Newcastle Hang Gliding Club

The worlds have pace that consumes a lot of time and makes it difficult to make posts as well as sell equipment, help with tuning, do my own tuning, fly, stand in a near endless line to have GPS downloads done and attend to every day overheads. The most relaxing time is sleep and flying. I write this as it rains and thunderstorms outside. I have taken off and flown around for 50 minutes, there is no task today. I made some video, photos and when a convergence arrived, I dove down and landed before rain arrived. It was great entertainment to sit under the shelter of my glider and make video of pilots crashing into the goalfield. The trick to landing in these conditions is to ride the convergence to dry out your wing and land somewhere else. If you really have to land wet, come in fast, and straight (no turns), ground effect and flare at trimspeed or a little earlier. See rain and avoid landing wet.

The first race day was a nice 100 mile closed course. I flew the first half alone and jumped gaggles for the last part. I started late as the forecast predicted it would be better, however it was without the thermal searching power of the gaggle (flying alone) I took a long route along the high mountains which should have provided faster climbs but it really sucked. The second half of the course clouded over and it required some careful moves to get through some very interesting mountains with strong local breezes (going headwind). I took a route that added some kilometers to my distance, but got me onto a ridge (while I still had enough height) to ridge soar onto the turnpoint. Other pilots went straight line leeside (not diverting to a safe valley just off to the side) and were forced down into a valley with limited and turbulent landing areas. Julia crashed into trees. For those of you who do not know Warren, he has a reputation for following people. For those of you who do know him, you will not be surprised to hear that he followed her and also crashed into trees. He advises not to follow Julia. If this means that it is her fault, perhaps it is also true that when he follows others to improve his results, they deserve the credit for his success!

The wind picked up in the afternoon, for the early starters it was easy, for later starters it made making goal a lot more difficult due to increasing headwinds. I made it into the goalfield and walked across the goal line. The scoring is harsh for not making goal.

Task two
A great race from Aspres (a round grass top mountain). South into the edge of the flatlands. I flew straight line out and return, I ended up leading a gaggle back from the turnpoint with Zac Majors. Then breaking away to go onto final. I met up with the lead gaggle who were just above on the valley wall. I went too early at 10:1 to goal with a 20kph headwind down low in the goal valley. I turned back when I was ½ way through my final, returned to the mountains for another try. It took forever to make that climb. My day score was very poor but I did ensure I was in goal today.

Today, canceled task
Today, we fly before it thunderstorms. We have an Australian team dinner at the Moyes house. Attila, Chuba (the brother of Attila) and Lucas arrive for a social event late. There is a big bonfire party with DJ in the square opposite the campground where we stay tonight. There will be many pilots who will hope that it thunderstorms tomorrow as well. It makes for a better party.