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.