of a farmers house hidden in some trees – I would have walked another 5kms in the wrong direction had I not seen it. I arrived at the farmers place just as they were completing a livestock sale – alpacas of all things. The guy buying the alpacas agreed to give me a lift down to the front of the property where Brendan was on the way in Andrews 4WD.  So on a beautiful Sunday afternoon there I am, having had an awesome flight with a great mate, learnt heaps and standing in the back of a tray back Hilux holding on, 3 people jammed in the front on the bench seat and 3 alpacas jammed in the horse float following us down the road. I remember thinking to myself "Hang gliding is a great adventure – you just never know where you are going to end up". Just as the farmer was stopping to let me out I was surprised to see Dave’s Patrol go flying past so I got on the radio and turned the boys around to come and get me. Geoff had just been up to pick up Trent and Dave who both made it just over the other side of the ridge.

It was great fun flying with someone and working together. It’s something I’ve not experienced a heap as I often seem to find myself in the air alone, or occasionally with people who want to leech of me, which I’ve always thought strange, especially given my current skill level. I also love flying on my own – it is awesome because it’s completely up to me, it’s my decisions etc that keep my up there. But I also loved flying as part of a coordinated team. It’s a different type of buzz – it turns a solo sport into a briliant team sport. I would love to participate in more team competitions – they tell me that they used to have them.

I learnt a great lesson – if you can establish a pattern for the day – like the lift is over the brown paddocks – then keep using that until it doesn’t work. After finding lift over big brown paddocks I searched over high ground and surprise, surprise it wasn’t there.

Cheers

Ed

Dave finds a big hole and flies over it keeping the locals entertained:

Pete, Geoff and Ed jumped in my car on Saturday morning and we arrived at Forbes airport to find Steve making sure everything was ready to go for another weekend of safe, fun flying in this unbelievably reliable XC hot spot! Steve’s wife, Anet and son Blake were there to see how it all works of course. Trent with Deb and baby Makayla also there. Mr Keen, the Thief (Andrew L) joined us. Wazza and Bill Moyes, Mikael and family and Fanko!!! Yes, Franko, and watching his smooth skills on tow it seemed like he was as current as anyone.

Setting a task we were keen for triple figures in May so set an optimistic task (given 20^oc, blue sky and little wind) of 100km North past Peak Hill.

I was off first and was handed a lazy 200ft per minute climb which was about average for the day, taking it to base – 3000ft agl. Given the conditions it was hard to wait for company so I headed out on course. As the lift was slow and the thermals close together, I was leaving climbs at about 2500ft agl and on glide lowish NW of Parkes, I was approaching the large mining area. Noticing dirt rising slowly out of one of the giant holes I though I would fly directly over it, knowing that if it wasn’t working, I would have to land in the mining compound which would be a nightmare retrieve. But hey, this area of Australia has a great road network so it thought I would give the retrieve driver a challenge for once.

Flying over this massive hole relatively low was daunting. I had glide to an OK landing but some scary thoughts were going through my mind.

There was very little lift over the mine and I could only manage a couple of hundred feet. That would give me glide to a landing. Just beyond the second massive mine, so I would try that one on my way to land hoping a better thermal was being produced. I got a very ordinary glide on the way and getting lower I caught the eye of a few workers driving graders who stopped work to see what the hell I was doing. I arrived over the second giant hole lower than the pervious with more nightmare scenarios going through my head especially seeing water way down at the bottom of this one. But this time I got the lift I expected and it was the climb of the day, spewing straight out the abyss and cruised to near base and continued on out of the compound of the mining area.

Unfortunately I didn’t make goal, landing about 10km short of Peak Hill.

Trent and Geoff cruised over me in style as I was packing up. Andrew, Pete and Franko all had nice XC’s as well.

All retrieved we headed back to Munjal to have a beer with Terry (always a highlight of any trip out that way) but we cried ourselves to sleep when on arrival found that Terry had already crashed. He had a good excuse though, he had to get up early to fly his trike with Goldie. I’ll forgive you this time mate!!

New hangie, Brenden (Turtle) came along to see the aerotowing for the first time and after hearing a few horror stories about this way of getting airborne, it was great to see the drama free and safe towing that goes on at the weekends that Steve organises. Especially impressed by Steve’s towing skills, I’m sure Brenden will be towing with us shortly.

Massive thanks to Steve again for getting us in the sky and all the behind the scenes stuff you do to make these weekends so farken fun.

Get high,

Dave

Steve updates us on the weekend’s activities:

Hi Flyers,

The Forbes aerotow 2nd/3rd May was attended by 10 hang glider flyers and a couple of other pilots who flew the Dragon Fly.

The days were clear with very little cloud formation and steady but weak thermals.

It was great to see Wazza having a go out at Forbes after completing his aerotow endorsement with me at Rylstone about 2 years ago.

A big thank you to Brendan Cammack for coming out to see what aerotowing is all about and for helping out. I will give you some Dragon Fly time next time. Brendan is also a three axis pilot and was able to have a fly of the Dragon Fly. Though he found it a little like starting all over again after learning on the Jabiru, he went very well. Brendan is very keen to do his hang glider aerotow endorsement but is holding off until he has more experience (maybe we can keep him at the front of the line ????? Tugmaster Brendan ????? I like the sound of that).

Frank Chetcuti was out for a tow after a long absence from aerotowing and towed flawlessly, having good flights both days.

Michael Karmazin was in attendance with his wife and daughter as his retrieve crew. Michael has continually improved over the past two years and is now towing exceptionally well. It is always great to see you guys improving and enjoying your sport, but even better when you can bring along a happy willing helper.

The ever reliable Dusty Demon Crew from Canberra always put together a team that this time consisted of Andrew Luton, Trent Brown, Grant Edwards, Dave May, Geoff Robertson and Peter Dall.

These are the most dedicated inland hangies in Australia. They constantly amaze me with their enthusiasm and ability. These guys always show up keen as a newbie after his first successful flight and regardless of the weather they will set an almost attainable task and go for it with outstanding flights that at times exceed their goals. They work great as a team are always cheerful and best of all of at night time after a few beers have a great ability to turn even a circuit around the airfield into an epic and enthralling tale. OK the air field was hundreds of Km’s from launch.

I have tried a new mirror system on the Dragon Fly and can now see the glider on the other end of the line with much better clarity, this should help to improve my ability to fly even closer to the requirements of the pilot in the glider as I can see every little input and position of the hangie.

My last four trips out to my local hill for some solo flying have resulted in set up, now

wait, pack up and go home. No wonder these guys like to tow so much.

For further actual flight reports, go to www.thebombout.com

Finally THANK YOU BILL MOYES for supplying the Dragon Fly’s that make this all possible and for you assistance this weekend.

Still floating up here,

Steve.