The weather observations for today looked good for The Pines and I was able to leave work early and was set up on the launch by 2pm. No one else around, but although it felt pretty light it was thermic so I pulled the wing up and ran off the hill. There was some light lift over the pine plantation, and I drifted around in it until I had located the core of the thermal and took it up to around 1,000m. Here I lost the core, and while searching for it fell completely out the back of the thermal and was heading down fast. I tried to fly back into it based on my flightpath on the Garmin GPS but couldn't seem to co-ordinate my flying with the track delay and wandered around in sink until I'd lost most of my height.
As the car was parked near the top of the hill I flew back towards launch with the intention of top landing. Unfortunately there was no lift close to the hill so I slope landed 50m or so below the takeoff – realising at the last moment that my chosen landing spot was covered in 5ft high thistles, rather than the dried grass that it looked like! It took a surprising amount of effort to extricate the wing and lines from the thistles, bunch it up and carry it back up to the launch.
By the time I arrived Ted (and students) were there (they had just returned from lunch in Beechworth after flying earlier on) however the wind was swinging around to the West and clouds had shaded out everything. I spent a while waiting for a sunny patch but it wasn't going to happen so I ended up launching for a sleddie down (and a lift back up).
The clouds looked really good to be flying under – dark, flat bottoms, with a nice but not scary amount of development. I can't help but think that if I had managed to take that first climb all the way up I could have spent several hours of happy cloud flying. Oh well, I guess there's always another day....
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Monday, March 24, 2008
Bright Easter Fly-in
The long Easter weekend is often near the end of the flying season and, for paraglider pilots in Victoria, it's also one of the biggest social get-togethers of the season. Often, like this weekend, the conditions are milder and more suitable for novices and the road up to launch has cars roaring up and down it all day. This Easter was very novice friendly - with clouds shutting down a lot of the lift and keeping conditions fairly quiet for most of the days. Still there were thermals, and I was happy to get a couple of satisfying flights in.
SATURDAY
I had to work in the morning and didn't make it to Bright until early afternoon - which was a pity as the sky looked just awesome on the drive to Bright but by the time I arrived large clouds were shading out the area for long periods of time. After a sleddie, I managed to climb out after a brief splash of sun on the slopes below launch and found cloudbase to be around 2,600m. I drifted around Bright for a bit before heading to Apex, where I experienced a new "first" of having a thermal lift up from under me and carry me into blue sky above the base of the surrounding clouds - and then misty feathers of cloud started to form around and under me. I flew away from the area as the cloud continued to mist into existence around me, snapping some pics and enjoying being on right on the scene for the birth of a new cloud. I headed towards Mt Porepunkah but lost a lot of height as I got close and ended up flying down the spur towards the Alpine Highway. Getting low, I recognised a mate's truck parked at a house below me and, seeing I couldn't find any lift, I landed in front of the house to say, "Hi!" It's always good to land where there is a ready retrieve....
SUNDAY afternoon, I launched and was bombing my way towards the landing paddock when I decided that conditions were right to try landing on the road on top of Marcus spur. I lined it up and floated along above the road (between the pine trees) and eventually landed as the road starts to slope up again. The key is (I think) to lose as much height as possible as far up the slope as possible. Otherwise you just float along above the road as it drops away down the ridge.
Second flight was much better - I waited with a couple of other pilots for a blue patch to bring some sunlight over and took a rough, surgey climb to base around 1,800m. From there over to clearspot, then down the ridge towards Little Buffalo, where BrianW flew over the top of me and I had to divert to Blackfellas for enough height to make it over the Porepunkah airfield (packed with sailplanes). I flew straight over Little Buffalo to the next ridge and found a very slow climb there that gradually firmed up as I got closer towards cloudbase. From there I followed the ridgeline towards Ovens, circling a bit here and there but not finding any good lift and eventually landing at Ovens. I was happy though, it feels like I'm getting better flights than I used to out of conditions with less potential. Pity winter is so close....
pics to come later
SATURDAY
I had to work in the morning and didn't make it to Bright until early afternoon - which was a pity as the sky looked just awesome on the drive to Bright but by the time I arrived large clouds were shading out the area for long periods of time. After a sleddie, I managed to climb out after a brief splash of sun on the slopes below launch and found cloudbase to be around 2,600m. I drifted around Bright for a bit before heading to Apex, where I experienced a new "first" of having a thermal lift up from under me and carry me into blue sky above the base of the surrounding clouds - and then misty feathers of cloud started to form around and under me. I flew away from the area as the cloud continued to mist into existence around me, snapping some pics and enjoying being on right on the scene for the birth of a new cloud. I headed towards Mt Porepunkah but lost a lot of height as I got close and ended up flying down the spur towards the Alpine Highway. Getting low, I recognised a mate's truck parked at a house below me and, seeing I couldn't find any lift, I landed in front of the house to say, "Hi!" It's always good to land where there is a ready retrieve....
SUNDAY afternoon, I launched and was bombing my way towards the landing paddock when I decided that conditions were right to try landing on the road on top of Marcus spur. I lined it up and floated along above the road (between the pine trees) and eventually landed as the road starts to slope up again. The key is (I think) to lose as much height as possible as far up the slope as possible. Otherwise you just float along above the road as it drops away down the ridge.
Second flight was much better - I waited with a couple of other pilots for a blue patch to bring some sunlight over and took a rough, surgey climb to base around 1,800m. From there over to clearspot, then down the ridge towards Little Buffalo, where BrianW flew over the top of me and I had to divert to Blackfellas for enough height to make it over the Porepunkah airfield (packed with sailplanes). I flew straight over Little Buffalo to the next ridge and found a very slow climb there that gradually firmed up as I got closer towards cloudbase. From there I followed the ridgeline towards Ovens, circling a bit here and there but not finding any good lift and eventually landing at Ovens. I was happy though, it feels like I'm getting better flights than I used to out of conditions with less potential. Pity winter is so close....
pics to come later
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Indigo Valley XC!!!
One of the more frustrating 'laws' of paragliding that I've discovered goes something like this:
When a pilot is near a launch site but has other commitments it will be flyable – the harder it is to escape the commitments the more epic the conditions will appear
We had family friends visiting today – wonderful to catch up, had a lovely time – and not only was the sky filling with fantastic looking cumulus clouds in every direction but there was no wind to speak of – just the sort of conditions I'd been thinking it might take to get away from the hill at home. Soon after hijacking the conversation onto flying topics we all piled in the back of the Landcruiser and headed up to launch...
By the time the sky was almost completely covered with clouds in varying stages of forming, drifting and decaying and there was only a few patches of sunlight left on the ground. One of them was approaching the hill as we were driving up, and I frantically set up and launched as the shadows grew. The air felt alive as I left the hill – I 's-bended' through light bubbles of lift over the hut bowl and the gulley below it but I could tell the wing wanted to go a bit further out... At 420m asl I was wandering around in some light lift, falling in and out of it but slowly going up... Every time I faced back towards the hill my climb rate dropped off, so I straightened out and flew towards the stronger lift. I circled a couple of times, but there was nothing that felt like a core so I kept going away from the hill. After 400m in slowly increasing lift I found a core and gained 800m in it before losing it. I searched back towards the hill, turned a few times in a light patch of lift, then arced around past my first climb and found an nice climb close to where I lost the first one – however as I got higher in it I noticed I was drifting in a different direction – different wind layers?
This thermal gradually petered out around 1,600m and by now there was no sunny patches on the ground – everything was shaded out. I went on a glide along the ridge line to the NW and then headed towards Saddleback hill.
The sink quickly pulled me down to 860m so when I found a narrow thermal out the front I followed it as it drifted towards the hill. I got back up to 1,200m, which I though would give me enough height to make it back to the ridgeline I'd flown along before (there was a single patch of sun playing on one side of if) but as soon as I flew towards it I was flying in 3-5m/s sink! I diverted to a small hill that looked like it would be a good trigger with some nice looking paddocks behind it. As I flew over the hill the wing didn't even twitch so I followed a tree-line that pointed towards home, trying to stretch out my glide to reduce the long walk ahead of me. As I was getting close to the ground suddenly the right wing tip lifted slightly, I had instantly weight-shifted right (the further you fly the less you walk) and felt the wing take the weight but then noticed, “Hey!, my sink rate hasn't just lessened, it's stopped!) It was one of those lightning fast but endless decisions: to continue flying along the road towards home or head off into the paddocks looking for lift that may not exist and walk that much further?
I turned right. Straight away I could feel the whole of the wing was in the lift, then it felt a touch lighter so I cranked into the turn, desperate to stay in this tiny bubble. I managed to do one turn in it, then a third of the next turn slipped out, then two thirds of the turn after that. I shifted my circle the other way and got back into the lift. I was weight-shifting on the outside to try and keep the wing a bit flatter, turning as tight and slow as I could to try and stay in the rising air, and was so totally focused on the movement of the wing I didn't even notice the vario. Going over the GPS track later I determined that I was only 65m above the ground when I turned towards the lift so I really didn't need the vario to track changes in altitude anyway!
I got up to 360m and then wasn't circling in lift so I extended my circle to try and locate it. I used up 30m before finding another tiny patch to circle in but although it was drifting me (away from the road) it was pretty neutral and although I was doing every little thing I could think of I just wasn't going up much (I even yelled at a mob of sheep in the paddock below, trying to get them to run around and possibly trigger a thermal, but most of them just looked around a baaa-ed)! Then I lost the lift.
I had been concentrating with everything I had on staying in the lift, 7 minutes had passed since I first turned away from the road and I was 120m above the dry, sparsely grassed paddock below. I'd noticed a lovely looking ploughed paddock in the direction that I was drifting, was I desperately scratching in 0.1's when there was good lift over there? But it was over the other side of the creek, which had trees all along it. Could I make it over there? I went on the committing 400m glide, made the crossing and as I flew over the corner of the paddock hit a small bubble of lift. I jumped on it (figuratively), and stuck with it as it drifted... back the way I'd come!! It was very light, but well formed, and since I'd only been 52m above the ground when I'd hit it I wasn't going looking for anything else... After 5minutes of following every twist and turn it made I was rewarded with the lofty height of 450m!!! A moment's lapse in concentration though, and I'd turned too wide and was struggling to stay up again. “Focus Bill, focus, you don't want to loose this one – it's close by somewhere...” A couple of wider turns and I felt it off to the right – quickly center in it and hey, this is a bit better! For the first time I noticed the vario as it made a different sound and took a quick glance at it. 1.2 m/s up!!! Now we're talking!!
Fifteen minutes after I'd first turned towards the lift I was now only 150m higher – but I was in a steady, well formed climb, on my way outa there and feeling like king of the world!! The climb improved until it was a steady 2m/s up (peaks of 4) and I rode it until I was back at 1,600m. From here it was an easy glide under lifty clouds back home...
...where I spiraled down to land behind the house as happy as a dog with two tails!
Woohoo! It is possible to get away from the hill in the right conditions!! What an awesome final thermal!! I dunno where it came from but it was the best feeling ever to finally climb away from that paddock!
I love low saves!
When a pilot is near a launch site but has other commitments it will be flyable – the harder it is to escape the commitments the more epic the conditions will appear
We had family friends visiting today – wonderful to catch up, had a lovely time – and not only was the sky filling with fantastic looking cumulus clouds in every direction but there was no wind to speak of – just the sort of conditions I'd been thinking it might take to get away from the hill at home. Soon after hijacking the conversation onto flying topics we all piled in the back of the Landcruiser and headed up to launch...
By the time the sky was almost completely covered with clouds in varying stages of forming, drifting and decaying and there was only a few patches of sunlight left on the ground. One of them was approaching the hill as we were driving up, and I frantically set up and launched as the shadows grew. The air felt alive as I left the hill – I 's-bended' through light bubbles of lift over the hut bowl and the gulley below it but I could tell the wing wanted to go a bit further out... At 420m asl I was wandering around in some light lift, falling in and out of it but slowly going up... Every time I faced back towards the hill my climb rate dropped off, so I straightened out and flew towards the stronger lift. I circled a couple of times, but there was nothing that felt like a core so I kept going away from the hill. After 400m in slowly increasing lift I found a core and gained 800m in it before losing it. I searched back towards the hill, turned a few times in a light patch of lift, then arced around past my first climb and found an nice climb close to where I lost the first one – however as I got higher in it I noticed I was drifting in a different direction – different wind layers?
This thermal gradually petered out around 1,600m and by now there was no sunny patches on the ground – everything was shaded out. I went on a glide along the ridge line to the NW and then headed towards Saddleback hill.
The sink quickly pulled me down to 860m so when I found a narrow thermal out the front I followed it as it drifted towards the hill. I got back up to 1,200m, which I though would give me enough height to make it back to the ridgeline I'd flown along before (there was a single patch of sun playing on one side of if) but as soon as I flew towards it I was flying in 3-5m/s sink! I diverted to a small hill that looked like it would be a good trigger with some nice looking paddocks behind it. As I flew over the hill the wing didn't even twitch so I followed a tree-line that pointed towards home, trying to stretch out my glide to reduce the long walk ahead of me. As I was getting close to the ground suddenly the right wing tip lifted slightly, I had instantly weight-shifted right (the further you fly the less you walk) and felt the wing take the weight but then noticed, “Hey!, my sink rate hasn't just lessened, it's stopped!) It was one of those lightning fast but endless decisions: to continue flying along the road towards home or head off into the paddocks looking for lift that may not exist and walk that much further?I turned right. Straight away I could feel the whole of the wing was in the lift, then it felt a touch lighter so I cranked into the turn, desperate to stay in this tiny bubble. I managed to do one turn in it, then a third of the next turn slipped out, then two thirds of the turn after that. I shifted my circle the other way and got back into the lift. I was weight-shifting on the outside to try and keep the wing a bit flatter, turning as tight and slow as I could to try and stay in the rising air, and was so totally focused on the movement of the wing I didn't even notice the vario. Going over the GPS track later I determined that I was only 65m above the ground when I turned towards the lift so I really didn't need the vario to track changes in altitude anyway!
I got up to 360m and then wasn't circling in lift so I extended my circle to try and locate it. I used up 30m before finding another tiny patch to circle in but although it was drifting me (away from the road) it was pretty neutral and although I was doing every little thing I could think of I just wasn't going up much (I even yelled at a mob of sheep in the paddock below, trying to get them to run around and possibly trigger a thermal, but most of them just looked around a baaa-ed)! Then I lost the lift.
I had been concentrating with everything I had on staying in the lift, 7 minutes had passed since I first turned away from the road and I was 120m above the dry, sparsely grassed paddock below. I'd noticed a lovely looking ploughed paddock in the direction that I was drifting, was I desperately scratching in 0.1's when there was good lift over there? But it was over the other side of the creek, which had trees all along it. Could I make it over there? I went on the committing 400m glide, made the crossing and as I flew over the corner of the paddock hit a small bubble of lift. I jumped on it (figuratively), and stuck with it as it drifted... back the way I'd come!! It was very light, but well formed, and since I'd only been 52m above the ground when I'd hit it I wasn't going looking for anything else... After 5minutes of following every twist and turn it made I was rewarded with the lofty height of 450m!!! A moment's lapse in concentration though, and I'd turned too wide and was struggling to stay up again. “Focus Bill, focus, you don't want to loose this one – it's close by somewhere...” A couple of wider turns and I felt it off to the right – quickly center in it and hey, this is a bit better! For the first time I noticed the vario as it made a different sound and took a quick glance at it. 1.2 m/s up!!! Now we're talking!!
Fifteen minutes after I'd first turned towards the lift I was now only 150m higher – but I was in a steady, well formed climb, on my way outa there and feeling like king of the world!! The climb improved until it was a steady 2m/s up (peaks of 4) and I rode it until I was back at 1,600m. From here it was an easy glide under lifty clouds back home...
...where I spiraled down to land behind the house as happy as a dog with two tails!Woohoo! It is possible to get away from the hill in the right conditions!! What an awesome final thermal!! I dunno where it came from but it was the best feeling ever to finally climb away from that paddock!
I love low saves!
Monday, January 28, 2008
Smoother later
Two flights from Mystic today – I first launched shortly before three pm into boyant but rough air (+7m/s – 5m/s, probably mostly due to the strong inversion around 1,100m – it didn't break all day and the closer to it you got the rougher the air became). There was also a moderate northerly wind blowing that increased in strength until I decide to go and land after around 30min airtime.
Later in the day a bunch of rello's that were visiting Bright were keen to see us fly and when the wind dropped a bit we all headed back up Mystic Lane to the take-off. I rarely get pics of myself taking off or flying, so I'll include some here that were taken.It was well after seven in the evening when we launched, and the air was totally different – glassy smooth, wide ridge lift that several pilots were already playing in. After 30min or so it started to weaken and I left the ridge while I still had plenty of height to work on my wingovers some more before landing – there's still something fundamental that I'm not getting right and I think it's the timing of my weightshift. It was fun yakking with other pilots in the landing paddock while waiting for Nath to land – he flies really well in super light conditions and didn't come down until he was running out of light. A great finish to the day!
Later in the day a bunch of rello's that were visiting Bright were keen to see us fly and when the wind dropped a bit we all headed back up Mystic Lane to the take-off. I rarely get pics of myself taking off or flying, so I'll include some here that were taken.It was well after seven in the evening when we launched, and the air was totally different – glassy smooth, wide ridge lift that several pilots were already playing in. After 30min or so it started to weaken and I left the ridge while I still had plenty of height to work on my wingovers some more before landing – there's still something fundamental that I'm not getting right and I think it's the timing of my weightshift. It was fun yakking with other pilots in the landing paddock while waiting for Nath to land – he flies really well in super light conditions and didn't come down until he was running out of light. A great finish to the day!
Friday, January 18, 2008
Eskdale
Bob & Dallas were going to be in Bright from Wednesday to Friday. It would be the last chance to fly with Bob before he headed overseas so I managed to get the Thursday off work.
Some car troubles meant I didn't arrive in Bright until nearly 1pm. By then Bob was already in the air, but Dallas would meet me at the landing paddock and give me a lift up to launch. A fun surprise was meeting Veronica also at the landing paddock - I'd been following her Canadian flying blog for some time. We set up on launch ...
...and as soon as I saw enough movement in the trees left of launch I was away. Veronica launched soon after, but quickly out-climbed me.
I concentrated on my thermalling and, next time I looked around, she was half way to Goldmine. Once I had a comfortable amount of height I headed off too, and half way over spotted Bob circling fairly low above the valley NW of Pyramid.
I angled a bit towards him, but stopped for a nice climb above the ridgeline. He was climbing also, and our respective cores drifted closer together as we got higher. I left mine at 2,400m and arrived at his in time for a few "woohoo's" as we circled together before we glided off to Pyramid. Meanwhile, Veronica had hooked into a climb further down the ridge (closer to Harrietville) and had crossed Freeburg...
...towards the back of Pyramid. From where I was it looked like she got awfully deep in tree country to me, (maybe it was just the relative angles we were at) but musta know where she was going because she was soon climbing out over Pyramid. Bob and I had to search a bit for a climb, and while we were climbing Veronica had left for Mt Beauty with what looked like massive height. The crossing is at least 7km of trees however, and it only takes few minutes of heavy sink to change I've-got-heaps-of-height to Aaghh-I-don't-know-if-I'll-make-it! But she looked like she had a pretty good glide going and Bob soon left also (he'd outclimbed me over Pyramid).
I re-connected with the climb and headed off myself (from 2,650m), but I chose a slightly more northerly line than the other two - heading straight towards the Tawonga Gap observation platform. I didn't hit massive sink, and arrived over the ridge at 1,700m. There were little shots of lift blasting around the place, but I couldn't seem to connect with anything solid enough for long enough to gain much height. The wing was jerking left and right and I had to fly really actively to even keep it semi-centered over my head. One particularly hard swing to the side ended with half the wing blowing out and it took 2-3 rotations and a bit of strong pumping on the left side before everything was sorted out again. This new wing collapses much softer than I'm used to - I urgently need to spend more time practicing collapses and getting my correction reflexes faster - even big collapses don't feel as scary while they're happening as they did on the 1-2. I'm not sure if that's a good feature or a bad one really! Anyway I headed up the ridge line towards some likely looking bowls to look for a climb there. Veronica had flown right over the town of Mt Beauty and it looked to me like she got a climb out from the hill out the back of the town before pushing out up the valley. I couldn't see Bob anywhere at this time, but didn't spend much time looking as I was quite close to the trees along the ridge. I scratched along the ridge line, going from 160m above the peak to 100m below it before finding something that firmed up into a decent climb after 20min of desperate scratching. There was a shear layer around 1,800m, and it took a bit to figure out what was happening there but a nice strong bubble of lift got me through that and back up to safety and comfort at 2,290m. While I was climbing I had spotted Bob across the other side of the valley, scratching low on a spur-line. Veronica was pushing through the valley wind to a likely looking ridge a bit behind him. Heading towards Bob, I stopped briefly above the boundary of the bush and farmland to top up to 2,450m before continuing across the valley. Bob was climbing by now,
...which made it very easy as I just flew into where his climb should intersect my glide - and it did! A great climb, this one, it took me all the way up...
...to cloudbase for the first time today - at 3,009m! As I got to base the cloud started to dissipate, but the thermal I was in continued up for another 100m into a hole in the middle of the cloud. Very surreal, banking around in light lift, blue sky above, cloud all around, base 100m lower, and only some faint whispy bits below! It didn't last long however, and as the cloud broke up more...
...I decided it was time to continue up the ridgeline. Meanwhile, Bob had taken some big whacks and decided to head out into the valley. There wasn't much lift there and Dallas motivated him back to the ridgeline and he was soon climbing back up while I headed off along a cloudy line (great glide) towards Mt Tawonga. Veronica had also been thrashed around a bit by the rough stuff down low and opted for the smoother conditions of the valley - unfortunately she didn't find any good lift and eventually landed. Bob and I both had experienced some anxiety during our first attempts at crossing over the back of the ridge towards Eskdale...
...and were grateful to find light lift that we stuck in (despite it drifting us back towards the Kiewa Valley) before heading off again. In retrospect, I should have realised from the amount of drift we were getting that we were heading into a valley wind used the height from that thermal to find another good climb from the ridge, taken that all the way to the top, and then crossed above it. But it was getting on, and I succumbed to impatience and headed across from 2,300m. It was a long crossing into wind, and we headed down a spur to a likely looking bump near the end of it. Here I stayed, gaining a few meters in a bubble that was drifting back up the ridgeline, losing a few more meters when I lost it. Bob was scratching around the same area for a while, but he stayed with a slightly stronger bubble and ventured out into the valley. 
I thought he was on the ground a couple of times, but he found little bit of lift and worked his way up the valley and out of sight. A while later I heard a radio call from him to Dallas as he left a climb - he had got back up to 2,100m (which sounded really high to me, scratching between 600m - 1,100m for the last 30min) and was past Eskdale. I kept going for another 20min - by now I'd been fighting the light lift and valley wind around the same little hill for 50minutes and gradually got lower and lower between each small gain of height until the paddock came up and ended this round of the war with gravity.
Still, I'm stoked with the flight - I've been wanting to cross over the Kiewa Valley ever since my first Tawonga Gap crossing, back in Nov'06. It was great to have other people to fly with, they both helped mark lift & sink and also were a good encouragement to go faster and further. Getting to base was pretty special, and cruising along with stacks of height afterwards - the views in every direction were just amazing. Dallas did some great back country navigating and picked me up a bit later and then we drove around for a while trying to contact Bob. We eventually ran him to earth in the Tallangatta Pub, where we had a bite to eat before setting out on the drive back to Bright. We pulled in to town at 10:50pm, tired & sore, but very happy with the day. How good is paragliding!!!
Some car troubles meant I didn't arrive in Bright until nearly 1pm. By then Bob was already in the air, but Dallas would meet me at the landing paddock and give me a lift up to launch. A fun surprise was meeting Veronica also at the landing paddock - I'd been following her Canadian flying blog for some time. We set up on launch ...
...and as soon as I saw enough movement in the trees left of launch I was away. Veronica launched soon after, but quickly out-climbed me.
I concentrated on my thermalling and, next time I looked around, she was half way to Goldmine. Once I had a comfortable amount of height I headed off too, and half way over spotted Bob circling fairly low above the valley NW of Pyramid.
I angled a bit towards him, but stopped for a nice climb above the ridgeline. He was climbing also, and our respective cores drifted closer together as we got higher. I left mine at 2,400m and arrived at his in time for a few "woohoo's" as we circled together before we glided off to Pyramid. Meanwhile, Veronica had hooked into a climb further down the ridge (closer to Harrietville) and had crossed Freeburg...
...towards the back of Pyramid. From where I was it looked like she got awfully deep in tree country to me, (maybe it was just the relative angles we were at) but musta know where she was going because she was soon climbing out over Pyramid. Bob and I had to search a bit for a climb, and while we were climbing Veronica had left for Mt Beauty with what looked like massive height. The crossing is at least 7km of trees however, and it only takes few minutes of heavy sink to change I've-got-heaps-of-height to Aaghh-I-don't-know-if-I'll-make-it! But she looked like she had a pretty good glide going and Bob soon left also (he'd outclimbed me over Pyramid).
I re-connected with the climb and headed off myself (from 2,650m), but I chose a slightly more northerly line than the other two - heading straight towards the Tawonga Gap observation platform. I didn't hit massive sink, and arrived over the ridge at 1,700m. There were little shots of lift blasting around the place, but I couldn't seem to connect with anything solid enough for long enough to gain much height. The wing was jerking left and right and I had to fly really actively to even keep it semi-centered over my head. One particularly hard swing to the side ended with half the wing blowing out and it took 2-3 rotations and a bit of strong pumping on the left side before everything was sorted out again. This new wing collapses much softer than I'm used to - I urgently need to spend more time practicing collapses and getting my correction reflexes faster - even big collapses don't feel as scary while they're happening as they did on the 1-2. I'm not sure if that's a good feature or a bad one really! Anyway I headed up the ridge line towards some likely looking bowls to look for a climb there. Veronica had flown right over the town of Mt Beauty and it looked to me like she got a climb out from the hill out the back of the town before pushing out up the valley. I couldn't see Bob anywhere at this time, but didn't spend much time looking as I was quite close to the trees along the ridge. I scratched along the ridge line, going from 160m above the peak to 100m below it before finding something that firmed up into a decent climb after 20min of desperate scratching. There was a shear layer around 1,800m, and it took a bit to figure out what was happening there but a nice strong bubble of lift got me through that and back up to safety and comfort at 2,290m. While I was climbing I had spotted Bob across the other side of the valley, scratching low on a spur-line. Veronica was pushing through the valley wind to a likely looking ridge a bit behind him. Heading towards Bob, I stopped briefly above the boundary of the bush and farmland to top up to 2,450m before continuing across the valley. Bob was climbing by now,
...which made it very easy as I just flew into where his climb should intersect my glide - and it did! A great climb, this one, it took me all the way up...
...to cloudbase for the first time today - at 3,009m! As I got to base the cloud started to dissipate, but the thermal I was in continued up for another 100m into a hole in the middle of the cloud. Very surreal, banking around in light lift, blue sky above, cloud all around, base 100m lower, and only some faint whispy bits below! It didn't last long however, and as the cloud broke up more...
...I decided it was time to continue up the ridgeline. Meanwhile, Bob had taken some big whacks and decided to head out into the valley. There wasn't much lift there and Dallas motivated him back to the ridgeline and he was soon climbing back up while I headed off along a cloudy line (great glide) towards Mt Tawonga. Veronica had also been thrashed around a bit by the rough stuff down low and opted for the smoother conditions of the valley - unfortunately she didn't find any good lift and eventually landed. Bob and I both had experienced some anxiety during our first attempts at crossing over the back of the ridge towards Eskdale...
...and were grateful to find light lift that we stuck in (despite it drifting us back towards the Kiewa Valley) before heading off again. In retrospect, I should have realised from the amount of drift we were getting that we were heading into a valley wind used the height from that thermal to find another good climb from the ridge, taken that all the way to the top, and then crossed above it. But it was getting on, and I succumbed to impatience and headed across from 2,300m. It was a long crossing into wind, and we headed down a spur to a likely looking bump near the end of it. Here I stayed, gaining a few meters in a bubble that was drifting back up the ridgeline, losing a few more meters when I lost it. Bob was scratching around the same area for a while, but he stayed with a slightly stronger bubble and ventured out into the valley. 
I thought he was on the ground a couple of times, but he found little bit of lift and worked his way up the valley and out of sight. A while later I heard a radio call from him to Dallas as he left a climb - he had got back up to 2,100m (which sounded really high to me, scratching between 600m - 1,100m for the last 30min) and was past Eskdale. I kept going for another 20min - by now I'd been fighting the light lift and valley wind around the same little hill for 50minutes and gradually got lower and lower between each small gain of height until the paddock came up and ended this round of the war with gravity.
Still, I'm stoked with the flight - I've been wanting to cross over the Kiewa Valley ever since my first Tawonga Gap crossing, back in Nov'06. It was great to have other people to fly with, they both helped mark lift & sink and also were a good encouragement to go faster and further. Getting to base was pretty special, and cruising along with stacks of height afterwards - the views in every direction were just amazing. Dallas did some great back country navigating and picked me up a bit later and then we drove around for a while trying to contact Bob. We eventually ran him to earth in the Tallangatta Pub, where we had a bite to eat before setting out on the drive back to Bright. We pulled in to town at 10:50pm, tired & sore, but very happy with the day. How good is paragliding!!!
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Persisting at Pyramid
Twice now I've lost the better part of what turned into an epic day by bombing out at Pyramid. Today, hopefuly, I've turned that around.
I launched, flew over to Goldmine, topped up and headed into Pyramid. Nothing but 2m/s down. I persisted, flying right over the sumit (passing over Little Pyramid) but no go. By now I was quite close to the trees and the closest landing paddock was looking uncomfortably far away. Instead of heading straight out I detoured over two likely trigger points and flew around the hill instead of straight down it. This enabled me to cover more area (less sink) but alas no lift. However I didn't give up hope but had enough height to fly over one more possible trigger point. Either that or land near the road, but "no guts, no glory" so I headed for it. Woohoo! A thin thread of lift was wafting up above it!! I found it hard to center in and eventually just followed it wherever it felt like it was going - which was drifting back up toward Goldmine (against the prevailing wind direction, but the Goldmine ridge was sheltering it).
I connected with another climb above Goldmine and was zapped back up to cloudbase, then followed Sass and Hans across the Tawonga Gap (bypassing Pyramid) to land at the Mt Beauty Airport.
A fun day's flying, and it was great to save the flight and stay in the air instead of bombing out in the middle of the day!
I launched, flew over to Goldmine, topped up and headed into Pyramid. Nothing but 2m/s down. I persisted, flying right over the sumit (passing over Little Pyramid) but no go. By now I was quite close to the trees and the closest landing paddock was looking uncomfortably far away. Instead of heading straight out I detoured over two likely trigger points and flew around the hill instead of straight down it. This enabled me to cover more area (less sink) but alas no lift. However I didn't give up hope but had enough height to fly over one more possible trigger point. Either that or land near the road, but "no guts, no glory" so I headed for it. Woohoo! A thin thread of lift was wafting up above it!! I found it hard to center in and eventually just followed it wherever it felt like it was going - which was drifting back up toward Goldmine (against the prevailing wind direction, but the Goldmine ridge was sheltering it).
I connected with another climb above Goldmine and was zapped back up to cloudbase, then followed Sass and Hans across the Tawonga Gap (bypassing Pyramid) to land at the Mt Beauty Airport.
A fun day's flying, and it was great to save the flight and stay in the air instead of bombing out in the middle of the day!
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Towing in Deni
I've just got back from four days in Denilliquin. I was there during the Deni '07 Hang Gliding Comp with four other paraglider pilots to get some more towing experience and hopefully some good flatland flying.
The weather was challenging, with increasingly stable conditions as the comp went on and temperatures soaring into the mid fourties. In these conditions getting dressed in thick socks, hiking boots, long pants, shirt, fleecy jumper, gloves, & helmet - and then standing in the blazing sun in the middle of a shadeless, bone-dry paddock doesn't seem entirely sane...
...But it's all worth it when you ping off from the tow and manage to climb away from the tow paddock (you don't get more than a couple of attempts though before heat-stroke kicks in).
As you get higher and higher the landscape gets more and more amazing - dead flat for as far as the eye can see, huge dusty dry paddocks, wandering creeks and billabongs coming into view as you get higher, few roads, no clouds, and you just keep climbing higher and higher, passing through 1,700m the air is no longer hot and you can see the Murrey river 100km to the south, around 2,400m and the air is refreshingly cool on your face, the wing steady above your head and the vario keeping up it's re-assuring chorus of beeps as you drift in lazy circles ever upwards. I topped out at 3,150m and at that height I was glad of all the warm clothing that caused so much sweat and discomfort such a short time ago in the tow paddock.
There was very little drift on the days we flew (which makes flying long distances difficult) but despite that I flew 1km on the last day (two tows, didn't get a thermal), 20km the day before that, 50km the day before that (Conargo to Finley), and 80km the first day of flying.
The weather was challenging, with increasingly stable conditions as the comp went on and temperatures soaring into the mid fourties. In these conditions getting dressed in thick socks, hiking boots, long pants, shirt, fleecy jumper, gloves, & helmet - and then standing in the blazing sun in the middle of a shadeless, bone-dry paddock doesn't seem entirely sane...
...But it's all worth it when you ping off from the tow and manage to climb away from the tow paddock (you don't get more than a couple of attempts though before heat-stroke kicks in).
As you get higher and higher the landscape gets more and more amazing - dead flat for as far as the eye can see, huge dusty dry paddocks, wandering creeks and billabongs coming into view as you get higher, few roads, no clouds, and you just keep climbing higher and higher, passing through 1,700m the air is no longer hot and you can see the Murrey river 100km to the south, around 2,400m and the air is refreshingly cool on your face, the wing steady above your head and the vario keeping up it's re-assuring chorus of beeps as you drift in lazy circles ever upwards. I topped out at 3,150m and at that height I was glad of all the warm clothing that caused so much sweat and discomfort such a short time ago in the tow paddock.
There was very little drift on the days we flew (which makes flying long distances difficult) but despite that I flew 1km on the last day (two tows, didn't get a thermal), 20km the day before that, 50km the day before that (Conargo to Finley), and 80km the first day of flying.
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