Buffallo2Wangaratta 12-12-2007

Wangaratta from up above

After a few short flights from Mytsic in Bright and Mt Buffallo, mainly landing at nearby places like Freeburg and Harritville, I headed up to Buffallo last Wednesday with Ray Kinder and his wife Trudy at about 10.30am, at that time the valley was starting to get overclouded, "bugger!" was the first thought that came into my mind as I bombed out a few weeks ago in similar conditions. We went up to launch where a light breeze was blowing nicely up the face, started setting up and by the time we were ready to go the sky looked better as those big clouds were dessipating into nice smaller cu's. So I launch at 12:20 and it took me about 20 minutes to get up to cloudbase which was slightly above 2500m ASL, so when I looked around then cu's were extending out to the flats, so I got on the radio with Ray "do you wanna have a cuppa at my place" and "bloody oath" he radioed back.So as it is the case with days like this (quoting what others say here), big lifts were associated with big areas of sink, I think at some points I was doing 3:1 glide in my Sting II, and I got real low at a couple of spots where I had the sneaky though of "where am I going to land now" coming to me, until I find the glorious finger picking me from my shoulders back to cloudbase. Three hours later I was getting close to Wangaratta with a higher cloudbase, the highest altitude I got to was 2680m ASL, which was right above my house, and I was always wondering why it gets quickly hot at where I am. I could see lake Mulwala from up above but being up in the air for 4 hours and Ray being in the paddock next to where I live had me deciding that I had enough, so I came in to land. Few minutes later I had that nut inside of me going again "what have I just done! I'll stay up longer and further next time, possibly to Yarrawonga". So we packed up, had lunch and a cup of coffee when Trudy turned up and we headed back to Bright where I had to bring my car back!

Airtime: 4hrs
Max Altitude: 2680m ASL
Flight Track 200km all up, 75km straight lines

Here is a link to some photos I took with my frozen hands!

Melbourne Cup Weekend

With the deep low pressure system that was hanging around Victoria for a few days last week, flying in the northeast was 2 days out. Some pilots from Belbourne had aerotows at the airstrip in Porpunkah when the rain stopped but apart from that no one else had a flight. Monday the 5th the sky was pretty with more blue than grey, the forecast was for SE winds picking up during the day. So I packed up and headed towards The Pines ridge near Everton as its the only ridge that faces SE up here. For a start there were only Ray, Katrina and myself before a crowd of both hangies and paras started to turn up. By 11 o'clock the hill was crouded with no significant breeze up the face except from frequent wind cycles, so most of us decided to wait for better launch conditions.

Oli was first to launch at 11.30am followed by Stuie and a couple of other hangies and they slowly started to climb with a couple of paras, it didn't look very flash. However, they did pick the best part of the day as sky overclouding had most of thermic activity shut and soon bomb-outs started to happen one after the other.

Next day, Tuesday the 6th looked better for Mt Buffalo, so I headed up with Ray, Katrina, Murray, and Paddy and it looked a bit breezy but launchable on the ramp, with some cross wind blows but it doesn't take too long for the breeze to straighten up. By 11.30am I was ready to go first, just before I left the edge of the ramp I had the feeling of a solid positive bar pressure, followed by a 700fpm thermal just in front of launch. I took into that thermal and in less than a minute I was well above launch height.

Because of the SE wind thermals were drifting over the top of Buffalo, so I thought I'd head to hot-rocks and see if I might get better lift. I was surprised by the fact that hot-rocks wasn't working quite well and I only had few bubbles enough to extend my flight and when I realized I better get back to where I was cutting accross the middle I got drilled with hardly having enough altitude to make it to Burse. Those who launched after worked the thermal infront of launch upto cloudbase and didn't bother trying hot-rocks. There must be a sacrificial lamb for every flying day.


Start of launch run - Mt Buffalo Ramp





Airborne

Mystic 27/10/2007

I'm sitting here on Melbourne Cup Weekend where the crew from Airborne is up in Bright for the demo show, we haven't had the favorable conditions so no one is flying today or even the next couple of days. So I am posting about my last flight from Mystic in Bright.




The sky looked filled up with cu's and by the time I finished setting up my glider clouds seemed to be closing together, so I jumped into the harness and took off at about 12:30pm. 10 minutes later I was at bomb out, what a bugger.

Flying above Mystic's launch, my car is the red one. Beside there's also a group of mountain motor cyclist who popped around to have a look

An overdevelopment looked definite with a thunder head right above me as I was packing my glider at the landing paddock, I though tomyself I haven't had my fix for the day. So by the time I tied my glider onto my car, I thought I'll go into town grab a drink and a pie and see how it looks. So after that the storm looked to be drifting to the south east away from Bright and I thought I'll go up the hill again I might get another flight.

Maximum height for the day

Paragliding tandem operators were there too, sothat was a good sign, its working! It looked though the same senario with the sky fliied up with closing in cu's, so it was a hit and miss for me. I launched at about 4:00pm, it took me a bit of work to get right lift, but once I was up high enough I was working to stay away from the clouds, with extra smooth thermic conditions I enjoyed boating around for at least an hour before another OD was due, then I thought lets go to land.

Cruising above Bright

So writing about flying is not a bad thing indeed when the day is not good for flying, and when you don't want to just sit and think about flying.

Airborne Fly-in Melbourne Cup Weekend

With all indicators that the Aussie season is firing up on time this year, the annual Airborne Fly-in at Bright and Porpunlah airstrip comes closer with a heap of pilots looking forward to head up to Bright for the long weekend of November 3-6. Airborne will be showcasing its latest Microlights and Hang Gliders.

As I'm considering upgrading to a topless glider (as in king-postless for those who don't know) at the end of summer, I'll do my bit and check out Airborne's C4's and see the manufacturer's crew recommendations for these gliders and get some highlightes on the performance and how it compares to other gliders, and in particular I'd be interested in knowing if it outperformes the Moyes Lightspeed RS or does it just performe the same? Does it land at a lower speed? Handling and thermaling?

Parachute Repacking

After watching Betty Pfeiffer's online seminar (see link below) on how to do the yearly inspection/repack of parachutes, I decided to give it a go myself this time,
and I had to work my brains up for it and trust my own understanding of the subject.


Betty Pfeifer's Parachute Repacking Seminar

I also took photos of my own parachute as I unpacked it out of the harness, so I'd follow the same sequence backwards to double check on whther what I'm doing was right.


Unfolding Bridle Lines.

The bag these parachutes are installed in is designed in such a way that organize deployment in sequence, and its done via means of custom rubber bands. You DON'T want the whole system to deploy together as its likely to tangle, twist or something ugly that could happen when you don't have much time to muck around.



So typically the bridle should deploy in full length before the canopy inflates, and thats what this bag offers, once thats done the air gets into the air channel which inflates the whole thing upon a successful deployment.


The air channel should be packed loose so it'd catch the airflow.

Have I made it sound easy! Well think again. It took shit load of time trying to sort this thing out, and also it turned out that my parachute was slightly different than the one which is on the seminar, for mine doesn't have that pulled-in apex but has a circular opening in there instead. Also mine has 22 panels where's this one in the video has 20.


Apex lines inside the parachute

So at the end of the day when I was near having my dinner I decided to head down to Melbourne and have my chute done at a licenced repacker. So this is what the day ended like, which is totally opposite to my expectations.

Flying With Eagles

Its not really a fancy title that I made up, its how it really went.


When I first spotted the eagle and started following him

The forecast was for South to Southeasterly winds prevailing, with moderate strength that makes it dead straight on Everton Ridge - The Pines. So I headed off and met with my fellow local airmen at the landing paddock, right there the wind didn't seem to be blowing as it was still as, so we decided to go and have a cup of coffee at the Everton Bakery and see what the weather brings us. As we sat there, we noticed a bit of movement in tree leaves but it wasn't quite enough. Anyway we left the bakery and headed up the hill where The Pines launch is, and not to lift anyone's hopes, the wind up the top was nothing more than some light puffs into our miserable face. That was the case until Late in the afternoon where a more consistent 10-15 knots breeze came through and everyone decided to have a go. I had my glider half set up by then so it didn't take me too long to get organised and be the first to launch and watch others while they're getting set up.



The eagle getting closer as we were soaring the ridge face

While I was soaring the ridge lift (I was about 300ft), I noticed an eagle just catching the same elevator as mine and started getting closer to me, so I kept on following him with every direction change he took, this guy knew where the best patches of lift are as my variometer kept singing all the way as I followed him. And because of his lighter weight, he kept on getting closer to me until we were less than a wing span apart where he noticed my intrusion and took evasive action. However it didn't take us much long to make friends with each other as he didn't seem to mind my company, we just had to keep a minimum separation and everything was fine.


Sneaking Behind

A few minutes after that as I followed my comrade to the eastern side of the ridge that I didn't dare to come along on my own, because if the wind suddenly drops off I'll have no where to land but in a crusty old loudmouth farmer's paddock, but I thought these eagles are so good at it and I'm sure he wouldn't bother to go across there unless if its really pumping. And to my surprise, the other family members turned up, another eagle (I guess partner eagle) with a little eaglet, and we all flew over the eastern side of the ridge topping up our heights, and I had an awesome flight with them for about half an hour where the other pilots started taking off which pushed my sky friends to say good bye, its too crowded for us.


Hello Sky Mate


Heading East


Tell you what, they never like it when you are above them

These eagles that I flew with belong to the Wedge Tailed - Eagle Breed, Australia's largest bird of prey, and one of the largest eagles in the world.

A Wedge Tailed Eagle


Back to flying with birdmen, formation flying


The wing of a Birdel

Flight Withdrawal Symptoms

Its been a while back since last I had this updated, well I just get a bit lazy which is not uncommon for me when it comes to online staff. I actually did have some interesting flights even after summer had finished, one in which I clipped a downtube as I landed in a wind rotor, and that added a little to my tight budget, but anyway I had some fun.


View Over The Buckland Valley


View Over Mt Buffalo's Gorge

Nowadays I see we are heading into a cold and wet winter, unlike last years winter when we had the drought and I managed to get some nice flights. Mt Buffalo is the hit in fine and sunny weekends (which hasn't happened really in three weeks) as granite rocks heat up much better than wet ground when the sun shines upon them, that produces some light thermals making the air buoyant for extended flights, something in the range of half an hour.


Launching From Mystic Hill In Bright

Ah, one more thing, I'm flying back to Jordan for a month this summer (during OZ winter), but this time I'm going to be a passenger enjoying my window seat view. I know its going to be tempting watching summer clouds over there in Jordan and not being able to fly, especially the fact that wind patterns have a touch of west in them over summer (and hence more moisture in the air) which improves lapse rates and climbs underneath cumulus clouds, anyway I'd better not daydream too far off.


Just After Having My Flight Fix!! Fulla Life

Escaping The Mundane

I am having a whole week off next week, plus the long weekend after that, comes out to 9 days off, and hopefully with the good weather we've been having for the the last two weeks, I will most likely be spending my time up in the air.



I am also getting a new Sting 175 2XC glider, it should be in by the end of this week or early next week, this would allow me to scratch more on cross country flights.



Oliver had a record cross country triangle few weeks ago and he reckons that the full moon plays a great role in developing lapse rates through the air, which means thermals are stronger, wider and reach higher. Thats why I think I'll give it a blast next week.



Some may be wondering what do the photos have to do with what I'm writing? Nothing, I was just extracting photos from my archive folders.

Sneaking Up On Birds

The plan was to fly Thistle Hill, but since we haven't had someone to take us up to the launch, Will and I decided to head down to Ocean Groove for some coastal flying. The sea breeze was forecasted to kick in in the afternoon, which didn't happen. Anyway I launched in 20 knots SSW, and had the chance to goon the sand dunes for half an hour, until Will launched in his Sting 145 and this is where the wind started to drop, I was about 8kms away from launch and I had to bomb out and pack up there waiting for Will to come and pick me up.


Flying Above The Stairwell On The Beach


Flying Just In Front Of Launch


Above Launch