Newcastle Hang Gliding Club

The fourth race task is a local race, with multiple valley crossings to keep us all in the local area. I race off right on the clock and expect to have some followers, hovever I race alone straight line for turnpoint. I will need three climbs to make it. I am off to a good start, the first climb is 4m/s I see others behind and to the sides, taking detours for shroter glides and more frequent lift. My third climb is slow and the others get ahead a little. The climb after the turn is very slow and although it comes good, there are a lot of pilots in it and it is scary. I race away, on a very long glide, trying to make it as low as possible onto a mountain that is always the best climb of the day. It is not, it really sucks, and the gaggle overflies me. We ride a convergence from a thunderstorm, it has nice cumulus, with blue sky on one side. I am not worried about the storm, it turns out that the organisors are concentrating on the storm, the task is stopped. Before the stopped task, it gets very windy on the ground at goal, that is the real danger. I climb high and fly in wave and suspect that the goal is in wave rotor. I fly around alone in very smooth lift, explore its extent, enjoy the view and land at the campground in nice air, away form upwind obstructions.

Last day, we race a 155km triangle. I am racing well alongside huge mountains. Half way through I am at the lead although there are others close on other routes. I have a slow climb, and divert to find another good climb, the gaggle arrive later, higher at this one logical point to make a large valley crossing. They lead onto very poor climbs in an area that has been wet by thunderstorms the previous day. I am with them, but underneath as we make our way onto worse climbs again. I follow Curt onto a mountain ridge right on courseline, he makes a climb out that I do not connect with. It is on a ridge with a no fly zone beside it. I cannot go down the ridge and its spurs because my score will stop if I enter the area. I must backtrack, tailwind along the ridge, I do this for 10km without finding a safe usable thermal. I say safe because being low can mean that some of the spines are leeside of the one in front. I land at the last available field before a huge lake. It is an unfair place to have a task line, however this is the way of competition, that your score does not often reflect how well you fly.

The final results, it is great to see Alex winning the worlds. Jonny was in a well deserved second place. It is also great to see Manfred, who was winning through the last part of the comp, flying along confidently, not too worried about protecting a position, just going out and flying freely, confidently. Landing out on the last day put him back in the places. American last man on the team Zac, did the best of his team placing fifth. After all of the politics surrounding the exclusion of Gordon from the British team, Gordon was the best placed for his country. Politics often do not represent the best interests of the pilots or their organisations.

Likewise, after the prize giving, I was pleased to have the opportunity to speak with the president of the FAI and talk about our aims for actually improving the level of safety in competitions, putting efforts where we get the best rewards. CIVL have been making some moves recently that are driven by other political motives and permitted through poor internal processes. Davis and Gerolf stopped by and I get the impression that Gerolf enjoyed participating in this “chat” a lot more than the flying.

I am looking forward to some free flying and flying some sand dunes on my return home. Curt and Louse are off to Austria, continuing their honeymoon. Curt reports that his undercarriage is healing nicely after his harness zip incident. Steve is off to Spain. Cammo is going to Spain, returning to Laragne for the Dutch Nationals. Jonny goes to Spain, USA, Brazil for the competition circuit before returning to Australia.

I stopped in Paris before flying out. We walked 20km through the city, seeing a lot of it, including some of the big note tourist places. I was not impressed with the grafiti, homlessness and the smell of urine. It is great to be home.