Newcastle Hang Gliding Club

Hey "How good Does It Get ?" Bloody Fantastic!!!!!!

I whinged on the morning of the 5th July on my facebook site "Flying, a distant memory!!!", then left work and had my 4 hr sleep, woke up and........ it was on!!!!!!!! Great I thought, a bit of midwinter luck. A few days later, a day before I was to start my five day break, on again, finally a bit of luck for this little desperado I thought. Two days flying in a winter week, not bad at all. But wait there is more. Thursday arrived and as Stuie said in his post, we had a fantastic day topped off with the obligatory refreshment in the park.

The Friday was going to be a bit of a challenge for me flying wise as I had to pick up the Family in Sydney. However the Idea of dashing down to Stanwell for a fly before I fulfilled my family obligations had germinated and I asked JOD to come along. Being the true gentleman he is, he not only decided to come but inspired Harry and Les to come as well. There was supposed to be another straggler coming but it appears that his career was more important than flying.

We all arrived without incident and were set up and ready to go in a jiffy. Well a few jiffies, oh heck a Harry moment or two later we were all off. The paragliders had all decked because ,,,, well because conditions were perfect. Go figure. Anyway I did some great boating around at nearly 1500’ and landed in the park after about an hour.

Got talking to a fellow expat, Jos, who had moved in 1952 from Holland, had been flying HG’s since 1972 and was now flying PG’s at the age of 76. I gave him a quick lift to T.O and found JOD had landed back on top. So I decided that I was a wuss for not doing that myself and needed to go back down, pack up re-fly and land on top. First I waited to see Harry do a perfect approach and show me how it was done, good one Harry and JOD!

Raced back down to the bottom to pack up my gear and re-fly, It was not to be though. Whilst packing up the wind lost a bit of strength and about 9 paragliders and a few hangliders descended on the chute. LesB was above this lot in a holding pattern. I was glad to be looking at this mess from terra firma.

Unfortunately one of the paragliders misjudged her approach and struck a 15’ high bushy tree on the corner. She was momentarily held by the tree foliage and her wing travelled forward and stalled, her own forward movement allowed her to slip out of the top foliage and into a free pendulum swing. This resulted in her basically freefalling backside first onto the sand and we had a possible spinal injury on our hands. 000 was rung and to make her comfortable and lacking any other choice I put my jumper under her head as a cushion. Les had landed in the meanwhile and now the wait was on for the chopper to arrive.

As we were waiting an elderly man with a familiar looking face approached Les and had a bit of a chat. I walked over and saw his name tag (he was with a bus load of rotary members.) it read “John Dickenson”. I got to personally thank one of our founding legends for his contribution to our great sport, how cool was that.

Meanwhile the lady paraglider was being stabilised and the big chopper was doing laps as the park grounds were too wet to land on. All the time Harry and JOD were skying out and getting the best of the conditions. They both have photo and film material to show us so we can expect some great contributions from them shortly. JOD landed just when the chopper was leaving and stayed right out of his way by setting up on the south side of the beach and landing along the beach ending up near the mouth of the chute.

Our great day was closed off by a few beers and a great looking meal served up by an equal or even better looking young lady. What A Day, What A Week!!!!

PS. JOD supplied the photo's, thanks!