Newcastle Hang Gliding Club

The call was for moderate Northerly winds so we headded off to a launch that takes a strong north wind in the Jura.

A wide open launch, not as high as the day before, this launch sits above a high plateau which drops off to the town below and the bombout paddock.

As we drove up, we stopped to have a quick look at the bombout, a huge paddock crossing the track up to launch. at full length, it would be over a kilometer long, with a rise in the middle, so you could easily land uphill in any wind direction. A large red barn, and a windsock sticking high out of a tree marks the paddock for easy finding from the air.

At launch, after helping prepare everything for the comp pilots, I set up right at the top of the launch slot. A chilly breeze was blowing up slightly crossed to the right the whole time, but straightening up with some strongish gusts. The long, steep slope looked like it could easily handle such a wind.

A task was called, pilots briefed and I was off first. I waited for a bit of a gust, then ran down the slope, with the intention of turning to the right to work the ridge over that way. On my way to the ridge however, I flew into some strong sink that made me wonder about making it past the tall trees at the edge of the plateau, and out onto the face of the ridge, so I turned right and passed the trees before running back along the ridge to the left.

I was now low, but hoped to find some lift along the ridge. I got in as close as I was comfortable with and worked light lift for about ten minutes before dropping too low to stay above tiger country, so headed out to the valley, and down to the bombout. I lost height over the downwind end of the paddock, then turned onto final. I now noticed that the huge barn next to the enormous paddock had a purpose. It's purpose is to keep hundreds of cows warm at night. Unfortunately someone had decided to let these cows out to graze in the bombout.

I picked a line that had no cows directly on my approach path, but then at about twenty feet or so, I experienced a sudden turn to the left with a bit of a pitch up. (I think this is when the outer luff line on the left wing decided to break) I leveled off and pulled in a bit more, then found that my new aproach line had quite a number of cows on it. Most of them were running left or right away from me, but one decided to just stand there with her but pointed straight at me, and turned her head to watch my aproach. She also happened to be right about where I'd be landing. I slowed down just a touch so as not to land at her rear feet, and instead came down with a decision. Do I put my foot in her or on her. I didn't want to get my foot dirty, so a gentle step on her back to glide past her sent her running away to the left and out of my way so I could make a good landing.

These swiss cows are very curious. The all like to come up and stick there snotty nose ( literally snotty ) on the glider as soon as my head was turned. Packup took a while as I had to keep getting up and chasing them away from the glider. They spent a while standing looking at me from about ten metres away all around the glider, until their nap time came, and throughouth the paddock, all the cows laid down for a sleep all at the same time.

A handful of other pilots also bombed out, but didn't choose my beefy paddock, instead other nearby paddocks downwind of my location. The strong winds meant that pilots were dotted along the valley, with no-one making goal at the airport. The best result I've heard so far was 4 turnpoints in the open class. I think there were 6 turnpoints yesterday.

Strong winds are predicted for today, so I think that at the briefing which has just been called, they're going to can the day, and therefore the comp is over.

I can't get into coppermine right now, so I'll post pics later.