The day was cancelled again today, due to impending thunderstorms all around us. Last night we had part 2 of the monsoon, where we could see the light show from the approaching storm cell for 2 hours as we watched more episodes of “Heroes”; it was continuous lightening as the storm approached, and when it got closer, the winds picked up as the gust front moved through. But we could see it approaching ahead of time so everyone in the campground prepared for it, staking down tents, putting laundry away, closing windows, etc. When the rain finally hit it was coming down horizontally and in typical tropical downpour style. It lasted all night and apparently the whole storm cell was about 250 km long. Up on Mt. Borah the windtalker recorded winds of 140 km/h, and all the tarps, sunshades, Astroturf pieces, etc. were torn down by the winds and scattered all over the hillside. This morning another huge storm moved through, with some impressive cloud formations over town (see http://mclearn.ca/gallery/ for a photo). It was pretty obvious from then that we wouldn’t be flying today!
Results from yesterday are still provisional, since the British Team filed an official complaint (not a protest, that comes if the complaint doesn’t go their way) since the scoring program only gave the winner 850-ish points, rather than the 1000 the organizers intended. Supposedly the scorers are trying to import elements of 2002 into 2000 to allow yesterday to be rescored as a 1000 point day (since all the nominal parameters were met), but if that happens, I’m not sure the results will stand since I’m sure another nation will file a counter-complaint that the new scoring system is not the original scoring system mentioned in the official rules. I’m not quite sure why 2002 wasn’t used in the first place…Godfrey says it’s because FAI said it had to be 2000, and FAI is saying he didn’t have to choose that system, etc etc etc.
Nicole
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Great Ideas
Yeah I started with what I thought would be such a great idea. I launched right behind Will and we slowly got to base. I spent sometime in the marry go round at base in bigears trying to stay out of the clouds with about 100 of the gliders that had launched. I worked my way to the edge of the circle which was 2km around launch. I dedcided if I go I could probably drag at least a few gliders with me but no luck. I was about half way through my glide to the next climb when I turned around to see that I was all alone in the middle of nowhere with no help to find the next climb. I did find my next climb and got back to base thinking at least the gaggle will be chasing soon then I can have some help. Once at base i headed to the ridge in fornt of me and continued alone again as there was still know one with me so it was time to just go it alone for the day. I got to the Turnpoint and got base very quickly. I turned for the big glide to goal and hit the headwind hard. I glided to the next ridge where I managed to get up a bit to the next ridge where I knew I just needed about 500m climb to get high enough to get over the ridge before goal. I searched and searched but no luck for me today. I landed happy but a little frustrated to watch everyone fly over my head. It was a great effort to get it alone but next time I think Power in Numbers is the way to go. Today is looking very suspect as we just had about an hour of some of the coolest thunderstorms I have ever seen. It is rumbling still as I write this. It is 10am here on wednesday and I believe we will be watching more episodes of "Heroes" which by the way is the best show on TV I believe now. Its very entertaining for us to hang out in Franklin and watch american TV together. So hope your all enjoying the snow back home...grin.
Cheers
K
Cheers
K
Yaaay, a task!
We weren’t quite sure if we were going to be having a task today…lots of big cloud around but Godfrey said there was a bunch of blue holes forecasted to come through mid-day, so we went up the mountain for a 1:15 pm briefing. We gathered on the north launch and watched some wind techs flying around, not really getting very high, but a task was called anyways. A 46 km flight to the east, and then back to Manilla to land at the goal field at the Rivergums campground. It was an individual elapsed time start (no race start) which meant people could leave on the task whenever they wanted. Of course this meant a gigantic merry-go-round formed right at cloudbase over launch for the longest time, since nobody wanted to leave first and everyone wanted to chase somebody.
The wind switched while the window was open so a bunch of us reconvened on the west launch where I got off. By the time I got to cloudbase it was about 3 pm and a gaggle had already left on course, so I radioed to the USA/Canadian team that I was leaving, and left with about 6 other gliders. Of course as soon as we did that another huge gaggle formed behind us and chased us down, but that was OK as we needed the help finding lift.
There were big clouds all around, and a rain cell to the NW of launch, but to the SE it was OK (our direction of flight). Our gaggle flew across the valley to the ridge to the east of launch, where we found a nice thermal to cloudbase (2000 m, pretty low for around here!) and we were gone again. We eventually made our way over to the 1st TP (Halls Creek church) and after tagging it, had to turn around for Manilla. The flight up to this point had been pretty easy, but when we turned around it was a bit of a headwind for a couple of km or so, so the going was slow initially. But after we got out of the hills and back towards Manilla the headwind lessened.
Up ahead was Josh saying he had goal on glide at 8:1, and I was a few minutes behind. I found a nice thermal with our gaggle and I took it quite high, letting my glide to goal get to 5:1 before leaving, since I had seen some of the 8:1 pilots landing short of goal by about 1 km and I didn’t want that to happen to me. On the way to goal I passed a gaggle of late-day pilots headed for the TP and they were way behind me at that point (they were going the other way), so I didn’t worry about them.
In the end it was Harmony and me flying next to each other, both flying our Magic 4’s, and we were talking to each other and taking each other’s photos on the final glide. It was very boaty and we actually arrived at goal with about 2000’, so there was plenty of time for playing around over goal. My time into goal was 2:09. I guess I took that last climb too high, but given the day’s conditions I think it was a good idea and I wanted to actually make goal and not land short (many people were landing short, or not making the transitions between thermals successfully).
Will landed out on the way to the first TP, way in the boonies, and had about a 2 hour hike out to the main road. Keith landed about 6 km short of goal (he needed one more thermal). And Bill and Kari landed out also. Tom made it in about 1:55 or so, and the leader was about 1:42.
That gaggle that I passed on the way to goal (going the other way) ended up being most of the Swiss Team (they had waited over launch for a long time before leaving), and none of them made goal. A band of shade came through as we could see them in the distance desperately trying to make it to us at goal, and they all dirted it short, or arrived at goal after it was closed (6:30 pm). The day wasn’t really a racing day, it was more of a survival day, and staying with the gaggle day. Venturing out on your own didn’t work today, so I’m glad I stayed with a group the whole way around the course. It looks like about 45 people made goal. One pilot barely made goal by landing on the actual goal line on his final glide, but the FAI officials said it was OK since the line (strip of white tarp) was about 1 m wide and he landed in the middle of it!
There was one accident I witnessed at goal: a pilot was trying to lose lift over the goal field and was doing wingovers, when he slowed the glider down too much, stalled it, and then spun into the ground (he did about 3 rotations before hitting). The ambulance was there immediately (Godfrey had arranged for them to be waiting at goal for such an eventuality) and took care of him. It looked like a hip injury since he landed on his side quite hard.
It was quite satisfying to make goal on the first day of the Worlds; at the last Brazil Worlds I actually never made goal once. So already I’m ahead of myself compared to last time. And it was also very nice to land in a goal field right next to our campground, and not hundreds of km away!
Nicole
The wind switched while the window was open so a bunch of us reconvened on the west launch where I got off. By the time I got to cloudbase it was about 3 pm and a gaggle had already left on course, so I radioed to the USA/Canadian team that I was leaving, and left with about 6 other gliders. Of course as soon as we did that another huge gaggle formed behind us and chased us down, but that was OK as we needed the help finding lift.
There were big clouds all around, and a rain cell to the NW of launch, but to the SE it was OK (our direction of flight). Our gaggle flew across the valley to the ridge to the east of launch, where we found a nice thermal to cloudbase (2000 m, pretty low for around here!) and we were gone again. We eventually made our way over to the 1st TP (Halls Creek church) and after tagging it, had to turn around for Manilla. The flight up to this point had been pretty easy, but when we turned around it was a bit of a headwind for a couple of km or so, so the going was slow initially. But after we got out of the hills and back towards Manilla the headwind lessened.
Up ahead was Josh saying he had goal on glide at 8:1, and I was a few minutes behind. I found a nice thermal with our gaggle and I took it quite high, letting my glide to goal get to 5:1 before leaving, since I had seen some of the 8:1 pilots landing short of goal by about 1 km and I didn’t want that to happen to me. On the way to goal I passed a gaggle of late-day pilots headed for the TP and they were way behind me at that point (they were going the other way), so I didn’t worry about them.
In the end it was Harmony and me flying next to each other, both flying our Magic 4’s, and we were talking to each other and taking each other’s photos on the final glide. It was very boaty and we actually arrived at goal with about 2000’, so there was plenty of time for playing around over goal. My time into goal was 2:09. I guess I took that last climb too high, but given the day’s conditions I think it was a good idea and I wanted to actually make goal and not land short (many people were landing short, or not making the transitions between thermals successfully).
Will landed out on the way to the first TP, way in the boonies, and had about a 2 hour hike out to the main road. Keith landed about 6 km short of goal (he needed one more thermal). And Bill and Kari landed out also. Tom made it in about 1:55 or so, and the leader was about 1:42.
That gaggle that I passed on the way to goal (going the other way) ended up being most of the Swiss Team (they had waited over launch for a long time before leaving), and none of them made goal. A band of shade came through as we could see them in the distance desperately trying to make it to us at goal, and they all dirted it short, or arrived at goal after it was closed (6:30 pm). The day wasn’t really a racing day, it was more of a survival day, and staying with the gaggle day. Venturing out on your own didn’t work today, so I’m glad I stayed with a group the whole way around the course. It looks like about 45 people made goal. One pilot barely made goal by landing on the actual goal line on his final glide, but the FAI officials said it was OK since the line (strip of white tarp) was about 1 m wide and he landed in the middle of it!
There was one accident I witnessed at goal: a pilot was trying to lose lift over the goal field and was doing wingovers, when he slowed the glider down too much, stalled it, and then spun into the ground (he did about 3 rotations before hitting). The ambulance was there immediately (Godfrey had arranged for them to be waiting at goal for such an eventuality) and took care of him. It looked like a hip injury since he landed on his side quite hard.
It was quite satisfying to make goal on the first day of the Worlds; at the last Brazil Worlds I actually never made goal once. So already I’m ahead of myself compared to last time. And it was also very nice to land in a goal field right next to our campground, and not hundreds of km away!
Nicole
Monday, February 26, 2007
The World's Start
Or do they? They were suppose to start yesterday and as of now Monday Afternoon we still have not had a task. The weather has been epic since I arrived almost 2 weeks ago. But yesterday things went bad weather wise. We went to launch yesterday and watched as the clouds got bigger and bigger around us. I got already with my flying clothes and walked into the line up to launch when they delayed us for about 5 minutes then called the day as cancelled. I was a little displeased that I got ready for nothing and voiced it loudly out of frustration. I quickly calmed down and packed up my gear and drove down the hill. We were really happy to be down as a few hours later one of the biggest thunderstorms I have ever seen dumped loads of rain on the town of Manilla.
We had a very nice dinner of pasta made with Peanut Butter, Thai Curry Paste and Coconut Milk. (VERY TASTY). Were eating on a budget here as it costs a lot for food were finding. Après dinner we chilled with friends and retreated to Franklin (Will's & Keith's Caravan) to watch an American TV show called "Heroes". Ok James you win its a good show...grin. We watched the first two episodes before crawling into our beds to read for a couple hours. Yes, I do know how to read.
Today we have been chillin in various capacities from Jogging to coffee drinking to napping and some computer work. I have arranged for a couple us to go to Sydney on the way home and my brother has got us tickets to some Australian Rugby which should be crazy fun. The forecast I have to say is not great for the next few days as a tropical storm sits in the North of Australia pulling moisture from the south towards us. But hey if you have a drought book a paragliding meet to get rid of it. Well enough of me rambling and I hope all is well for everyone wherever they are.
Cheers
Keith
PS. Cross your fingers for things to improve for us until then bring on "Heroes"
We had a very nice dinner of pasta made with Peanut Butter, Thai Curry Paste and Coconut Milk. (VERY TASTY). Were eating on a budget here as it costs a lot for food were finding. Après dinner we chilled with friends and retreated to Franklin (Will's & Keith's Caravan) to watch an American TV show called "Heroes". Ok James you win its a good show...grin. We watched the first two episodes before crawling into our beds to read for a couple hours. Yes, I do know how to read.
Today we have been chillin in various capacities from Jogging to coffee drinking to napping and some computer work. I have arranged for a couple us to go to Sydney on the way home and my brother has got us tickets to some Australian Rugby which should be crazy fun. The forecast I have to say is not great for the next few days as a tropical storm sits in the North of Australia pulling moisture from the south towards us. But hey if you have a drought book a paragliding meet to get rid of it. Well enough of me rambling and I hope all is well for everyone wherever they are.
Cheers
Keith
PS. Cross your fingers for things to improve for us until then bring on "Heroes"
World Championships, Day 2
We had a hell of a monsoon last night! After the day’s task was cancelled the storm clouds moved in, and it was only a matter of time before the deluge arrived. We got about 34 mm of rain in 3 hours; it was so wet that huge puddles were forming since the ground couldn’t absorb that much water so quickly and we had to rescue Conrad’s tent from the rising waters (actually Will ventured out to rescue it, along with Bill; the rest of us watched from the dryness of the camp kitchen and cheered them on). Fortunately for those of us in caravans we just had to close the windows and ride it out, watching episodes of “Heroes” on Will’s computer.
The morning actually dawned cloudy (!) (the first cloudy-in-the-morning day since getting here) with super-high humidity, so there was no rush to get up the mountain (apparently the road up is susceptible to rain, becoming very slick, so when it rains, you have to get your vehicle down asap or else risk having to leave it up there until the road dries out enough to drive it down safely). However it’s still 30+ degrees here, we’re all wearing shorts and tees, and everyone’s tans are coming along nicely (gloat gloat J.
The team leader briefing this morning consisted of discussion about the whole end-of-speed-section issue, GPS error when calculating who came in 1st, 2nd, 3rd vs. visual confirmation, etc., and the launch pre-queue methodology. Despite the flavour of the team leader briefings (with lots of politics), I’m actually learning a lot about international comp flying issues, since the viewpoints being brought forward are coming from a variety of nations. It’s very interesting to see exactly what issues the Swiss, French, Germans, Brits, etc., have, and how they go about presenting their arguments and defenses. Once a protest gets submitted (and I’m sure there will be several over the course of this comp, there were several brought forward at the Brazil Worlds) it will be very interesting to see what the energy in that room is like. (PS the daily morning briefings are open to everyone, but most pilots are happy to leave that job to their team leaders, and sleep in a bit longer, and do other things with their morning. So pilots interested in that kind of stuff are certainly welcome to listen in.)
OK, so the day has just been cancelled, due to impeding rain and embedded cu-nims in the surrounding area. The overriding reason for this wet weather is a bunch of low-pressure systems forming way to the north of us, one of which is predicted to develop into a typhoon (hurricane) in the next few days or so. These weather systems usually pass through northern Oz in Dec/Jan, but this year they are late. A comp must be happening in the area! The Canadian Team is glad we got a solid week of flying in already during the XC Open, so the possibility of a few days off here and there does not irritate us as much as pilots that only just arrived for this comp.
Nicole
The morning actually dawned cloudy (!) (the first cloudy-in-the-morning day since getting here) with super-high humidity, so there was no rush to get up the mountain (apparently the road up is susceptible to rain, becoming very slick, so when it rains, you have to get your vehicle down asap or else risk having to leave it up there until the road dries out enough to drive it down safely). However it’s still 30+ degrees here, we’re all wearing shorts and tees, and everyone’s tans are coming along nicely (gloat gloat J.
The team leader briefing this morning consisted of discussion about the whole end-of-speed-section issue, GPS error when calculating who came in 1st, 2nd, 3rd vs. visual confirmation, etc., and the launch pre-queue methodology. Despite the flavour of the team leader briefings (with lots of politics), I’m actually learning a lot about international comp flying issues, since the viewpoints being brought forward are coming from a variety of nations. It’s very interesting to see exactly what issues the Swiss, French, Germans, Brits, etc., have, and how they go about presenting their arguments and defenses. Once a protest gets submitted (and I’m sure there will be several over the course of this comp, there were several brought forward at the Brazil Worlds) it will be very interesting to see what the energy in that room is like. (PS the daily morning briefings are open to everyone, but most pilots are happy to leave that job to their team leaders, and sleep in a bit longer, and do other things with their morning. So pilots interested in that kind of stuff are certainly welcome to listen in.)
OK, so the day has just been cancelled, due to impeding rain and embedded cu-nims in the surrounding area. The overriding reason for this wet weather is a bunch of low-pressure systems forming way to the north of us, one of which is predicted to develop into a typhoon (hurricane) in the next few days or so. These weather systems usually pass through northern Oz in Dec/Jan, but this year they are late. A comp must be happening in the area! The Canadian Team is glad we got a solid week of flying in already during the XC Open, so the possibility of a few days off here and there does not irritate us as much as pilots that only just arrived for this comp.
Nicole
Sunday, February 25, 2007
World Championships, Day 1
After several rest days we started getting ready for the World Championships. The campground is now completely full of pilots…so every morning it is pilots getting their stuff ready, and then the campground completely empties out for the rest of the day. For this event our retrieve driver is David Menzie, one of the owners of the campground. A local who knows all the back roads and has his own 4x4 vehicle to find us. As a surprise to us, David went out one day and decorated up the retrieve vehicle with sticker-banners: a big “Team Canada” on the front windshield, and a Canadian flag decal and our 3 names on both sides of the vehicle. Very smart-looking, and we were touched by his thoughtfulness (he’s also wearing the Vancouver Canucks cap I brought for him, he’s a fan). He’s totally into being the Canadian Team driver for this event, thanks Dave! Pics of the vehicle are on http://mclearn.ca/gallery/. After the other countries saw what our vehicle looked like, they copied us by putting flags etc on their retrieve vehicles, but I think ours is still the best!
My brother and his girlfriend came up from Sydney to cheer us on and be our groupies. At the opening ceremonies we started with a Parade of Nations down the main street of Manilla to the showgrounds, and then an airshow over the showgrounds with a variety of aircraft, and then the official FAI speeches, and finally a fireworks show. Estimated cost of the whole event was something like $400,000 (probably a large part of that was getting the fighterjets to come overhead and do aerial manoeuvres for the crowd).
This morning there were some clouds already developing at 8am, so I was thinking it would get big and OD later on. But after the team leader briefings (which will happen every morning, where issues like rules, protests, scores, and general bitching by some nations will happen; eg. today it was the issue with FAI not allowing the extra spots that are available to be given out, since the pilots wanting those spots were not registered by the deadline, but they couldn’t register unless they were allowed in by FAI, kinda like the chicken and egg) we went up the mountain.
Up on launch it was pretty busy with all the spectators, officials, news people, pilots, and support staff, but the organization is excellent and everything was clearly signed and people knew where to park, where to lay out gliders, where to find food, and where to watch. Godfrey has put an enormous amount of effort into this so far and it shows in the quality of the organization.
Task committee is Kari Castle, Steve Ham, and Craig Collins. Safety committee is Adrian Thomas, Brian Webb, and Andrew Horchner. The task for today was a short 48 km triangle-type task, to the SW, then the E over town, and back to Godfrey’s for the goal field (which was slated to be an actual physical line, rather than a virtual line or a virtual goal cylinder, so you actually had to fly over a line on the ground to make goal). After the task was announced everyone got ready, but the sky was looking big and after a few minutes of everyone standing around in their gear (cooking in the heat), the safety committee decided to cancel the day due to the extremely big development around, and the 3 rain cells that were visible all around the mountain (and they weren’t just in one direction, but all around us, so it was pretty obvious the conditions were getting worse and worse). Most of us were pretty glad to see the safety committee doing their job and keeping us safe, although there weren’t many pilots actually laid out waiting for the window to open (which usually happens at a comp, this time the launch was virtually empty as the launch window start time approached).
So the first day was cancelled, but we got to get our electronics sorted out, get mentally psyched, and basically do a dry run. So tomorrow if the task goes ahead (whatever that may be) we’ll be ready for it!
Pictures are at http://mclearn.ca/gallery/ and click on “World Paragliding Championships, Manilla 2007”.
Nicole
My brother and his girlfriend came up from Sydney to cheer us on and be our groupies. At the opening ceremonies we started with a Parade of Nations down the main street of Manilla to the showgrounds, and then an airshow over the showgrounds with a variety of aircraft, and then the official FAI speeches, and finally a fireworks show. Estimated cost of the whole event was something like $400,000 (probably a large part of that was getting the fighterjets to come overhead and do aerial manoeuvres for the crowd).
This morning there were some clouds already developing at 8am, so I was thinking it would get big and OD later on. But after the team leader briefings (which will happen every morning, where issues like rules, protests, scores, and general bitching by some nations will happen; eg. today it was the issue with FAI not allowing the extra spots that are available to be given out, since the pilots wanting those spots were not registered by the deadline, but they couldn’t register unless they were allowed in by FAI, kinda like the chicken and egg) we went up the mountain.
Up on launch it was pretty busy with all the spectators, officials, news people, pilots, and support staff, but the organization is excellent and everything was clearly signed and people knew where to park, where to lay out gliders, where to find food, and where to watch. Godfrey has put an enormous amount of effort into this so far and it shows in the quality of the organization.
Task committee is Kari Castle, Steve Ham, and Craig Collins. Safety committee is Adrian Thomas, Brian Webb, and Andrew Horchner. The task for today was a short 48 km triangle-type task, to the SW, then the E over town, and back to Godfrey’s for the goal field (which was slated to be an actual physical line, rather than a virtual line or a virtual goal cylinder, so you actually had to fly over a line on the ground to make goal). After the task was announced everyone got ready, but the sky was looking big and after a few minutes of everyone standing around in their gear (cooking in the heat), the safety committee decided to cancel the day due to the extremely big development around, and the 3 rain cells that were visible all around the mountain (and they weren’t just in one direction, but all around us, so it was pretty obvious the conditions were getting worse and worse). Most of us were pretty glad to see the safety committee doing their job and keeping us safe, although there weren’t many pilots actually laid out waiting for the window to open (which usually happens at a comp, this time the launch was virtually empty as the launch window start time approached).
So the first day was cancelled, but we got to get our electronics sorted out, get mentally psyched, and basically do a dry run. So tomorrow if the task goes ahead (whatever that may be) we’ll be ready for it!
Pictures are at http://mclearn.ca/gallery/ and click on “World Paragliding Championships, Manilla 2007”.
Nicole
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Manilla XC Open, day 8, and final results
The day started out blue, which around here means it’s gonna be a good day! Winds were SE so our course line was to the NW, towards Weewa. Since this was the last day of the comp and they needed us back early for scoring, the stop time was set to 4 pm, to allow people time to get back to Manilla and report in, get the scoring done, and calculate the 4 best scores for each pilot and announce the winners at the awards ceremony.
The Boom 5’s showed up today so there were a lot of new gliders in the air. The sky was looking good by this time so I launched early off the east launch (before noon) and joined the pilots skying out above launch. With the SE winds we were being pushed towards the hill country that we’ve flown over many times, so I wanted to be over that part as soon as possible. I was with a group of pilots at the narrow canyon where it opens up onto the flats when I got flushed and was forced to land just on the other side of the canyon where the flats begin. I was kinda annoyed at my early landing and short distance made (38 km), but I had landed near a road so it was no big deal to get Dan to pick me up and chase the others.
When 4 pm rolled around most pilots landed asap next to the main road for the easy retrieve and quick ride back to Manilla. Keith made it the farthest of our group at 116 km. Tom and Will were at 106 km or so. Many pilots were around the 100 km mark or so.
Back at HQ in time for the final scoring and the evening party. Steak dinner at the RSL club and then it was time to see who had won. First off the organizers gave out free t-shirts to all the pilots who had made personal best distances. This amounted to about 75% of the competitors I think; it took so long to get through all the names!
Awards were given out for 1st, 2nd, 3rd place for the women’s, master’s (over 45 years), serial class (DHV 2-3 and below), and overall. Pics of all the winners are at http://mclearn.ca/gallery/.
Team Durka Durka did reall well…we came in 2nd, sandwiched between the Austrians in 3rd place and the Germans in 1st place! A case of beer for us, which we gave to our driver Dan.
PS for any pilots wanting to fly Manilla and looking for a kick-ass retrieve driver, email me and I will pass Dan’s info along. He was a great driver: a local pilot with intimate knowledge of all the back roads, able to use a GPS, eager to help out on launch with laying out gliders etc., helping pack up, and making sure cold drinks were in the vehicle and there was ice in the cooler. Great job Dan!
Team Durka Durka results:
Will Gadd 8th overall
Tom McCune 13th overall
Keith MacCullough 20th overall
Nicole McLearn 74th overall
As for my own result, I had hoped for a better one, but given that I was using this comp as practice for the World Championships, I think I achieved my objectives. I now know a lot more about the local countryside, where the good thermal spots are, where not to fly, and most importantly for around here, low saves are extremely common and you can never scratch too low! Also, the field strength for this comp was unusually high, due to the proximity of the Worlds happening next week, and the pilot quality will likely never be quite so high for an XC comp (unless it’s held right before or after a PWC taking place in the same area). The FAI points for this comp should be good enough to hopefully bump Canada up a few spots in the WPRS nation-ranking.
Official results are at http://www.xcopen.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=43&Itemid=75
Now that this comp is over, we are taking a rest day. Josh and Bill from the American Team are showing up today, and we are planning on doing absolutely nothing for the balance of the day, except for maybe some lounging around the local pool and lots of nap-taking. So no more pireps for the next day or so, until the official practice days for the Worlds happen on Friday and Saturday.
Nicole
The Boom 5’s showed up today so there were a lot of new gliders in the air. The sky was looking good by this time so I launched early off the east launch (before noon) and joined the pilots skying out above launch. With the SE winds we were being pushed towards the hill country that we’ve flown over many times, so I wanted to be over that part as soon as possible. I was with a group of pilots at the narrow canyon where it opens up onto the flats when I got flushed and was forced to land just on the other side of the canyon where the flats begin. I was kinda annoyed at my early landing and short distance made (38 km), but I had landed near a road so it was no big deal to get Dan to pick me up and chase the others.
When 4 pm rolled around most pilots landed asap next to the main road for the easy retrieve and quick ride back to Manilla. Keith made it the farthest of our group at 116 km. Tom and Will were at 106 km or so. Many pilots were around the 100 km mark or so.
Back at HQ in time for the final scoring and the evening party. Steak dinner at the RSL club and then it was time to see who had won. First off the organizers gave out free t-shirts to all the pilots who had made personal best distances. This amounted to about 75% of the competitors I think; it took so long to get through all the names!
Awards were given out for 1st, 2nd, 3rd place for the women’s, master’s (over 45 years), serial class (DHV 2-3 and below), and overall. Pics of all the winners are at http://mclearn.ca/gallery/.
Team Durka Durka did reall well…we came in 2nd, sandwiched between the Austrians in 3rd place and the Germans in 1st place! A case of beer for us, which we gave to our driver Dan.
PS for any pilots wanting to fly Manilla and looking for a kick-ass retrieve driver, email me and I will pass Dan’s info along. He was a great driver: a local pilot with intimate knowledge of all the back roads, able to use a GPS, eager to help out on launch with laying out gliders etc., helping pack up, and making sure cold drinks were in the vehicle and there was ice in the cooler. Great job Dan!
Team Durka Durka results:
Will Gadd 8th overall
Tom McCune 13th overall
Keith MacCullough 20th overall
Nicole McLearn 74th overall
As for my own result, I had hoped for a better one, but given that I was using this comp as practice for the World Championships, I think I achieved my objectives. I now know a lot more about the local countryside, where the good thermal spots are, where not to fly, and most importantly for around here, low saves are extremely common and you can never scratch too low! Also, the field strength for this comp was unusually high, due to the proximity of the Worlds happening next week, and the pilot quality will likely never be quite so high for an XC comp (unless it’s held right before or after a PWC taking place in the same area). The FAI points for this comp should be good enough to hopefully bump Canada up a few spots in the WPRS nation-ranking.
Official results are at http://www.xcopen.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=43&Itemid=75
Now that this comp is over, we are taking a rest day. Josh and Bill from the American Team are showing up today, and we are planning on doing absolutely nothing for the balance of the day, except for maybe some lounging around the local pool and lots of nap-taking. So no more pireps for the next day or so, until the official practice days for the Worlds happen on Friday and Saturday.
Nicole
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Manilla XC Open, day 7
Everyone was tired this morning, but we went up to fly anyways :) The sky wasn’t looking epic in the morning, lots of high cloud, but when we got up to launch it was clearing out. Started at the east launch, then it turned north, so we all went to the north launch. After getting all our gear ready it switched east again, so off to the east launch again where people were climbing out, where we finally got off launch.
When I launched it was super-rough between the east and north launches, and I had a hell of a time getting up over launch. Finally a boomer of a thermal came along, and I rode it all the way to cloudbase, with parts of the glider missing at times, but hey I’m going up so it’s OK.
Once at cloudbase I took off to the north. The courseline for today was the same as yesterday, but the winds were more easterly, so we had a crosswind to deal with. All the climbs were taking us over the west side of the Mt. Borah range, and that’s where all the good clouds were, so that’s where we went. The going was slow at first since we were behind the Mt. Borah range (in the lee) and the climbs weren’t that great, and the winds were making northerly progress slow. But eventually I got to the end of the range where it flattens out a bit and was able to fly more comfortably within glide of the main road.
A few times I got low, but I was with a gaggle, and of all of us, somebody would eventually find something (sometimes it was me, other times it was somebody else) and we would all head over and take advantage of it. I got really low at the Ponds, between Barraba and Bingara, and was able to finally climb out of there after a few tense minutes grovelling in the heat, but by then everyone else had either gone onwards, or landed.
The next part of the northerly route involves flying down a mini valley, with a dip in the middle, where the land slopes away, and many pilots get flushed here. I had been told to get high before attempting this part of the flight, so I made sure to top up before heading over it. The SE winds were actually helping at this point, pushing the thermals up the W side of the valley, making it fairly easy to surf the west end for about 20 km or so. But it was very windy down low and you had to make sure to stay up high or else risk not making the glide to the main road, and being forced to land up on the plateau where the roads are a bit inconvenient.
At this point I was getting a bit tired, hot, and generally wanting to be someplace more relaxing. I was at 2700 m by now and radioed to my retrieve that I was going on glide and landing, since I was getting really tired (flying for 4 hours in really strong stuff, +5.2 m/s up sustained in some thermals, and –4.8 m/s down between thermals). Passed Bingara at the 82 km mark (where about 30 pilots had been flushed) and headed more NW up towards Gravesend. Found a nice field at the 102 km mark and landed, and got picked up shortly thereafter.
I was kinda glad I had decided to land, even though the day was still working and pilots were still flying. The flight had definitely been a workout, and with the long days we’ve been having all week I was glad to be able to relax for a few hours while we picked the other pilots up. Keith flew 160 km, Tom flew 175 km, and Will flew 198 km. But they all landed on main roads so the retrieves were fairly straightforward.
But then we had a 3 hour drive back to Manilla via all the backroads, and got to see all sorts of wildlife. We saw so many kangaroos and wallabies that we now know the difference between them when they jump across the road in front of the vehicle! And of course all the stupid birds…they fly right in front of the vehicle and we hit them (or they fly right into the side it)…we’ve hit 5 so far, so we’ve renamed the retrieve vehicle “bird killer”.
Keith had a really low save at some point in his flight. He was so low that he was talking to the farmer in the field he was about to land in (“Is it OK if I land here?” “Yeah sure”, etc etc etc), when he found a thermal and flew away from the farmer. Low saves (<100 m) seem to be not that uncommon around here; in fact you can semi-rely on them to get you out of a bad spot.
Not too many people flew farther than Will…I think Crigel may have flown 200 km, but not sure if he was on courseline or not (and that’s what counts, flying in the wrong direction doesn’t award you points). So Team Durka Durka did very well today! Tomorrow is the last day of this comp, and then we have 2 or 3 rest days before the World Championships start on the weekend.
http://mclearn.ca/gallery/ for the pics, and http://www3.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/para/holcparascore.html for the tracklogs.
Nicole
When I launched it was super-rough between the east and north launches, and I had a hell of a time getting up over launch. Finally a boomer of a thermal came along, and I rode it all the way to cloudbase, with parts of the glider missing at times, but hey I’m going up so it’s OK.
Once at cloudbase I took off to the north. The courseline for today was the same as yesterday, but the winds were more easterly, so we had a crosswind to deal with. All the climbs were taking us over the west side of the Mt. Borah range, and that’s where all the good clouds were, so that’s where we went. The going was slow at first since we were behind the Mt. Borah range (in the lee) and the climbs weren’t that great, and the winds were making northerly progress slow. But eventually I got to the end of the range where it flattens out a bit and was able to fly more comfortably within glide of the main road.
A few times I got low, but I was with a gaggle, and of all of us, somebody would eventually find something (sometimes it was me, other times it was somebody else) and we would all head over and take advantage of it. I got really low at the Ponds, between Barraba and Bingara, and was able to finally climb out of there after a few tense minutes grovelling in the heat, but by then everyone else had either gone onwards, or landed.
The next part of the northerly route involves flying down a mini valley, with a dip in the middle, where the land slopes away, and many pilots get flushed here. I had been told to get high before attempting this part of the flight, so I made sure to top up before heading over it. The SE winds were actually helping at this point, pushing the thermals up the W side of the valley, making it fairly easy to surf the west end for about 20 km or so. But it was very windy down low and you had to make sure to stay up high or else risk not making the glide to the main road, and being forced to land up on the plateau where the roads are a bit inconvenient.
At this point I was getting a bit tired, hot, and generally wanting to be someplace more relaxing. I was at 2700 m by now and radioed to my retrieve that I was going on glide and landing, since I was getting really tired (flying for 4 hours in really strong stuff, +5.2 m/s up sustained in some thermals, and –4.8 m/s down between thermals). Passed Bingara at the 82 km mark (where about 30 pilots had been flushed) and headed more NW up towards Gravesend. Found a nice field at the 102 km mark and landed, and got picked up shortly thereafter.
I was kinda glad I had decided to land, even though the day was still working and pilots were still flying. The flight had definitely been a workout, and with the long days we’ve been having all week I was glad to be able to relax for a few hours while we picked the other pilots up. Keith flew 160 km, Tom flew 175 km, and Will flew 198 km. But they all landed on main roads so the retrieves were fairly straightforward.
But then we had a 3 hour drive back to Manilla via all the backroads, and got to see all sorts of wildlife. We saw so many kangaroos and wallabies that we now know the difference between them when they jump across the road in front of the vehicle! And of course all the stupid birds…they fly right in front of the vehicle and we hit them (or they fly right into the side it)…we’ve hit 5 so far, so we’ve renamed the retrieve vehicle “bird killer”.
Keith had a really low save at some point in his flight. He was so low that he was talking to the farmer in the field he was about to land in (“Is it OK if I land here?” “Yeah sure”, etc etc etc), when he found a thermal and flew away from the farmer. Low saves (<100 m) seem to be not that uncommon around here; in fact you can semi-rely on them to get you out of a bad spot.
Not too many people flew farther than Will…I think Crigel may have flown 200 km, but not sure if he was on courseline or not (and that’s what counts, flying in the wrong direction doesn’t award you points). So Team Durka Durka did very well today! Tomorrow is the last day of this comp, and then we have 2 or 3 rest days before the World Championships start on the weekend.
http://mclearn.ca/gallery/ for the pics, and http://www3.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/para/holcparascore.html for the tracklogs.
Nicole
Another Great Day
Well the title says it all. It was another long day. It started off a little slow as the motivation of everyone from all the flying has made us very tired. I launched middle of the pack and climbed out fast above launch. I made it to base just in time to see Will and a bunch of others out front on glide. I hurried my ass of downwind after them but of course missed the climb to be able to catch them. So I searched for awhile down low and someothers joined me in my climb back to base. I was now in a big hurry to catch up but every time I felt close it was just to far to get them. I managed at the 60 km mark to get close ofenough to actually ask a farmer if it was ok to land in his field. I was actually around tree top height ready to land and managed a climb back to base to get going again. At this point Torsten from Germany and Anders from Norway joined me and off me went from cloudbase for a very long glide. At the 100km mark the other two took a different route and ended up landing leaving me alone for the rest of the day. After some very low saves and the wind increasing from the East as I had to head North along the route i continued for another 60 km were i finally just decided I was to damn tired of the sun beating me in the face. I landed for yet another 100mile flight or 162km. So far in four flight this week I have close to 600km and something close to 30hours in the air. I feel beaten and battered but I will continue for next week of training for the worlds. Will got 200km's out and Nicole managed a very good 102km so a Great day for Team Durka Durka.
Cheers Keith
Cheers Keith
Monday, February 19, 2007
More Flying
Ok so here it is quick version. We lanuched I got stuck in front of the launch low unable to find enough lift to get me on my way. After close to an hour of that I finally got on my way. I quickly and I mean quickly flew after some other pilots in order to try to get with a group that was moving fast down the course. I just ended up passing most of them and going it alone. As I was alone I figured staying IFR or "I Follow Roads" was a good option. I made a very low save at the 70 km mark where I actually got out of my harness to land. I took that climb back to base and proceeded onwards. I got to the town on the way called Bingara and climbed out again but the storm cells to my right were coming to the right and the blue hole in front of me was going to make it difficult to fly fast enough to out run the storms. I blundered into the blue holw and like I figured there was nothing for lift except a lot of wind trying to push me futher off course into the storms. I landed at the 96 km mark but a little off course so we will see how I shape up. The scoring is still F*&^ed. We have no clue where anyone is ranked. I have had some top 10 days so we will see where I end up. There are 2 days left and I have had 3 solid flights. I need 4 days for the ranking out of 8 so I guess I at least need one more good day to pull off a solid result. Were resting well and not partying at night so it means we can actually function in the air. I have almost flown 20hours and some 400+km of distance in 3 days of flying. Were very tired from this sun spanking us all day. We Canadians just don't understand what sun is till you have been here. It goes through your shirt to burn you and can zap every bit of energy you thought you may have had. But were having a very solid time of it here. Everyone that got me here I have to thank for so far what is turning into the best flying trip. Sorry for not posting pictures but the internet here in town is so slow it would take a month to post pictures. I will post a bunch when I either get to sydney or hopefully for the worlds they will have a better internet area set up. I will be taking rest days thursday friday and saturday to get ready for the Worlds which start Sunday. Once again sorry for no party stories yet and no pictures. Cheers to everyone back home.
Keith
Keith
Manilla XC Open, day 6
Everyone was very slow to get up today…lots of groaning and stretching from pilots as they worked out muscles that were still sore from yesterday’s hard flying. Even the birds couldn’t wake us up this morning!
The winds were more southerly today, so the open distance direction was to the north. Up on launch it was east winds initially, just enough to fool everyone into unpacking their gear there, and then it switched west, so everyone had to schlep their stuff to the west launch. It was blowing in nice and strong over there, so I got off launch fairly early, since I didn’t want to be caught on launch if it blew out (which I’ve heard can happen quite easily here). But once in the air it was very weak and rough, and I spent about 1 hour below launch (which is not high to begin with), scratching around in light lift with about 20 other pilots, while the Borah Basher sat below in the west bombout in case any of us actually did bomb. Quite a few did, but I managed to stay alive and save a relaunch, and eventually found a nice thermal to cloudbase.
Once at cloudbase it was an easy glide to the north and the next set of clouds, and everyone was booking along. The winds aloft were a bit strong from the SSE, so we were doing ground speeds of 70+ km/h on glides between clouds (about half speed bar). But the climbs were not that great, and we had to waste a bunch of time climbing in 1-2 m/s stuff, since there wasn’t anything else stronger around. At one point I was able to find a nice 5-6 m/s sustained climb, and was very excited about that one, but most of the time it was pretty lame lift actually (although looking at the clouds, you would have thought otherwise).
Got to Barraba at the 48 km mark and there was a giant blue hole just north of the town. With the winds pushing us that way anyways, the best we could do was get high (cloudbase about 2300m), plow through the blue hole, and try to connect with the clouds on the other side. At this point I had caught up to Keith and headed for the next cloud. It was very windy, and down low it was very trashy air. It was also extremely sinky…when I looked at my vario it was -5-6 m/s down. Keith managed to connect to the next climb while I couldn’t, and I was forced to land next to the road in a strong windy cycle. It was a rather exciting landing but everything turned out OK, and my retrieve came by a few minutes later. Straight line distance about 56 km. Total flight time was 2:15, but I spent about 30 minutes of that below launch, so I actually managed to fly the distance in 1:45.
Keith managed to get to about 98 km before the cumi clouds petered out and a bunch of rain cells approached from the NE. People were landing all over the place by now. Will landed about 85 km away, but about 30 km from the main road; but was able to land next to some ranchers that were fixing a fence on their property, and they offered him a ride back to the main road after their work was finished (apparently he learned to fix fences in the meantime). Tom took the day off from flying; Kari landed about 16 km out since she didn’t like the look of things. I think the most distance today was Semih, who did about 155 km straight line.
All in all it looked like it was going to be a great day (nice clouds, nice direction to fly with a main road underneath, strong winds to push you along), but things fell apart sky-wise in the mid-afternoon.
People are starting to show up for the World Championships, which start on the weekend. Vic and Tom’s is the new pilot hangout at nights, and they are busy feeding us after we all get back from a day of flying and driving all over the place. I think they get most of their annual business from people like us showing up!
Nicole
The winds were more southerly today, so the open distance direction was to the north. Up on launch it was east winds initially, just enough to fool everyone into unpacking their gear there, and then it switched west, so everyone had to schlep their stuff to the west launch. It was blowing in nice and strong over there, so I got off launch fairly early, since I didn’t want to be caught on launch if it blew out (which I’ve heard can happen quite easily here). But once in the air it was very weak and rough, and I spent about 1 hour below launch (which is not high to begin with), scratching around in light lift with about 20 other pilots, while the Borah Basher sat below in the west bombout in case any of us actually did bomb. Quite a few did, but I managed to stay alive and save a relaunch, and eventually found a nice thermal to cloudbase.
Once at cloudbase it was an easy glide to the north and the next set of clouds, and everyone was booking along. The winds aloft were a bit strong from the SSE, so we were doing ground speeds of 70+ km/h on glides between clouds (about half speed bar). But the climbs were not that great, and we had to waste a bunch of time climbing in 1-2 m/s stuff, since there wasn’t anything else stronger around. At one point I was able to find a nice 5-6 m/s sustained climb, and was very excited about that one, but most of the time it was pretty lame lift actually (although looking at the clouds, you would have thought otherwise).
Got to Barraba at the 48 km mark and there was a giant blue hole just north of the town. With the winds pushing us that way anyways, the best we could do was get high (cloudbase about 2300m), plow through the blue hole, and try to connect with the clouds on the other side. At this point I had caught up to Keith and headed for the next cloud. It was very windy, and down low it was very trashy air. It was also extremely sinky…when I looked at my vario it was -5-6 m/s down. Keith managed to connect to the next climb while I couldn’t, and I was forced to land next to the road in a strong windy cycle. It was a rather exciting landing but everything turned out OK, and my retrieve came by a few minutes later. Straight line distance about 56 km. Total flight time was 2:15, but I spent about 30 minutes of that below launch, so I actually managed to fly the distance in 1:45.
Keith managed to get to about 98 km before the cumi clouds petered out and a bunch of rain cells approached from the NE. People were landing all over the place by now. Will landed about 85 km away, but about 30 km from the main road; but was able to land next to some ranchers that were fixing a fence on their property, and they offered him a ride back to the main road after their work was finished (apparently he learned to fix fences in the meantime). Tom took the day off from flying; Kari landed about 16 km out since she didn’t like the look of things. I think the most distance today was Semih, who did about 155 km straight line.
All in all it looked like it was going to be a great day (nice clouds, nice direction to fly with a main road underneath, strong winds to push you along), but things fell apart sky-wise in the mid-afternoon.
People are starting to show up for the World Championships, which start on the weekend. Vic and Tom’s is the new pilot hangout at nights, and they are busy feeding us after we all get back from a day of flying and driving all over the place. I think they get most of their annual business from people like us showing up!
Nicole
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Manilla XC Open, day 5
A much better day today for me…flew much farther and walked not at all! I mentally picked myself up and dusted myself off after yesterday's fiasco, told myself today was gonna be the day, maybe it worked?
The designated course line for today was the same as yesterday (113 degrees), but the winds were a bit more north, which meant the flying was not exactly downwind but a bit crosswind. After yesterday’s long flights, many people chose to take the day off (or fly less); Keith was among them, taking off and flying to Godfrey’s. Tom, Will, and I all flew XC though. Conditions were a bit ratty and rough, and the air was pretty active. Over the back and to the ridge running to the west of launch was pretty slow going, since I was not going to go down again the same area twice in two days! So I made sure to be at cloudbase for most of that transition (20 km or so), and then dropped onto the flatlands beyond.
At this point Tom caught up to me, as I had gotten low on the flats and got a low save at about 50 m (the glider I was with didn’t make it, landing as I thermalled over them). As I was climbing out I could see a huge dust devil in the field next to me, and Tom approaching. But he got to the field after the dust devil had dissipated, so he didn’t know how close he was to it (it was a really big one, with dust outlining it all the way to cloudbase). In fact there were lots of dusties on the flats today, not sure if that is common around here or not, but reminiscent of Chelan.
After that we flew together for a bit, and then Tom got a climb that I missed, and by the time I got back up to cloudbase, Tom was ahead of me. Once again I went on a long glide, and was searching desperately for some lift, birds, pilots, anything. I finally spotted a dust devil going off in a field within glide of me (but barely), and I speed barred over there with about 80 m to spare. The dusty was turning clockwise so I cranked into it counterclockwise and rode that thing all the way to cloudbase!
Back on track for Narrabbri and I could see it in the distance (at the 82 km mark). Got to the town and there was a big black cloud over it, and lots of pilots under it, but nobody climbing. We all searched around for lift, but couldn’t find any, so we continued on west to Weewaa, where we found lift finally and back up to cloudbase. Past Weewaa and I got my best climb of the day to over 2563 m, and then it was getting late (5:45 pm) so we were all maximizing our climbs. (I had been told that when flying Manilla, if you are at cloudbase at 5 pm, to slow down and fly less aggressively, since the thermals usually get much lighter about this time of day.)
From then on it was a race to see who could get the furthest with the few minutes of usable time we had left (anything after 6:30 pm doesn’t count for distance). I only turned in stuff that was worthwhile, and skipped other stuff, and timed it so that I was on the final death glide at 6:10 pm. 20 minutes to glide, and I was able to squeeze out another 15 km or so, landing at 148.6 km straight line from Mt. Borah. OLC distance 151.5 km. Time in the air 6:09 (slow)! My personal best (previous best 138 km, in Golden), and a good feeling compared to all the walking I did yesterday.
Since I had sworn not to do any walking today, I opted to land on the highway since there was no traffic in either direction, and packed up on the shoulder. Waited for my retrieve, which was in the next town picking up Tom and Will at the 170 km mark, and they picked me up on the way back to Manilla.
A 2 hour retrieve drive, with a stop in Narrabbri for pizza and some wildlife viewing on the roads (kangaroos and echidnas), and back to HQ to download our GPS’s.
Flying today was a bit harder than usual, with lots of slow climbs (2 m/s, rather than 3-4 m/s), and lots of active air that required hands on the brakes a lot. It was a bit too active for more than ½ speed bar, and even at ¼ bar I was getting the occasional collapse. Everyone commented on how ratty the air was, and how different it was from yesterday. And with the more northerly winds, we were unable to fly exactly downwind, which probably cost us lots of extra km.
Nicole
The designated course line for today was the same as yesterday (113 degrees), but the winds were a bit more north, which meant the flying was not exactly downwind but a bit crosswind. After yesterday’s long flights, many people chose to take the day off (or fly less); Keith was among them, taking off and flying to Godfrey’s. Tom, Will, and I all flew XC though. Conditions were a bit ratty and rough, and the air was pretty active. Over the back and to the ridge running to the west of launch was pretty slow going, since I was not going to go down again the same area twice in two days! So I made sure to be at cloudbase for most of that transition (20 km or so), and then dropped onto the flatlands beyond.
At this point Tom caught up to me, as I had gotten low on the flats and got a low save at about 50 m (the glider I was with didn’t make it, landing as I thermalled over them). As I was climbing out I could see a huge dust devil in the field next to me, and Tom approaching. But he got to the field after the dust devil had dissipated, so he didn’t know how close he was to it (it was a really big one, with dust outlining it all the way to cloudbase). In fact there were lots of dusties on the flats today, not sure if that is common around here or not, but reminiscent of Chelan.
After that we flew together for a bit, and then Tom got a climb that I missed, and by the time I got back up to cloudbase, Tom was ahead of me. Once again I went on a long glide, and was searching desperately for some lift, birds, pilots, anything. I finally spotted a dust devil going off in a field within glide of me (but barely), and I speed barred over there with about 80 m to spare. The dusty was turning clockwise so I cranked into it counterclockwise and rode that thing all the way to cloudbase!
Back on track for Narrabbri and I could see it in the distance (at the 82 km mark). Got to the town and there was a big black cloud over it, and lots of pilots under it, but nobody climbing. We all searched around for lift, but couldn’t find any, so we continued on west to Weewaa, where we found lift finally and back up to cloudbase. Past Weewaa and I got my best climb of the day to over 2563 m, and then it was getting late (5:45 pm) so we were all maximizing our climbs. (I had been told that when flying Manilla, if you are at cloudbase at 5 pm, to slow down and fly less aggressively, since the thermals usually get much lighter about this time of day.)
From then on it was a race to see who could get the furthest with the few minutes of usable time we had left (anything after 6:30 pm doesn’t count for distance). I only turned in stuff that was worthwhile, and skipped other stuff, and timed it so that I was on the final death glide at 6:10 pm. 20 minutes to glide, and I was able to squeeze out another 15 km or so, landing at 148.6 km straight line from Mt. Borah. OLC distance 151.5 km. Time in the air 6:09 (slow)! My personal best (previous best 138 km, in Golden), and a good feeling compared to all the walking I did yesterday.
Since I had sworn not to do any walking today, I opted to land on the highway since there was no traffic in either direction, and packed up on the shoulder. Waited for my retrieve, which was in the next town picking up Tom and Will at the 170 km mark, and they picked me up on the way back to Manilla.
A 2 hour retrieve drive, with a stop in Narrabbri for pizza and some wildlife viewing on the roads (kangaroos and echidnas), and back to HQ to download our GPS’s.
Flying today was a bit harder than usual, with lots of slow climbs (2 m/s, rather than 3-4 m/s), and lots of active air that required hands on the brakes a lot. It was a bit too active for more than ½ speed bar, and even at ¼ bar I was getting the occasional collapse. Everyone commented on how ratty the air was, and how different it was from yesterday. And with the more northerly winds, we were unable to fly exactly downwind, which probably cost us lots of extra km.
Nicole
Saturday, February 17, 2007
Manilla XC Open, day 4
Today was an epic flying day, and I sucked! Skies looked great, and many people went 150+ km, but I bombed at about 30 km, in a remote valley to the NW of launch. I ended up walking about 6 hours to a main road, but which time it was very late and dark (9pm), and my retrieve was still 200 km away, coming back from picking up Will and Keith. Fortunately the Korean team came by while I was waiting, and took me back to Manilla.
Not a good day for me, and frustrating given that so many other people did so much better than me today.
Back to the flying…east winds so we congregated on the east launch. Due to the new rules (flying open distance along a specific bearing, to keep people together and keep an eye on the weather, a result of the day 1 fiasco), everyone was to fly to the NW of launch. Basically do a GOTO to Mt. Borah, and try to keep a bearing back to there of 113 degrees. This came about as a compromise to the protest that was submitted a couple days ago. The decision was to let the pilots decide whether day 1 should be cancelled, by a written vote of at least 50%. Every day a “safe” or “not safe” box would be checked on the sign in form, and for the 1st day, if more than 50% say “not safe”, then it will be cancelled. For subsequent days, if more than 20% of pilots say not safe, then those days will be cancelled too. So this way we won’t know whether the first day was cancelled until tomorrow, after all the day 1 votes are accounted for, when people sign in tonight.
So everyone launched from the east launch and it was easy to cloudbase at 2200m, and over the back to the NW. I was with a group of people and the going was a bit slow, but it was OK until the 30 km mark, where several of us got low in a small valley with no houses, and only a small road/track. Most everyone got out, but I didn’t, and I ended up landing in this small valley. Started walking and eventually came across a small hunting lodge-type affair, and the door was unlocked, so I went in. Since I was running low on water and the heat was atrocious, and my retrieve was busy elsewhere, I decided to stay in the lodge for a while for the sun to get less fierce and the day to cool off a bit (I was in contact with my retrieve via cell phone, and they knew where I was, but didn’t know how to get there exactly). Took a nap in the lodge for about 1 hour, then noticed the sky getting overcast and the winds were picking up, which meant walking would be easier and not so hot, and less water to drink.
The whole way walking I occasionally came across a skeleton of some animal, or an actual carcass of a sheep or cow, still decomposing. Rather sobering and I didn’t want to end up like them!
Started walking again and eventually came to a farmhouse, where the owners were just getting back from Manilla. So they didn’t want to go back, so I got directions from them on how to get back to the main road, and filled up my water bottles, and continued walking. It was totally dark by the time I came to the Manilla road, and my retrieve was still a long ways away, so I settled down to wait. Eventually got picked up by the Korean delegation and they took me back to HQ for our GPS downloads.
In the end I walked for about 6 hours and about 12 km straight line (but in reality about 25 km, with all the twists and turns in the road, walking about 4-5 km/h), and only had 30 km flying to show for it. Not good, so I’ll have to do better tomorrow. And I have to figure out why I’m sucking so much at this comp. But I got to see the “mini-outback” up close and personal, and it makes me appreciate how easy it is to overfly terrain!
Not sure how everyone else did, but imagine there are lots of 200 km + flights. Will, Keith, and Tom flew about 225 km. Apparently Jouni Markonnen (Finnish pilot) flew 270 km!
Nicole
Not a good day for me, and frustrating given that so many other people did so much better than me today.
Back to the flying…east winds so we congregated on the east launch. Due to the new rules (flying open distance along a specific bearing, to keep people together and keep an eye on the weather, a result of the day 1 fiasco), everyone was to fly to the NW of launch. Basically do a GOTO to Mt. Borah, and try to keep a bearing back to there of 113 degrees. This came about as a compromise to the protest that was submitted a couple days ago. The decision was to let the pilots decide whether day 1 should be cancelled, by a written vote of at least 50%. Every day a “safe” or “not safe” box would be checked on the sign in form, and for the 1st day, if more than 50% say “not safe”, then it will be cancelled. For subsequent days, if more than 20% of pilots say not safe, then those days will be cancelled too. So this way we won’t know whether the first day was cancelled until tomorrow, after all the day 1 votes are accounted for, when people sign in tonight.
So everyone launched from the east launch and it was easy to cloudbase at 2200m, and over the back to the NW. I was with a group of people and the going was a bit slow, but it was OK until the 30 km mark, where several of us got low in a small valley with no houses, and only a small road/track. Most everyone got out, but I didn’t, and I ended up landing in this small valley. Started walking and eventually came across a small hunting lodge-type affair, and the door was unlocked, so I went in. Since I was running low on water and the heat was atrocious, and my retrieve was busy elsewhere, I decided to stay in the lodge for a while for the sun to get less fierce and the day to cool off a bit (I was in contact with my retrieve via cell phone, and they knew where I was, but didn’t know how to get there exactly). Took a nap in the lodge for about 1 hour, then noticed the sky getting overcast and the winds were picking up, which meant walking would be easier and not so hot, and less water to drink.
The whole way walking I occasionally came across a skeleton of some animal, or an actual carcass of a sheep or cow, still decomposing. Rather sobering and I didn’t want to end up like them!
Started walking again and eventually came to a farmhouse, where the owners were just getting back from Manilla. So they didn’t want to go back, so I got directions from them on how to get back to the main road, and filled up my water bottles, and continued walking. It was totally dark by the time I came to the Manilla road, and my retrieve was still a long ways away, so I settled down to wait. Eventually got picked up by the Korean delegation and they took me back to HQ for our GPS downloads.
In the end I walked for about 6 hours and about 12 km straight line (but in reality about 25 km, with all the twists and turns in the road, walking about 4-5 km/h), and only had 30 km flying to show for it. Not good, so I’ll have to do better tomorrow. And I have to figure out why I’m sucking so much at this comp. But I got to see the “mini-outback” up close and personal, and it makes me appreciate how easy it is to overfly terrain!
Not sure how everyone else did, but imagine there are lots of 200 km + flights. Will, Keith, and Tom flew about 225 km. Apparently Jouni Markonnen (Finnish pilot) flew 270 km!
Nicole
Friday, February 16, 2007
Manilla Feb. 16
Today the day was cancelled to respect the Chinese pilot that died a couple days ago…most people chose to take the day off from flying and do other things, but I wanted to still fly, so I went to Godfrey’s to catch the Borah Basher ride up to launch. Tom was flying a borrowed Omega 4 and Keith’s harness (his glider is still missing) and came up too for a flight.
Up on launch it was north winds, so we set up on the north launch. There weren’t as many people around which meant you could launch potato if you wanted and not piss other people off, which turned out to be good since after I set up the winds died, and the people out front were sinking out. So I waited until the cycles started up again and launched.
The sky wasn’t epic at first, there was lots of high cloud around. But I figured I’d get a nice flight in, maybe boat around over launch for a bit, and then fly to Manilla and land at the campground. But after being in the air for a while, I noticed the clouds were getting better (it was about 1pm, pretty late for a Manilla XC), so I took off to the SW.
First glide from launch in a new direction, and of course I got low right away. But I was able to save it and back to cloudbase (2400m) and continue on my way. Since this wasn’t an official comp day and we had given our retrieve driver the day off, I was without retrieve. So I opted to follow the main roads this time around, so I would have a better chance of getting a ride back. So my route was a bit circuitous and not a straight line.
Winds at first were NE, so I was flying SW. I passed Lake Keepit and the water level was very low, and then flew over the ultralight airport nearby. There was a UP glider ahead of me, but they were low and landed shortly thereafter. Other than that I had the sky to myself. After Lake Keepit I followed the Oakley highway to Gunnedah, and saw a confluence of highways. Which way to go? I considered turning around and heading back to Manilla, but behind me the sky was getting nasty looking, with rain cells, overcast skies, and generally not inviting. And to the W and E it was getting bad too. South it is then. So I followed the highway SE towards Curlewis. At this point the sky was definitely looking not nice, the lift was getting more generalized, and I was wondering if there were cu-nims embedded in the overcast and rain showers approaching. So I chose a rancher’s property that had lots of vehicles parked at it (better chance of somebody being home), and landed outside his house. Straight line distance was about 62 km from Mt. Borah, but with all the zigzagging I did, it was more like 80 km.
The rancher invited me inside and gave me a cold drink, and then said he was headed to Gunnedah. I told him I was going to Manilla and asked for a ride as far as Gunnedah, and when he asked what I was going to do after that and I said probably hitchhike, he said “Well we can’t be having any of that”, and promptly drove me all the way back to Manilla!
Tom flew and landed at the Rivergums campground, and Kari flew for a bit and then landed due to the buildup of storm cells in the vicinity. Will and Keith took the day off and lazed about, getting rested up for tomorrow’s flying.
It was nice to get a day of stress-free flying in, where I was able to basically do a tour of the area, at my own pace, stopping at towns, getting the lay of the land, learning where the roads go, etc. Good to get that done now rather than when the Worlds start!
Nicole
Up on launch it was north winds, so we set up on the north launch. There weren’t as many people around which meant you could launch potato if you wanted and not piss other people off, which turned out to be good since after I set up the winds died, and the people out front were sinking out. So I waited until the cycles started up again and launched.
The sky wasn’t epic at first, there was lots of high cloud around. But I figured I’d get a nice flight in, maybe boat around over launch for a bit, and then fly to Manilla and land at the campground. But after being in the air for a while, I noticed the clouds were getting better (it was about 1pm, pretty late for a Manilla XC), so I took off to the SW.
First glide from launch in a new direction, and of course I got low right away. But I was able to save it and back to cloudbase (2400m) and continue on my way. Since this wasn’t an official comp day and we had given our retrieve driver the day off, I was without retrieve. So I opted to follow the main roads this time around, so I would have a better chance of getting a ride back. So my route was a bit circuitous and not a straight line.
Winds at first were NE, so I was flying SW. I passed Lake Keepit and the water level was very low, and then flew over the ultralight airport nearby. There was a UP glider ahead of me, but they were low and landed shortly thereafter. Other than that I had the sky to myself. After Lake Keepit I followed the Oakley highway to Gunnedah, and saw a confluence of highways. Which way to go? I considered turning around and heading back to Manilla, but behind me the sky was getting nasty looking, with rain cells, overcast skies, and generally not inviting. And to the W and E it was getting bad too. South it is then. So I followed the highway SE towards Curlewis. At this point the sky was definitely looking not nice, the lift was getting more generalized, and I was wondering if there were cu-nims embedded in the overcast and rain showers approaching. So I chose a rancher’s property that had lots of vehicles parked at it (better chance of somebody being home), and landed outside his house. Straight line distance was about 62 km from Mt. Borah, but with all the zigzagging I did, it was more like 80 km.
The rancher invited me inside and gave me a cold drink, and then said he was headed to Gunnedah. I told him I was going to Manilla and asked for a ride as far as Gunnedah, and when he asked what I was going to do after that and I said probably hitchhike, he said “Well we can’t be having any of that”, and promptly drove me all the way back to Manilla!
Tom flew and landed at the Rivergums campground, and Kari flew for a bit and then landed due to the buildup of storm cells in the vicinity. Will and Keith took the day off and lazed about, getting rested up for tomorrow’s flying.
It was nice to get a day of stress-free flying in, where I was able to basically do a tour of the area, at my own pace, stopping at towns, getting the lay of the land, learning where the roads go, etc. Good to get that done now rather than when the Worlds start!
Nicole
Thursday, February 15, 2007
G'day
So today dawned HOT and clear. After all the usual running around this morning we headed over to pick up our new cell phones. They got it all figured out and we were off to head up the mountain. But first we stopped by the owner of the flying sites house and he has a pet baby Kangaroo named Mango. So after a short visit and a nice little pet of Mango we went up the mountain. I launched fairly early and went straight to cloudbase where I went on glide downwind. I was fairly close to the lead group and as this is not a race for this comp I just chilled out and let them lead the way. My racing got the best of me as I could not handle anyone in front of me so I pushed hard after the lead group but there was just no chance to catch them. We ended up getting about 40km where a large bunch of trees about 30km in distance stopped us and made us turn around to go a different direction. It would have been nice to know about this large block of trees but hey that’s Paragliding I guess. So after about an hour detour we were back flying and gaining distance. I spent most of the day at close to 2500meters so it was comfy and not to HOT. I finally had Will come in under me after not seeing him all day. For those reading the other Blog of the team Nicole will update you on her day. So Will and I continued to the 100km mark and he got just a bit further when our day ended. It was 5.5hours of flying 100km so by far the longest it has ever taken me. We actually flew about 130 or 140 because of us having to back track a bunch. So all and all a good day. I will try to post more pictures soon but its hard because we get back late and this is it for me before bed around 9pm.
Cheers to y’all
K
Cheers to y’all
K
Manilla XC Open, day 2
Another fine day, with winds projected to be more east and less south, so people would fly west today. Chance of t-storms but less than yesterday. We stopped by Godfrey’s to see if Tom’s glider had arrived yet, and no. But we took the chance to visit Mango, the kangaroo joey that he is raising (the mother was hit by a vehicle). Very cute, but very long claws, and I think when he gets older he’ll have to go wild.
Up the mountain and this time we congregated on the north launch. This launch is pretty low, on a low mountain to begin with, so once again there were a few bombouts. But I was able to maintain until a thermal came though, and took it up to cloudbase at 2300m. Not too cold at cloudbase, it was nice to be cool for once compared to the burning heat on launch (especially when wearing lots of clothes). Then it was off to the west for some XC flying.
There was a task of sorts today…a control turnpoint about 29 km to the west, to keep people in the same area and avoid the north where the t-storms were predicted to hit. After the control TP it was open distance as usual. On glide to this TP it was easy going, but as I got closer to the TP it was a bit shady, and I got low about 6 km from it. At this point I went into survival mode, hunting around for lift, and taking whatever I could find, nevermind where it was drifting me. I was by myself, which made things harder, and I found myself at 100m AGL a few times. But I was able to get myself out of there and continue on (probably my lowest save to date, about 50m AGL; the flatlands here really allow you to scratch until the very last minute). In this fashion I was able to scoot along the “mountain range” to the NW, where it’s heavily forested. It was completely shady by this time, and there was a storm to the north of me. I figured the forest was the way to go in the shadiness (residual heat) vs. trying the flatlands (which were a bit upwind at this point, and too far away to fly to at my low altitude) so I opted to continue along the edge of the forest. I managed to scunge my way another few km and then it was too shady, and I couldn’t stay up, and landed at the base of the forested area about 36 km from launch, a place called dripping rock (according to the road sign I found later on).
A pretty sucky distance considering all the hard work I had just gone through (2.5 hours of hard flying, to get only 36 km?!), and I was pretty far from any civilization. I packed up and started walking, for about 2 hours, until a rancher came along and offered me a ride on his ATV with his 2 dogs. He saved me about 1 hour of walking, and then dropped me off where I started walking again, and got another ride for another 5km or so, and then got dropped off again. I was still on dirt backroads at this point, but I was in contact with our retrieve driver, Dan (a local pilot: he was still chasing Will and Keith), using my new CDMA cellphone I had just picked up that morning.
PS when flying in Manilla, carry twice as much water you’ll think you’ll need, since if you land out, you’ll drink all of it! Everyone I ran into was carrying extra water, and offered it to me (I had plenty but could see me running out had I hiked too much further).
Eventually a car picked me up and drove me all the way to Manilla. It was about a 1 hour drive. The car was packed with me, a baby, a car stroller, another pilot also picked up (Finnish pilot by the name of Kaspar), a parrot in a birdcage, and a very cute Maltese puppy. The whole way back the puppy (about 2 months old) snuggled in my lap and drank the water I offered from my water bottle. He was very cute and snugly! The lady (Nicky) drove us all the way back to Rivergums where Lee was waiting for us, with cold drinks. So nice!
Kari had 2 flights today. The first one didn’t go so well…I saw her get an gigantic cravatte which she couldn’t get out, and I watched her land to the north of Mt. Borah with the cravatte in the entire way. But she maintained excellent control of the glider the whole time, and landed safely. Back up the mountain she went and flew again.
Will and Keith flew further than me today…about 100km straight line. But they had the same problems as me…very disorganized lift, and tracks that took you in the wrong direction, so the total distance flown was actually much longer than the straight line distance counted. It took them about 5.5 hours to fly that distance, due to all the out-of-the-way places they had to go to find lift, and changing courseline direction so many times.
Bad news from yesterday…a Chinese pilot who had been missing was finally found by search and rescue, dead. Apparently something happened to him yesterday, probably due to the cu-nims on course. There is going to be a protest to get the day cancelled due to the unsafe flying conditions. We’ll find out what happens tomorrow sometime. But good news from Ewa…she’s OK and is resting. She did indeed get higher than Everest while inside the cu-nim (9947 m, according to the tracklog), and lived to tell the tale. But she's dealing with the aftermatch, mostly being frozen. +20 m/s up, and -30 m/s down.
Despite not flying super-far today I’m pretty OK with my flight…getting comfortable on the glider, and I was able to use my speed bar successfully using a trick that Kari taught me (thanks Kari!). So I think I’m getting there…hopefully I’ll be completely dialled in by the time the Worlds starts up next week.
More pics at http://mclearn.ca/gallery/
Nicole
Up the mountain and this time we congregated on the north launch. This launch is pretty low, on a low mountain to begin with, so once again there were a few bombouts. But I was able to maintain until a thermal came though, and took it up to cloudbase at 2300m. Not too cold at cloudbase, it was nice to be cool for once compared to the burning heat on launch (especially when wearing lots of clothes). Then it was off to the west for some XC flying.
There was a task of sorts today…a control turnpoint about 29 km to the west, to keep people in the same area and avoid the north where the t-storms were predicted to hit. After the control TP it was open distance as usual. On glide to this TP it was easy going, but as I got closer to the TP it was a bit shady, and I got low about 6 km from it. At this point I went into survival mode, hunting around for lift, and taking whatever I could find, nevermind where it was drifting me. I was by myself, which made things harder, and I found myself at 100m AGL a few times. But I was able to get myself out of there and continue on (probably my lowest save to date, about 50m AGL; the flatlands here really allow you to scratch until the very last minute). In this fashion I was able to scoot along the “mountain range” to the NW, where it’s heavily forested. It was completely shady by this time, and there was a storm to the north of me. I figured the forest was the way to go in the shadiness (residual heat) vs. trying the flatlands (which were a bit upwind at this point, and too far away to fly to at my low altitude) so I opted to continue along the edge of the forest. I managed to scunge my way another few km and then it was too shady, and I couldn’t stay up, and landed at the base of the forested area about 36 km from launch, a place called dripping rock (according to the road sign I found later on).
A pretty sucky distance considering all the hard work I had just gone through (2.5 hours of hard flying, to get only 36 km?!), and I was pretty far from any civilization. I packed up and started walking, for about 2 hours, until a rancher came along and offered me a ride on his ATV with his 2 dogs. He saved me about 1 hour of walking, and then dropped me off where I started walking again, and got another ride for another 5km or so, and then got dropped off again. I was still on dirt backroads at this point, but I was in contact with our retrieve driver, Dan (a local pilot: he was still chasing Will and Keith), using my new CDMA cellphone I had just picked up that morning.
PS when flying in Manilla, carry twice as much water you’ll think you’ll need, since if you land out, you’ll drink all of it! Everyone I ran into was carrying extra water, and offered it to me (I had plenty but could see me running out had I hiked too much further).
Eventually a car picked me up and drove me all the way to Manilla. It was about a 1 hour drive. The car was packed with me, a baby, a car stroller, another pilot also picked up (Finnish pilot by the name of Kaspar), a parrot in a birdcage, and a very cute Maltese puppy. The whole way back the puppy (about 2 months old) snuggled in my lap and drank the water I offered from my water bottle. He was very cute and snugly! The lady (Nicky) drove us all the way back to Rivergums where Lee was waiting for us, with cold drinks. So nice!
Kari had 2 flights today. The first one didn’t go so well…I saw her get an gigantic cravatte which she couldn’t get out, and I watched her land to the north of Mt. Borah with the cravatte in the entire way. But she maintained excellent control of the glider the whole time, and landed safely. Back up the mountain she went and flew again.
Will and Keith flew further than me today…about 100km straight line. But they had the same problems as me…very disorganized lift, and tracks that took you in the wrong direction, so the total distance flown was actually much longer than the straight line distance counted. It took them about 5.5 hours to fly that distance, due to all the out-of-the-way places they had to go to find lift, and changing courseline direction so many times.
Bad news from yesterday…a Chinese pilot who had been missing was finally found by search and rescue, dead. Apparently something happened to him yesterday, probably due to the cu-nims on course. There is going to be a protest to get the day cancelled due to the unsafe flying conditions. We’ll find out what happens tomorrow sometime. But good news from Ewa…she’s OK and is resting. She did indeed get higher than Everest while inside the cu-nim (9947 m, according to the tracklog), and lived to tell the tale. But she's dealing with the aftermatch, mostly being frozen. +20 m/s up, and -30 m/s down.
Despite not flying super-far today I’m pretty OK with my flight…getting comfortable on the glider, and I was able to use my speed bar successfully using a trick that Kari taught me (thanks Kari!). So I think I’m getting there…hopefully I’ll be completely dialled in by the time the Worlds starts up next week.
More pics at http://mclearn.ca/gallery/
Nicole
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Manilla XC Open, day 1
We were up early today…partly due to the warm weather but also because of the birds. But they weren’t too bad and I didn’t find them too annoying. But it gave us a chance to get a good breakfast in (thanks Tom!), get our gear all sorted out, and get to the HQ for the morning meeting. Then off to the post office to order our CDMA phones, since GSM phones don’t work in Manilla. Hopefully they’ll be here in time for tomorrow’s flight.
Launch is at the end of a ridge, just as it dips to a saddle, so there are multiple launches (N, E, S, W). It’s not very high, about 860 m ASL (and the ground is about 300m ASL), so there’s not very much time to mess around finding lift. You either find it right away, or you have to head out to land. When we arrived at the top we got to the east launch first, where everyone was hanging out and kiting gliders on the Astroturf. This launch is large…you can lie out 6-7 gliders end to end, and probably 6 or 7 deep, for around 50 gliders at a time. And it’s all Astroturf, so no snags or twigs to catch on comp lines.
The west launch is larger, and a bit higher too. It’s also astroturfed. There’s a toilet block set up, and a concession stand too for food, ice cream, and water. The one thing missing is shade. There are a few trees, but they are pretty much leafless, and it’s boiling hot up there. So lots of water and sunscreen is a must for parawaiting up there (and the sun is very fierce here; good thing it’s a dry heat and not like the Brazilian heat)!
While hanging out on the east launch we observed some dust devils in the area, and we should have probably went then (it was about 11am). But it being our first time up there, and the first day of the XC comp, nobody wanted to go first, and in the end, we didn’t launch until about 1pm. By then the winds had switched to primarily west, and most people migrated over to the west launch. But we didn’t want to schlep all our stuff up the hill and over the other side, and it was still blowing up on the east side, so we stayed there. We ended up having the whole launch to ourselves!
Apparently on the west launch it was a gong show, with pilots trying to launch all over the place, getting dragged, etc etc etc. Glad we had a nice quiet launch where we could kite our gliders as much as we wanted, and not be in the way of anyone else.
Keith launched and didn’t get a good cycle, and was pretty soon on the ground at the east launch LZ. But Tom went to get him (Tom was driving for us today since his glider didn’t show up) and Keith was able to relaunch (relaunches are OK, since it’s your best flight of the day that counts). I had already launched by then and was in the air over launch, where it was nice and not too ratty. I was more in the mood to find out how my new glider would fly, and flying big XC was actually secondary at that point. This decision was helped by the fact that 2 storm cells were to the north of launch (and it was blowing south, so any XC would be towards them), and they looked pretty intimidating.
After getting a bit more used to the glider I headed north to see what I could do. At this point the 2 storm cells were pretty much merged, and lightening was shooting out of it, and rain below. It didn’t look very inviting, and I wasn’t in the mood for cloud-sucking my way XC, so I ended up landing about 16 km from launch.
Keith and Nicky Moss had landed about 1 km further than me, and Will was further north. Turns out he had raced ahead of the merging storms before they merged, and got to the other side, but they were growing in the other direction too and he was outrunning it on the other side. He managed to get about 58 km before deciding to land.
We didn’t know this, since we were cell-phone-less, and radio contact was sporadic on the ground. So we ended up driving to the 90 km mark, where we picked up 2 Swiss pilots, Chrigel Maurer and Stefan Wyss, who had landed at about 88 and 89 km out. I think they were about the farthest for today. Finally found Will back at the 58 km mark and then back to the campground.
Ewa didn’t have a good day. She got cloud-sucked into one of the storm cells, and accounts differ at this point about what happened to her. But she’s in the hospital. The storm cloud had a cloud top of at least 10,000 m, so she was definitely very high. The tracklog will let us know how high she actually got.
Despite not flying very far, I was happy with my flight. First time really flying this new glider, and first time thermalling in about 4 or 5 months. So I consider it a well-worthwhile flight, and we have 7 more flying days for this comp (and only the best 4 flights count anyways, so we can throw 4 flights out). And after hearing about Ewa, I’m glad I landed when I did.
Hopefully things will dry out a bit more and we won’t have to worry about over-development in the afternoons. And now that we know what things are all about, we’ll launch earlier too! And driving the highway north on retrieve was a good idea too, since we now know all the little towns on the way for the first 100 km or so, so when we land in that direction, we’ll know where we are.
Photos are at http://mclearn.ca/gallery/, and click on "Nicole's albums" and then "Manilla XC Open, 2007". (You may have to cut and paste the URL if it's not clickable).
Nicole
Launch is at the end of a ridge, just as it dips to a saddle, so there are multiple launches (N, E, S, W). It’s not very high, about 860 m ASL (and the ground is about 300m ASL), so there’s not very much time to mess around finding lift. You either find it right away, or you have to head out to land. When we arrived at the top we got to the east launch first, where everyone was hanging out and kiting gliders on the Astroturf. This launch is large…you can lie out 6-7 gliders end to end, and probably 6 or 7 deep, for around 50 gliders at a time. And it’s all Astroturf, so no snags or twigs to catch on comp lines.
The west launch is larger, and a bit higher too. It’s also astroturfed. There’s a toilet block set up, and a concession stand too for food, ice cream, and water. The one thing missing is shade. There are a few trees, but they are pretty much leafless, and it’s boiling hot up there. So lots of water and sunscreen is a must for parawaiting up there (and the sun is very fierce here; good thing it’s a dry heat and not like the Brazilian heat)!
While hanging out on the east launch we observed some dust devils in the area, and we should have probably went then (it was about 11am). But it being our first time up there, and the first day of the XC comp, nobody wanted to go first, and in the end, we didn’t launch until about 1pm. By then the winds had switched to primarily west, and most people migrated over to the west launch. But we didn’t want to schlep all our stuff up the hill and over the other side, and it was still blowing up on the east side, so we stayed there. We ended up having the whole launch to ourselves!
Apparently on the west launch it was a gong show, with pilots trying to launch all over the place, getting dragged, etc etc etc. Glad we had a nice quiet launch where we could kite our gliders as much as we wanted, and not be in the way of anyone else.
Keith launched and didn’t get a good cycle, and was pretty soon on the ground at the east launch LZ. But Tom went to get him (Tom was driving for us today since his glider didn’t show up) and Keith was able to relaunch (relaunches are OK, since it’s your best flight of the day that counts). I had already launched by then and was in the air over launch, where it was nice and not too ratty. I was more in the mood to find out how my new glider would fly, and flying big XC was actually secondary at that point. This decision was helped by the fact that 2 storm cells were to the north of launch (and it was blowing south, so any XC would be towards them), and they looked pretty intimidating.
After getting a bit more used to the glider I headed north to see what I could do. At this point the 2 storm cells were pretty much merged, and lightening was shooting out of it, and rain below. It didn’t look very inviting, and I wasn’t in the mood for cloud-sucking my way XC, so I ended up landing about 16 km from launch.
Keith and Nicky Moss had landed about 1 km further than me, and Will was further north. Turns out he had raced ahead of the merging storms before they merged, and got to the other side, but they were growing in the other direction too and he was outrunning it on the other side. He managed to get about 58 km before deciding to land.
We didn’t know this, since we were cell-phone-less, and radio contact was sporadic on the ground. So we ended up driving to the 90 km mark, where we picked up 2 Swiss pilots, Chrigel Maurer and Stefan Wyss, who had landed at about 88 and 89 km out. I think they were about the farthest for today. Finally found Will back at the 58 km mark and then back to the campground.
Ewa didn’t have a good day. She got cloud-sucked into one of the storm cells, and accounts differ at this point about what happened to her. But she’s in the hospital. The storm cloud had a cloud top of at least 10,000 m, so she was definitely very high. The tracklog will let us know how high she actually got.
Despite not flying very far, I was happy with my flight. First time really flying this new glider, and first time thermalling in about 4 or 5 months. So I consider it a well-worthwhile flight, and we have 7 more flying days for this comp (and only the best 4 flights count anyways, so we can throw 4 flights out). And after hearing about Ewa, I’m glad I landed when I did.
Hopefully things will dry out a bit more and we won’t have to worry about over-development in the afternoons. And now that we know what things are all about, we’ll launch earlier too! And driving the highway north on retrieve was a good idea too, since we now know all the little towns on the way for the first 100 km or so, so when we land in that direction, we’ll know where we are.
Photos are at http://mclearn.ca/gallery/, and click on "Nicole's albums" and then "Manilla XC Open, 2007". (You may have to cut and paste the URL if it's not clickable).
Nicole
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Manilla!
Well we're all finally here in Manilla...I met up with Will and Keith at the Sydney airport, and we travelled to Tamworth via Qantas. A short flight and then we're on the ground, looking at the showery skies (a comp must be happening soon, this only happens when a comp's about to happen!). Got our retrieve vehicle squared away and then off to Manilla. Driving was an adventure since it's driving on the opposite side of the road, good thing the roads were not busy!
We are staying at Rivergums caravan park, along with it seems like the entire pilot population of Manilla. Apparently the park will become Pilot Central after next week, when the World Championships start. David and Lee are really nice people and the park is great. RV's to stay in, communal cooking facilities, showers, laundry, free wireless, and free ice cream for any pilot that lands in the Rivergums LZ! Oh yeah and the women's washroom is to-die-for...it's like a ritzy hotel in there (I had to include that!). I think Lee likes to take care of the female pilots since there's not too many.
Anyways, tomorrow is the first day of the XC comp. We are all registered, got our GPS waypoints downloaded, and got our retrieve all arranged. Our team is "Durka Durka", in case you want to keep track of how our team does for the team scoring. I think Tom is gonna drive for us tomorrow, since Alaskan Airways managed to lose his gliderbag on the way over from San Francisco, and won't deliver it until tomorrow night.
It's a beautiful night, warm and dry, with bats flying around as I write this at a picnic table. And tomorrow is a flying day! This is the life. And we have 1 more month to look forward to!
Nicole
We are staying at Rivergums caravan park, along with it seems like the entire pilot population of Manilla. Apparently the park will become Pilot Central after next week, when the World Championships start. David and Lee are really nice people and the park is great. RV's to stay in, communal cooking facilities, showers, laundry, free wireless, and free ice cream for any pilot that lands in the Rivergums LZ! Oh yeah and the women's washroom is to-die-for...it's like a ritzy hotel in there (I had to include that!). I think Lee likes to take care of the female pilots since there's not too many.
Anyways, tomorrow is the first day of the XC comp. We are all registered, got our GPS waypoints downloaded, and got our retrieve all arranged. Our team is "Durka Durka", in case you want to keep track of how our team does for the team scoring. I think Tom is gonna drive for us tomorrow, since Alaskan Airways managed to lose his gliderbag on the way over from San Francisco, and won't deliver it until tomorrow night.
It's a beautiful night, warm and dry, with bats flying around as I write this at a picnic table. And tomorrow is a flying day! This is the life. And we have 1 more month to look forward to!
Nicole
Flight Over
Bon Matin
Were still sitting here on this long ass flight to what seems to be the middle of nowhere. Its 5:30am Tuesday morning Sydney time and it is something like 11:30am Monday at home in Calgary. Will and I have both managed some form of sleep for a few hours, he is sitting on the aisle and me against the window and with another guy between us. I am watching the most amazing sunrise right now and will post pictures when I send this tonight. I feel as though my diet of trying to be healthy is being thrown out the window by United Airlines as they constantly make sure your chewing something that resembles nothing I would ever eat at home. So no worries about ever going hungry on these flights. I believe we have another couple hours then we will land in Sydney and have a 4 hour wait and meet up with Nicole and Tom before we have yet another 1 hour flight to Tamworth. Were going to try and get an evening huck off the hill tonight to work out the body from being still for so many hours but we will see how we feel when we get there.
Will and I both also managed to not have to pay extra baggage charges and in fact they never even weighed my bags (SWEET). The first comp starts tomorrow so no time to recover but hey I think were all used to it being this way. The first comp is the Manilla XC Open and will run for the next 8 days and is open distance everyday (fly as far as you can). The cool thing about this comp is only your best 4 flights out of 8 count towards the scoring. That way after a big distance day we can rest and get after it again the next day without losing any points for it. Well I guess they think its breakfast as they are feeding us yet again damn they must think were hungry from all the exercise were getting sitting here staring out the windows and watching bad movies on shitty screens.
Salut
Were still sitting here on this long ass flight to what seems to be the middle of nowhere. Its 5:30am Tuesday morning Sydney time and it is something like 11:30am Monday at home in Calgary. Will and I have both managed some form of sleep for a few hours, he is sitting on the aisle and me against the window and with another guy between us. I am watching the most amazing sunrise right now and will post pictures when I send this tonight. I feel as though my diet of trying to be healthy is being thrown out the window by United Airlines as they constantly make sure your chewing something that resembles nothing I would ever eat at home. So no worries about ever going hungry on these flights. I believe we have another couple hours then we will land in Sydney and have a 4 hour wait and meet up with Nicole and Tom before we have yet another 1 hour flight to Tamworth. Were going to try and get an evening huck off the hill tonight to work out the body from being still for so many hours but we will see how we feel when we get there.
Will and I both also managed to not have to pay extra baggage charges and in fact they never even weighed my bags (SWEET). The first comp starts tomorrow so no time to recover but hey I think were all used to it being this way. The first comp is the Manilla XC Open and will run for the next 8 days and is open distance everyday (fly as far as you can). The cool thing about this comp is only your best 4 flights out of 8 count towards the scoring. That way after a big distance day we can rest and get after it again the next day without losing any points for it. Well I guess they think its breakfast as they are feeding us yet again damn they must think were hungry from all the exercise were getting sitting here staring out the windows and watching bad movies on shitty screens.
Salut
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Flight Delays
Yeah sitting here in YYC at the airport. My flight was suppose to leave at 1:27pm and yeah well the flight is now leaving at 3:40pm. So I guess my trip starts with a waiting game. I thought I should call Will and let him now exactly what was going on as he had planned his connection fairly tight in San Fran so he is now on the way to the airport to board this flight. We will travel to San Fran where are good bud Jeff Wishnie is planning on taking us for a little Mexican feast before our 10:20pm connection to Sydney. I am admittedly dreading this horrible 36 or so hours of travel before we actually get to our destination. But I guess it could be worse I could be going to the ARCTIC. So I guess that will settle for today’s update. Today’s weather is extremely snowy and cold here in Calgary.
Cheers
Keith
Cheers
Keith
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Jetlagged in Sydney
Well I've finally made it to Australia...17 hours to get here and also a 17 hour (I think) time zone difference, so no flying for me today as I get over the jetlag and get my sun tolerance up a bit (the sun is something fierce here...hot, muggy, and plenty 'o sun!). Hopefully I'll head to Stanwell Park in the next day or so, to get some glider-time in and coastal ridge soaring, after a winter of no flying, and meet some of the local pilots. Then I meet up with Will and Keith, and travel to Manilla on Feb. 13. Can't wait!
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