Newcastle Hang Gliding Club

At the meeting last night, we were reminded that with the weather warming up, we can expect the beaches to be heavily populated with the kind of person who doesn't appreciate being hit in the back of the head with a leading edge.

Seabreeze.com.au was suggesting the possibility of a light seabreeze, so I loaded up before I headed in to town with Flo & the kids. We took two cars, just in case it did come on, so she could go home, and I could stay around.

I found Gary up in his Fun and a paraglider both floating around enjoying the light lift, so quickly set up with Stuie graciously stuffing battens for me.

I've been working on a new nose boom mount for my Go-Pro camera, so chucked it on, and put it on video so I could see if my plans worked out.

JOD has just arrived in Tumut, Conrad headded off on Sunday and the rumour mill is rife with the chatterings of carloads of pilots headding off tomorrow morning. I'll be headding off on Thursday.

This is what JOD was greeted with on his arrival today:

Judging from the Manilla results, I'd guess that there are a number of pilots in the club who've flown qalifying flights for FAI Badges recently.

I've been working with the HGFA to get the FAI Badge applicatoin form updated. This is still a work in progress, but hopefully, we're very nearly done.

If anyone wants help with downloading their flight from their GPS, or with logging it on an Online Competition, bring your GPS along to the meeting this week, and I'll see if I can help you out. If your GPS came with cables for connecting it to a computer, then bring those as well.

Dawson

Whe I woke up, the BOM's radar showed heavy raid right over launch and up to Newcastle. The rain was moving inland. Seabreeze was showing 8 knots from the south. It had been consistently over 15 knots SSE all night until the last half hour or so. There were no other storms around, so I figured that the drop in wind was just a temporary thing associated with the shower that was moving through, and shuld have passed by the time I got to launch. Sure enough, I got to launch, having driven through some very heavy rain near Speers Point to find that the rain had passed.

This is the forecast for Max Altitude achievable at 13:00 with arrows showing the winds

I've half a mind to go for a Dawn flight tomorrow moring, but it could be a little bit wet, so I'm not sure. I'll see if I can't wake up at 4:30 to check the radar.

MEREWETHER HEIGHTS Lat=-32°56'00" Long=+151°44'00"

TIMES OF CIVIL TWILIGHT
(for ideal horizon & meteorological conditions)
Time zone: +11.00 hours
13/01/2010 Rise 0530 Set 2033

TIMES OF SUNRISE AND SUNSET
(for ideal horizon & meteorological conditions)
Time zone: +11.00 hours
13/01/2010 Rise 0558 Set 2005

Dawson

Had a nice flight on Saturday with just about everyone else. I figured it was time for me to learn to land, so after watching Donny, Garry H, Tony & Adrian land a bunch of times, I spent half an hour or more almost making it, then finally down, safely thanks to a couple of good catchers.

Now I just need to do it again, and again and.....

As promised Adrian, here's the warts:

Watch this video on Youtube

As I wrote elsewhere, Denman went off this weekend.