Great winter flying

After the uncertainty of the weather forecast, watching for weather signs all the way to the launch (clouds, their shape and size, drift and direction of drift, wind in the trees, birds, smoke, other gliders, etc) it's alway hard to wipe the grin off your face when you finally come around a corner and see gliders circling above launch. "It's on!" you know, and now the race is to get up the hill and pick a good time to launch in to join the mob in the air.



Nath and I had those happy grins on our faces when we came around the corner and into sight of the paraglider launch above Bright today - and it wasn't long until we were set-up, checks done, and winging our way towards the clouds above us.

Cloudbase was around 1,650m, although it varied quite a lot depending on where you were. We flew over to Clearspot and towards the Porepunkah airfield a ways before turning towards Blackfellas. Looking up the valley was the most amazing view of the sun shining through a trough of clouds - fantasy-like colours and shapes!

I got low over Blackfellas but got a low save from a nice thermal that gave me enough height to fly back to Clearspot again (nath drifting along above me). It had been completely shaded over for a bit, but there were light bubbles drifting towards it so I headed in to give it a try. There was a thin thread of lift coming off the northernmost point, and after several minutes of weaving in and out of this a bubble big enough to turn in floated through and gave me the height I needed to make it back to Mystic.

The soaring day was nearly over so but after boating around the hill for a bit I noticed that the gentle northerly winds were ideal for top-landing. I've done a few of these over the last few years, but none that I've been really happy with. It's a bit tricky, as you need to lose height out the front until you are level or slighty below launch (depending on the ridge lift strength) before turning and flying downwind alongside a treeline - aiming below the left-hand side of the launch. As you get close the you get lifted up (hopefully) to launch height, keep flying towards the back left corner, then a quick right turn as you're getting close to the trees at the back of launch and you're down. If you mis-judge the wind or your speed or the lift you'll be too high to land or get blown into trees on your left or behind launch and if there's West in the wind there's an increased chance of collapses due to turbulence from the trees to the left of launch.

Anyway, conditions were good today and for the first time I nailed the approach, landing pretty much exactly where I like to take off from. Woohoo!!
Nath soared for a bit longer before we flew down to the landing paddock after just over 2hrs of playing with winter thermals.

I don't think our grins had slipped from when we'd first seen gliders in the air - it's goanna take an awful lot to wipe 'em off now!!!

Season change

Autum has arrived with a bang! Over the course of just one week the daily average temperature has almost halved, we've had rain, clouds, and some light snowfalls in the mountains!

Today the conditions looked like they might permit some ridge soaring from the hill out behind home so I headed up on a bike to check. A straight Southerly is best (but rare) as the main face of the hill generates a huge lift band way above and out the front of the hill but a SW (like today) should allow for some soaring near the top if it's strong enough.

I launched and soared up to a bit over 600m, which is not bad for a SW. I was flying with gloves and a ballaclava under my helmet but it was still pretty chilly. The cloud above blew away and the wind became too light for me to stay up so I landed up above the mud hut, however there was enough wind to ground-handle, so I ground-handled my way across the slope, up a gulley (some tense moments navigating between some of the big rocks and over a dead tree there), and back up to launch. Great practice for launches in tight & tricky places or conditions, and by the time I reached the top I was sweating and had removed a couple of layers!

Another cloud was approaching the hill and I launched again as the wind picked up - found the best beat to be from the top corner of the gulley above the little dam (above the mud hut) to the lighning-struck tree above the rock-brow pine plantation. Suprising, as this wasn't the steepest part of the hill, but I guess it's because it is a wide, smooth slope without trees and big rocks to disturb the airflow?
Anyway, as the wind dropped off again Nath was on his way up in the Landcruiser so I explored the (or lack of) further out and landed next to him on windsweeps to get a lift back up.

Nath set up and launched next (he's much better than me at scratching in light conditions) and flew around for a bit before slope landing down the hill a bit in the next lull. The truck makes for quick retrieves, you just bunch the wing up and stand in the back in all you flying kit. Jump out at the top, pull the wing up and you're away again!


Unfortunately the wind was just a bit too light to stay up. Nath landed a little ways down the slope and started ground-handling. It looked like fun so I flew down, landed next to him, and we 'walked' our wings back up the slope to the top. It was interesting 'flying' the wings through the turbulence behind some of the trees downwind - good active flying practice!
The wind never really picked up again, but we had fun trying to keep our wings in the air around the top of the hill. Eventually Nath relaunched and flew over windsweeps to land at the foot of the hill for some ground handling on the flats.

A fun day!

Last good thermal?

Nath and I weren't able to get to Bright today until 4pm - and once there heard from other pilots about lumpy air and an inversion layer around 1,800m. But that's a whole lot better than not flying, so once I was set up and felt a cycle coming through I lobbed off and headed to the left of launch and was soon circling in a light climb out the front of the ridge.



[The dip in the RH trailing edge of the wing was caused by a knot in two of the brake lines on the upper cascade - vigorous pumping didn't remove it and it didn't cause any problems ]








Nath launched soon afterwards...









...and we pleased to find that the air had become lovely and smooth and the climb slowly improved from a 0.5 m/s to a steady 3 m/s up to 2,100m!! Great fun thermalling together! We headed towards Apex Tower, crossing over the town of Bright on the way. I led out and found a fairly sinky line and not much lift along the ridgeline around the tower - Nath saw this and wisely turned back to Clearspot, where he connected with another climb and topped up his height. Meanwhile I was scratching around Apex, gaining height and losing it as I blundered around trying to center the lift. I never really figured it out - dunno if I arrived at the end of a cycle or if it was just small bubbles of lift but after awhile it was time to leave the ridge so I headed downwind towards Little Mystic. I wasn't high enough to fly into the bowl, but gained a bit of height in a few circles over the lower part of the spur before falling out of it into sink and valley wind, followed shortly afterwards by landing in the landing paddock.










Nath made it back to Mystic and ridge soared for half an hour or so before he flew down and landed.

Cold fronts, cold wind and cold rain are forecast - I wonder if this was the last good thermal of the 07/08 flying season?? It looks like we're about to turn the corner into Autum.

Rough riding in the Kiewa Valley

Driving up to Bright, the wind-talker on ch21 was reporting light Northerlies and there were cumulus clouds popping off all over the sky – woohoo! I launched around 12:30 straight into a nice climb off Marcus. Nine minutes of thermalling later I was approaching cloudbase at 1,700m.
A high pressure system had been hanging around for a few days but the sun was hot and the night was cold so the thermals were punching up through the stable air, however the thermals were narrow and tended to feel quite strong.

To get a bit more of a feel for the day I headed over to Clearspot (very boyant crossing) and turned a few circles under the cloud there to take me back to base (around 1,800m here) before flying towards Blackfellas. However the sink was pretty strong, the cloud I was heading for started to dissipate, and it was up-wind, so I turned around, topped up my height at Clearspot and headed back towards Mystic. There were some gliders climbing out from launch which marked the lift nicely so I flew over, circled five or six times in the lift (back to cloudbase!) and kept going over to Goldmine. The crossing was a bit sinkey and although I found lift over Goldmine it wasn't very well formed until I widened my search around 1,600m and found a nice core to circle in while climbing back to my favorite place – where the climb meets the clouds!

The next good trigger point, Pyramid, had been basking in the sun for a few minutes by the time I was ready to leave Goldmine and as I approached the sunny side of the center peak I was expecting a good climb. I wasn't disappointed...

The wing pitched forwards and we were ripped upwards as the vario started going crazy. One moment the speed of the climb was squashing me down in the harness, the next I was going nearly weightless as the ground dropped away beneath me. I had the left brake buried to try and stay in the core but it didn't feel like it was doing much – the violence of the movement of the air was what was spinning me around as I was hurled upwards. Heart rate maxed, check that surge, quick stab on the outside brake to pump out the tip, brakes all up we're going uuuupppp, pressure off whack the inside brake on again and two minutes later I was tipping the clouds at 2,000m after one of the wilder rides under a paraglider. I've thermalled at higher climb rates before, I've thermalled much higher from much lower - but measured in terms of power and adrenaline this was definitely the thermal of the season for me!!

There were good clouds around so I took a slightly deeper course line over the Tawonga Gap and was rewarded with a pretty easy crossing. Near the end I hit more sink but found a light climb just before flying over the final ridgeline. There was some sort of shear line around 1,600m and the thermal drifted in a different direction after that but it took me back up cloudbase. There was a line of clouds running North for the next 6-7kms so just flew along under them, diverting towards the darker patches when I needed an altitude top-up. Arriving at the edge of them I had a choice of following them NW over tiger country towards Mt Porepunkah, straight ahead over a ridgeline with no good clouds, or NE out over the valley.

I chose to continue flying North, trusting that I'd come across a thermal lifting off from the ridgetop. I flew over a couple of likely looking trigger points without getting much of a twitch and by then was getting close to the trees when I flew through active air near the next good point I searched around and got slammed around by violent little bullets of lift that were to small to get much of a turn in. I was getting height out of them – but it was pretty rough at times (I looked up once and saw a fold in the back of the wing as the leading edge was bent back). Eventually two air masses traveling in opposite directions whacked one side of the wing under but with a counter-whack on the brakes and a bit of fall-and-spin it came out pretty quick (in retrospect I think I was in the lee of the thermal core and the ridge which explains the roughness...).

As soon as I had a bit of height I left the ridge and headed out into the valley. Half way across I spent a while circling and drifting in a really light climb but after this died and I flew to the other side of the valley I didn't find another good thermal. I spent a while surfing bubbles rising above a hill but nothing that I could really work came through so I ended up flying back over the river to land in a convenient paddock near the main road. I great flight, a bit wild at times and I would really have liked to connect with a climb on the N side of the Kiewa Valley, but I'm pleased that I only took one real collapse and it was just great to have such nice clouds to fly. Woohoo!

Afternoon ridge-soaring

I arrived at Bright late and launched around 3pm. There was enough wind to ridge soar, and light bubbles were coming through regularly. Frustratingly, I was unable to climb away in any of them – although it was certainly possible, as Ollie showed three or four times in his hang-glider. So I ended up just ridge soaring. Got a lift up the hill and went for an evening sleddie later – lovely and smooth air...

Mid-week punt

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....

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