Last night we went to Echuca to see the Two Towers, it rained a little on the way back, and also rained quite a lot tonight. On briefing it was overcast and a little rain in the air. The task committee wanted to try to get a task done, a miracle could happen, so we drove out to the paddoc through more rain. Arriving there it was quite clear nobody wanted to fly in the poor conditions, while a few pilots wanted to practice towing. As long as the paddoc is reasonably dry it’s OK, but if the dust gets wet you’ll get stuck in mud.

The results are up on http://www.cool-ether.net.au/australianopen I came 22 yesterday, about 130 pilots here in all classes. Too bad we could not fly earlier in the day, I think that cloudbase was at 3800 meters, some people got to 4000 meters in the thermals. That’s the highest cloudbase I’ve ever flown under, and as we have full clearance to the gound here on the flatlands you can go a looong way with that height. I flew 79 of the 108 km task distance, if I had made the second TP at 80 km with enough altitude to drift over the tress it would be quite easy to just drift downwind into goal.

The forecast for tomorrow is bad, with storms and strong winds. After the front have passed it’s going to be great. (We hope)
Picture of towing paddoc on the training day

The practice day was pretty good, we got a few tows, but got out a little to late. I towed Gordon up first, he climbed straight out, then it switched to blowing from the back and cross. We waited, but had to give up, and moved 700 meters of towrope to the cross towing strip. Good thing the towing field is huge (Each of the 20 lanes are 2,5 km long) Eventually we could tow again, Olav got up in the last thermal, I had the rope break once, and got a few circles in zero.

Yesterday we flew the first task, after some waiting for the wind to calm down. We are in the aerotow, and there was confusion on where to set up. I had to walk my glider 300 meters in strong winds and 35 degrees to get to the right trike. The dolly stuck to the basebar on my first tow as I lifted off, at 20 meters the weaklink broke, and I had to kick and hit the dolly to have it fall off so I could land. Second tow was OK, and I got a good climb out of the paddoc with up to 4,5 meters average climb up to 3000 meters. As I started gliding my VG did not work, and I could not get the VG more then 1/4 on. That made it pretty tough to fly with loads of bar pressure.

The task was strange with a long crosswind leg against pretty strong winds. I made the first TP reasonably high, but the crosswind leg was in a blue hole, where there was lots of people on the ground already. I made it withing 2 km from the second TP, along with Gordon. Olav and Otto a few km back. 8 guys in goal, Oleg first.

Yoday was canned because of strong winds, we have been tuning gliders and making new headsets and stuff. Might be blown out tomorrow as well, it’s forecasted storms.

We arrived in Denni last night after a long drive from Sydney. It was very windy on the way out here, and we had to stop to strenghten the roof-racks to make sure the gliders did not fly off. Quite calm today so I guess we will be towing later today. I’m really looking forward to test my new glider and harness. We were on Bill Moyes’s aerotow list, as he was going to bring three tugs out here. Now it seems that that won’t happen, and we will all be car-towing. Fine with me, as we got all the car tow gear with us just in case something like this happened

It’s blue and around 30 degrees here. A few pilots in town, most arrive tonight.

I’m at the Moyes factory checking our gear. The gliders are ready, my harness is getting ready later today, pretty busy here with lots of pilots here to pick up gear. Stanwell’s quite windy but flyable, 26 gliders are beeing test flown today. We’ll might go later if we can get everything sorted. Nice temperature here, around 30 yesterday.

Finally it’s time to leave the ice and show for a while. I’m going to fly the three big comps in Australia – Oz Open, Bogong Cup, and Oz Nationals. The team is Otto Baste, Olav Opsanger, Gordon Rigg, and me. I expect we will be picking up gliders and heading inland soon after everyone have arrived. Otto is already on his way, last heard from in Bangkok.

I will update my homepages as usual, depending on how late we get home at night after flying. We will be aerotowing with Moyes, but might do some car tow as well if the queues are too long.

Now it’s on the move, with stops in London and Singapore. Flight time from London is around 24 hours.