Working Bee at SavHill

A bunch of pilots arrived at Gundowring to clean up the take-off on SavHill and I flew down to the car after we finished. The day steadily developed (there were great cycles coming up the face while we were chainsawing, and whipper-snippering) until by the time we finished small showers were dropping from the clouds that blew overhead. Out over Albury/Wodonga it was much less developed, over the other side of the Kiewa puffy cu's were forming and growing so that they started dropping rain as they passed over us and the sky out towards Corryong and Mt Beauty was dark and stormy looking.

I launched between sprinkles and flew straight even though there was plenty of lift around the hill - I was focused on getting down to the car before the next shower came through. After I landed though, I regretted leaving the lift. If I'd used it to get up closer to the clouds and pushed out over the valley I would have been flying towards less development and it could have been quite a good fly, I think. Ah well, you live and learn.

Gravity doesnt alway win in the end, sometimes it wins in the beginning...

I don't really want to dwell too much on today so this'll be a pretty quick report.

Flight #1:
Got a lift up the hill with a bunch of other pilots, set up and ready to launch by 1315, took off in what felt like a good cycle, scratched, scratched, and scratched before heading for the landing paddock. Plenty of sink around, so I sunk, realised that I wouldn't make it to the landing paddock and made my first landing in Ponty's bombout paddock.

Flight #2:
Pretty similiar to the first flight, except that now I was much more desperate to fly so I kept pushing along Marcus for longer, hoping for something, anything, before heading for the landing paddock. The sink was sinkier, so I sank sankier - but then felt the breath of non-sink! I was already too low to make it to the landing paddock without some sort of climb so I looked for it and did not find it so set up to land on Mystic Lane. There were a few nasty moments as I got down to tree-top height and saw a dust-devil just ahead and off to the left, but fortunately got down before it came through. It's important when landing on Mystic Lane to set up well back because it slopes downhill and if you come in too high too far forward you'll end up in gum trees. I touched down at the first dirt intersection on the track, which was still quite a ways further than I was aiming for.

Flight #3:
The idea was to wait around for some thereputic glass-off ridge-soaring in the evening, so I waited around and launched just after 1800hrs. Unfortunately there wasn't much lift and it wasn't very thereputic, rather a ever-lower series of beats along Emily hoping for some lift. No lift, but at least I made it to the landing paddock this time.

... and some days you're a rock

Nath and I arrived in Bright full of big plans for today - the forecast was great, the sky looked great, we launched into a thermal that straight away took us to 1,600m...

We decided to head down to Harrietville and back and then see how far we could push out towards or past Mt Buffalo. So off we headed for Goldmine...


...got over there ok, looked around for a climb, nothing there hmmm, keep on going I guess, on to the next good point but half way there I was in lots of sink realised if I didn't get a climb I'd be landing on the other side of the hill to the landing paddock (and my car) and stupidly turned around. Now I was low, in sink, and flying upwind towards the lee side of a hill - not the smartest flightplan.... Of course there wasn't any thermals around there, just some rough air, but I got around the hill onto the sunny face that the wind was on but by now I was very low and a long ways from the landing paddock. I scratched around but didn't find anything, although from the movement of the air I'm sure there was a climb around there somewhere. Grrrr.... I ended up landing in a small paddock a few km's from the car. Packed up and hiked back to it to go and pick up Nath, who was still in the midst of a heroic super-scratch that drifted him way up the valley but unfortunately not way up high. He kept in the air for another 40min though, which wouldn't have been easy at all.

After a lot of chatting in the LP, and some food, we went back up the hill that evening for a ridge-soar. Once in the air it wasn't that hard to stay up, and there were bubbles of lift blowing through as well.
If you turned very tight and drifted lots you could stay with them for a bit - one took me up to 1,300m, which felt very high after skimming along the ridge above the trees. A sailplane nosed around the hill underneath me...

...looking for the final climb of the day but he was too late - I was just leaving it! Besides, it would have been far too narrow for him so he headed off around the hills back to Porepunkah. The lift died and the wind picked up so it was time to land - but the car was still up at launch. Out in front of the take-off there was a narrow but strong lift-band, but after going out the front and spiraling down to below launch I was able to fly through it, aiming to crash into the hill below take-off but using it to lift me as I got close so that instead I landed on the new astroturf. Top-landing at Mystic is often not possible, but it's nice when you get it right. Not the epic day we had planned, but the airtime was still good - especially the evening fly.

Rockstar in my own lunchbox!

Today was a GREAT day of flying!!! Not the conditions - they weren't super special in strength, height, or anything, but I chose the right place to fly in and went much longer and further than I have ever been in moderate conditions like this before!!

The forecast was for light-mod SE winds - a good forecast for heading towards Myrtleford - or something more ambitious maybe... I've noticed that on days like this the good lift seems to dry up a lot when closer to Myrtleford (limiting flying distance and time) although there's usually still great looking clouds all along hills in the Kiewa Valley long after it's over near Bright. Hmmm...

13:25 - I'm finally in the air. Getting some necessary jobs finished before leaving for flying, meeting people I haven't seen for months at the LP and on a packed launch all delay that great moment when you separate from the ground, and leave everything behind except the rush of flying, the beep-beep of the vario, and the challenge of trying to solve the puzzle of sun, wind, hill and cloud to find the next thermal before the ground comes up to say, "Game over bucko."


13:38 - A nice 1.7m/s climb takes me to 1,960m. There is a slight drift to the NW and I have to keep going to the SE to find the stronger edge of the thermal. Going by radio chatter there is a mass of pilots around Little Buffalo, some around Blackfellas, and another bunch heading off from Clearspot. Below me another gaggles is circling up before they attempt the crossing to Clearspot. As I reach the top of the lift I turn and fly in the other direction.


14:03 - I'm questioning the wisdom of my flightplan now - my glide suffers when pushing upwind. It was a short crossing to Goldmine, but working on the strategy of doing my scratching up high I swerved in some zero sink half way over but there was nothing there (or I turned the wrong way). Approaching the ridge I again stopped to scratch when it felt like there might be lift nearby and slowly spiraled up to 2,100m. I continued upwind along Reliance Ridge to where I am now, down to 250m above the ridge line and scratching in zeros over a trigger point, hoping a thermal will release under me rather than a sink cycle flush me down to the ground.

14:20 - Woohoo! Back in the game! It was a good trigger point and the thermal that I caught there deposited me at 2,200m, easily enough for the crossing to Pyramid, especially since flying down the rigdeline meant that I now have a cross-tailwind for the crossing! I feel a bit clever about that! I'm at 1,600m now, just flying into the peak of Pyramid Hill after a good glide across, and I've got plenty of height to find the next climb - going by the previous climbs the Tawonga Gap crossing should be easy!!


14:40 - I'm right in the middle of the Tawonga Gap 'tiger country' but it's ok - I'm in a thermal on my way back up. The climb above Pyramid topped out at 2,330m and since I hadn't encountered really strong sink I decided to take a more direct line across the gap - heading straight for the observation platform on the Tawonga-Bright road. It payed off - I cut the corner of the crossing and got this climb half way over. Yeehah!


15:10 - 1,800m and I think this is as high as I'm going to get here. I've been scratching for the last 10min in a really good looking bowl, looking for a climb that will give me enough height to cross over to the other side of the valley - which has been the goal for today - to cross to the NW side of the Kiewa Valley and follow it as far as possible. Over where I am it just doesn't feel like the thermals are pumping. I've made up my mind: even though I'm a lot lower than I'd like to be I'm going to go for the crossing - hopefully I can get a climb off the low spur below Mt York.


15:30 - I made it! It was a long crossing and I was below 1,000m by the time I was approaching the hill I was aiming for - but sure enough there was a climb there! It's slowing down now, as I thermal up past the 1,600m mark, but a couple of hundred meters more and I should have enough height to cross around to the front of Mt York.


16:40 - I'm up and established on the west side of the Kiewa Valley and it's just great! For the last hour I've bobbed along between 1,500m and 2,100m, steadily flying down the range. I'm just opposite the junction with Happy Valley now, and I think the valley wind from there is responsible for the light lifty air over the hills on this side of the valley.

16:50 - I passed through that really nice patch of lifty air and hit a stretch of sink that has me down to 1,300m. There's some light lift around here, and I'm scratching around trying to center it and get back up. If it doesn't work out so well I'll try over to the North some - I can see an eagle flying around there about a km away but another is circling up beneath me so hopefully I can catch that climb.


17:05 -Ark! Here they come again! The last 15min haven't been fun - the eagles must be a younger pair (I'm told wedge-tailed eagles mate and stake out a territory for lift - a young pair tend to be much more aggressive towards anything in 'their' patch - older birds are more secure and forgiving) and they object to my passing through. I've been trying to dodge their attacks without loosing much height while looking for and circling in any lift I find but I'm not doing it all so well - one of the eagles bounced off the wing just then and I'm down to 800m. I'm very close to Bob's hill and seriously thinking about top landing on it.


17:30 Woohoo - still in the game!! As I came in very low to Bob's takeoff I stopped to circle in some lift in the bowl just behind the hill. It drifted over the takeoff and then lifted off in a beautiful little 1.5m/s thermal that took me back up to 1,500m behind the hill...

- and the eagles seemed content to let me go. A couple of hundred meters along the ridge I found another little climb that deposited me nearly at 1,700m. Nice, smooth climbs in gentle evening air - great views down the row of hills to the Hume Weir...

- the rough and tumble of the mid-day thermals left far behind - the lengthening shadows and golden light of the late afternoon - all this and much more combine to produce a golden glow of happy-flight feelings that I savor as I circle in the weakening lift, trying to decide on where I'll head from here. I might continue down the hills, but it's a long way from good roads and it's getting late - from here I could cross the river and make it to the Kiewa Valley Highway on the other side of the valley - which should make for a much quicker retrieve...


17:40 - I decided on the easy retrieve option and have been gliding across the valley for a while now. I don't expect another climb - the sink has been light but constant and there have been no signs of lift - I think the light wind is blowing any residual heat over to the hills maybe? I'm down to 500m and enjoying the smooth air I'm in...


...and the texture of the land I'm flying over.






17:44 - On the ground. As I got low I started wriggling and kicking my legs to wake them up - I haven't used them for hours and don't want them to collapse when I land on 'em! I followed the road for the last little bit before turning around for a nice landing in a paddock just next to the highway. Woohooo!!!!! What a great flight!!! Mystic to Gundowring - I first planned the flight last year, and have had it in the back of my mind ever since.... it's such a great feeling to have finally completed it!! It took me 4:20 hrs to cover what ended up as 65.2km - pretty slow as a means of getting anywhere - but as a way of getting anywere - nothing compares!!!

Now to get back...

Bombing at the Burrs

Very busy at the Mystic launch today...


...a lot of Skyhigh pilots were up from Melbourne for the annual Skyhigh Cup, a novice-pilot-friendly event that was blessed with some good weather.
The forecast indicated that it might be a good day to try and push out past Mt Buffalo early, so once in the air I headed in that direction.
Launching was somewhat of a drama today, about the time I got a place on launch the cycles stopped coming up the face and for the next 25min we waited while light wind trickled across launch from due west... and due east... and a couple of times over the back from the south. Grrr.... The dust from a vehicle driving up to launch provided a clue as to what was happening - thermals were lifting off the marcus spurline alright, but well down the spur, not up close to launch like normal. Next tiny puff from the right sort of direction and I was off - not a great launch - and just kept flying down the ridge. Sure enough, well past the point where we usually climb out I found a 2m/s climb, and was soon happily beeping my way up towards the clouds and watching all the wings below me that had launched once they saw someone going up.

It was nice being in the air with plenty of other wings...
... and the flying wasn't hard initially.

Heading into Little Buffalo it got harder though - I couldn't find a climb and ended up heading down to land at the Burrs. However, I got a great low save and slowly climbed my way up out and away, only to loose all that hight trying to push on to the next ridge line. I got there, but with scant height to spend looking for the next climb and as all-too-soon faced with the option of flying back down to land in the Burrs or continuing into the next valley (small, no landing options at all, no roads). There MUST have been air going up somewhere in the next valley, but I wasn't going to bet my wing, a long walk out, and a tree landing on finding it...
So I headed back to the Burrs and didn't get another low save. Rod very kindly drove me back to pick up my car.


As Will Gadd says, "Some days you're a rock star, some days you're just a rock."