Woohoo!!!

In the hope of a few sleddies in calm air I arrived in Bright a little before 9am, only to find that a high SW wind had blown cold air into the valley, creating unusually early unstable conditions. There were whispey bits forming around 8:30, and by the time I launched around 9:30 there were already little cumulus clouds scattered around the sky in the distance.
The wind had picked up unusually early in the day also, and I spent a little while on launch getting a feel for it and weighing up the pros and cons of launching a new wing into what looked like typical spring conditions - a bit of rough and tumble type air with some sharp bits sprinkled in too.
I did launch, after a while, at what I hoped was the end of a lull. Maybe I was right, maybe I wasn't, but I found a decent climb above Marcus and was soon bumping against a light inversion around 1,300m. I flew along the Marcus ridge line a couple of times - pulled some asymmetrics on the wing (quit soft going into them, no nasty suprises) and flew back to launch to top up on height. Each time I topped up I got higher and eventually broke through the inversion (or it broke) and climbed high enough to leave the hill. I headed for Clearspot, which was upwind, and was suprised at how good a glide we got.
Flying into clearspot I first found neutral air, then light lift that swiftly became stronger, then good positive lift that just continued as I flew straight. Eventually I turned and four turns later was at the top of the thermal (+4m/s climb).
I messed around over Clearspot for a bit before testing the glide downwind and got a 10.5:1 glide over Mystic to the Goldmine ridge. Here I turned right and tracked up the ridge a bit before turning towards the landing paddock.
I landed after 1 1/2 hrs airtime - freezing cold, extremely happy, and giddy with the possibilities of this awesome new wing.
It's definitely less relaxing than the old one (but conveys so much more information about what's going on around), and much easier to ground-handle, possibly a little more collapse resistant, and certainly has a noticeable performance advantage! A joy to fly - I think I'm in love!!!!

New beginning...

I picked up my new wing today and "Yeehar!" is it nice!!
As soon as I had it I whipped around to the closest park to unpack it and have a quick squizzy. It all looked pretty good (crackly-new fabric!! Bright line colours!!) so I reluctantly packed it up and drove home.

Arriving, there was a light-moderate NW blowing, so I ground handled for a couple of hours in the front paddock. This was really good for starting to get a feeling for the wing - it pulls up very nicely and reacts quicker and to less input than the old one. This makes ground handling much easier because I can correct wing-crashing situations much later, faster, more accurately more now!!
Another cool thing is it seems to generate more lift, when I reverse launch the wing, stabilise it, spin around, brakes up, run forward, brake and jump into the air for a bunny hop, where I used to only manage 2-3 feet in the air today I was getting up 6-8 feet!!! Fun, fun, fun!

Later in the afternoon the wind dropped off to a light westerly so I went up the hill to see if it was launch-able. It was, so I did!!

I immediately noticed a lot more feedback from the wing than I'm used to. When I'm tuned into it, I hope I'll be able to sense lift from a lot further away, and lots light lift as well. I'll be able to turn tighter too, which'll be good for exploiting the tight little rockets that one finds from time to time.

I have to work tomorrow :( but can see lots more"Woohoo!!!" moments approaching!!

Note to self: Must get as much airtime as possible before Manilla (22 days...)

Woohoo!!

Getting ready!!

As I figure it, I will be the happy owner of a bran' spakin' new Gradient Aspen2 in just 14 days - Woohoo!!!

Preparation wise, I've nearly finished getting my car ready for a lot of driving - really a 4WD would be best, and I had a serious look at a twin cab Nissan Navara today but it was a little old, needed a little too much work done to it, and was way underpowered.

I'm been using the Garmin while I drive and am getting pretty familiar with it - still have to get some maps sorted out for the iPaq.

The bivouac-ready harness is taking some more doing - I have a bunch of gear that I'd like to take but it's way too much weight and bulk. This'll take some pretty tricky packing and really needs a bunch of gear specially made for ultra light-weight camping.

Tonight I'm mounting my radio mike & speaker in my full face helmet...

It's all coming together...

Bring on next Saturday week and good flying weather, I say! Bring it on!!!!!

counting down the days...

My new wing should be arriving in Australia in three weeks!
Things to get done before then:

1. Finish putting together a bivouac kit - for the end of a good xc flight when the next day is forecast to be flyable as well so I can land, have food & shelter for the night, and hpefully continue flying the next day!
2. Become more familiar with my Garmin 60CSX GPS and iPAQ+GPS reciever - especially with speed to fly features and route planning/loading/changing/flying...
3. ensure the car is ready for long paragliding trips this summer!!

Other than that, I've been working long hours (typically 60+ per week) and following the following blogs...

Flyke Australia, Will Gadd's blog, Flygirl's blog, and reading articles with titles like "Microlift", and "Active flying"

in the beginning....

... it always starts with an idea.

In my case it was, "Hey Bill, have you heard of paragliding?" (I hadn't.) "Check out these youtube clips (I did) - I think it looks like it could be pretty cool (indeed...), maybe we should give it a go!" (we did)!

My brother Nathan and I learned to paraglide with Ted and Jason from Alpine Paragliding. Nath bought a wing straight after the course (DHV1 Swing Axis) and I bought one a month later (a DHV1-2 Apco Salsa).

It took me a little longer to get used to the Salsa, but it was a great first wing and I had some awesome flights on it and learnt heaps.

I owe most of my flying skills to three very different sources:

• The internet. While saving up for the license course and equipment I read, watched, & downloaded everything I could get my hands on that was flying related. This gave me a knowledge base to recognise conditions/situations from - although not alway fast enough to exploit them...

• Trial and error. Spending a number of early hours flying with Nathan at our parents farm. It's a hard hill to get away from, and often misjudging the conditions meant walking up it in the middle of the day to try again - high motivation to learn to recognise when to fly and when not to.

• Hanging out with Bob & Dallas. These guys are way better pilots than me and I learned heaps from just being around them. Not least of all to get in the habit of thinking and planning big flights.

After 100 happy hours on my lovely Salsa, Jiri Stipek (Paragliding Headquarters) made me an upgrade offer to a Gradient Aspen II (DHV2) that was just too tempting to pass up.
The new wing should arrive in the first week of October, allowing me a few weeks to get to know it before heading up to Manilla for a week of (hopefully) epic xc flying...
Right now I'm re-reading all the flying literature I can lay my hands on, learning how to drive my new GPS (routes, waypoints, and tracks), and putting together my summer flying kit. Exciting times! Expectations for the summer are building - here's hoping it's an epic one!!