Some more pictures from the last days;
Manilla pictures
Monthly Archives: February 2010
Manilla 2010, last day
Out and return’ish task, to Barraba, back via a few turnpoints on the west and south site of Borah, and to goal at the Manilla airfield. Conditions were tricky at lauch, with tailwind and cross, but some launchable periods now and then. The forecast predicted North East so Grant, Niel and I went down to the NE launch, after waiting around a bit on the west side.
Conditions there were good while we set up, but after the first 4-5 pilots had gotten off we got stuck in tailwind for 20 minutes while the first gaggle with Johnny, Dave, Scott and a few others got up and away. When a thermal cam through we quickly got out, and had a bit of a struggle to get up. Conrad and Niel landed at the bombout, while Grant and I got up with Atilla just above us. (Atilla was freeflying and did the same task as the comp)
Nobody got off any of the other launches while we got up and away, I wish I had taken a photo of the hill with gliders on every launch, and all the windsocks showing tailwind.
I found the thermals to be broken and weak, and this continued the rest of the day for our little gaggle. We almost glided to the deck on the first glide but got up in crap lift under the clouds, and spent a long time getting to the first turnpoint. The clouds did not work for us, and every thermal was a surge and then nothing. It will be interesting to look at out tracklogs and see where the gaggle behind found better lift, and if it was timing or courseline that did not work.
Going back towards the second TP we met the gaggle that started 45 minutes behind us, so it was very clear that we were in the shit and just had lost any chance of a good score that day. Atilla got ahead to the second TP, where we got to cloudbase for the first time, but when Grant and I got there he was low and struggling in the hills. We just kept on getting weak lift never getting high again, but finally got to goal after being passed by another gaggle just before the last TP.
At goal we were just laughing about the day, what a struggle. Dave Sieb did an impressive flight and won the day by a huge margin. Johnny won overall, Conrad second and Scott third. I got fourth place overall in the end. Full results here;
http://soaringspot.com/nswhgstatecomp/results/flex/total/day5.html
Manilla was a good comp, after two days of rain we got 5 days with some really good flying conditions, Monica and her minions did a good job of running the show, and the pilots seemed happy with the flying. Lars Olav did a great job as our driver, and we had no dramas getting picked up.
I’m heading back to Sydney today, as we finally have a place to live there, and we move in on Monday. The next competition here is in Dalby in Queensland in 3 weeks.
Manilla 2010, Day 6
Similar conditions to yesterday, but with clouds. We got a direct line task to goal, 120 something km, 5km goal circle. I got off and up easily, and waited around under the clouds for the next start gate. Many pilots took the first start gate, and I was in the position to do so, but having markers out front would be good and I expected to catch up. It seemed like a good day, nice clouds, good lift in the start gate, and not too much wind.
I left with Johnny and a few other pilots, we went on glide and got some good air but it was not enough to stop in. I saw a gaggle in front over the hills where the Boggabri Gap is, and went on a glide under them – That was a mistake as I could not find the lift under the gaggle, and nearly landed there. I struggled to get up there for a long time, and the shit thermal I was working did not get me anywhere near cloudbase. I lost sight of everyone else, including the gaggle I started with, and knew I had lost way too much time there.
It would not have been too bad by itself with that low save, but I had a horrible run for the rest of the flight. I was alone and out of sync with the conditions and could not find anything usable under perfectly good looking clouds. I nearly landed again halfway through the task, I was unzipped and ready to land next to a waterhole when a thermal released off the treeline next to it and got me slowly out of there again. After struggling on in more crap lift for the rest of the task I finally got a good thermal off the big forest next to Narrabri, and got to cloudbase there. This was the first time I was in cloudbase since the start circle, and also the first relatively smooth thermal since the start.
From that cloudbase it was an easy glide to goal, with good air I had 25:1 glide in and came in with around 15 gliders before me. Johnny won the day again, and will be in the lead again, I will probably fall way down the list. Tomorrow is the last day of the comp, looks like a good day on the forecast.
Manilla Day 5
We got a 106 km task, via Baan Ban to a goal west of Narrabri. Blue day with low climbs, windy and difficult, I only got to 1600 meters ASL. I had a low save after gliding out of the start circle, just before the Boggabri Gap. Johnny was 10 meters below me and landed there, I got up somehow, and flew with a small gaggle of pilots towards the TP. Going to the TP was hard because of the wind, and it became a struggle to get there. I got above Conrad and a few others, and went on my own to the TP. We were 6 km downwind and with a 35 km/h headwind it was not an easy task to get there. I found some patches of lift, and that gave me the glide to get there. But I could not get up when I turned around and went downwind again. I saw Conrad getting up over where I landed 10 minutes later, and he got to goal from there.
In hindsight I should have stayed with what was left of our gaggle, but I was way above and needed only one good thermal to get to goal… Scott Barret won the day, I got tenth today. Seems like the day was fully valid, which is strange since the average distance flown was less than the nominal distance. Conrad is now in the lead, I”m in second and John Smith in third.
Results here;
http://soaringspot.com/nswhgstatecomp/results/flex/daily/day3.html
Manilla 2010, Day 4 results
I started with Johnny, Grant, Dave Sieb, and a few others, we stuck together for the first few thermals, struggled a little around Barraba, and then I went more to the left under good clouds but over bad terrain for a while. We then met and split up again a few times until the turnpoint at Bingara.
We were almost at the same level before starting final glide, but Johnny was a bit more to the left of me, Chris and Jonas. He got a thermal there that we missed, and could stay on top controlling the glide in. It was shockingly bad air, we were gliding at 5:1 for long periods, Chris and Jonas had to land 1 km short of the circle, while I made it in with about 100 meters height. I found a nice thermal just as I was setting up to land and thermalled up again to have a look around the town and watch the other guys come in.
The results from the Manilla competition can be found here;
http://soaringspot.com/nswhgstatecomp/results/flex/total/day2.html
Today looks like another good day, with a bit more southerly winds. We have the briefing at 12:00 on the hill.
Some pictures from goal yesterday;
Manilla 2010, day 3.
The road up to Borah was fine even after the 30mm rain yesterday, so we drove up and set up on the West facing launch. Some of the paragliders launched early and stayed up, but did not get very high. We got a 94km task with two TP, where the last two legs would be headwind.
After a bit of waiting we got off in a big gaggle, I climbed out and headed for the edge of the 5 km start circle. Grant, and Niel had already started, as well as Johnny. I was 5 minutes too late for their start so I hung back with Conrad and a few others to take the next start.
It was not exactly booming conditions, and we had a bit of a struggle getting up after the first glide. I got above the pack and glided off alone to a good looking cloud, I heard Grant on the radio climbing up under that cloud, and found a weak 1 m/s climb there. From there it was another long glide towards the TP, where a few gliders were marking the next thermal. I missed the core, and had to go back a few km, but there we got the best thermal of the day with 4,5 m/s lift up to 2200 meters.
I had now caught up and passed the gaggle in front, and could only see one glider in front. It was blue and headwind to the next TP, so I headed over to a paddock that had a fire burning in it, and got a few hundred meters there before gliding to the second TP where the conditions did not look very promising.
My VG had started to jam, and I saw that the pulley in the A-frame corner was not turning, the rope was melting the pulley and generated a lot of friction. I tried to leave the VG alone, but to glide headwind it must be on otherwise I lost too much.
I took the TP quite low, at about 800 meters (~400 above ground), and went downwind to the other glider that was drifting with something but not getting high. We struggled there for a while, drifting 5-6 km back, but we could see a group of paragliders getting up about 5 km upwind of us. It was very much a hit and miss glide, but I got a good liftline and managed to find a thermal and get up to 1800 meters just behind the second TP.
From there it was around 22km glide to goal, so I tried really hard to get to cloudbase, but the lift just died out and it was completely blue towards goal. It did not look very good, I started to glide hoping to find good air. I started off with 13,7:1 glide to goal, and got some good air while high and had it down to 12,5:1. As soon as I got lower the wind got stronger, and the numbers just got worse and worse. I get some broken lift and tried to get up a few times, drifting back, but could not gain enough height. The day was shutting down and I landed 8 km from goal.
Only Johnny got to goal, I saw Scott land in front of me on the next paddock, so I got 3. place for the day. Not too bad, but it feels much better to be in goal
It was the first time in many years that I’ve been flying with radio, it worked out well as we all could hear only each other since we set up Tone Squelch on our radios.
Today looks like a good day again, SE winds, 75% chance of OD so we might have to fly out on the flatlands.
Manilla 2010, Day 1-2
I drove from Sydney to Manilla on Saturday night, after stopping by the Chinese new years party at Bill and Mollys place in Bronte. It was a long drive as the GPS sent me up the tourist drive road, which is a 100 km of very winding and narrow road. It’s probably very pretty in the daytime and good weather, but at night in dense fog and rain, it was a nightmare.
About halfway up the road I was stopped by another driver who said he was lost. (He said “I’m bushed” :-)) He had gone 50 km down the wrong road, since I had a GPS we could find out which road we were on, and could find the way out again. I arrived at the Imperial hotel in Manila at 01:45 and found Lars Olav sound asleep in the room.
It was windy the next day, and during briefing it was clear we would not fly the next few days. We got some really heavy rain yesterday, around 30mm according to the weather guy, so no flying. I teamed up with Dirk Barber, Niel Peterson, Grant Heaney, and we have Lars Olav as a driver.
Today looks good, but with all the rain yesterday it’s still wet on the ground and we have to wait a bit for the road to launch to dry out before we can go up. The weather looks flyable but the forecast predicts slow and low conditions with more and more cloud cover during the day.
Pictures from Surfers Paradise
Some pictures from two days of surfing class;
Stick flying, surf, apartment hunting
After a few days on the Beach in Jervis Bay (Check out the link to see the world’s whitest sand) we headed back to Sydney, to see if we could find a place to stay permanently. The property market is not easy in this city, and we have not found anything yet, but if we pay a bit more than planned it should work out in the end. I was hoping to get a one bedroom furnished apartment for around $2000 per month, but the competition is hard for those and since we only need it for 4-5 months it seems we cannot win. We could get a serviced apartment close to Bondi beach for around $2400, and those are OK to rent for shorter periods.
We stayed at Atilla’s place those days, and for the weekend Atilla and me drove up to the Lake Keepit sailplane club close to Manilla to see if we could get some flying. Atilla wanted to renew his license, and I have not done any formal training on sailplanes before.
The guys at the Lake Keepit club were super cool, we were well received and got straight into the air. I got 4 flights on Saturday, and 2 on Sunday. The first flight was nice as I took controls right after takeoff and stayed behind the tug. In Australia they stay below the slipstream of the tug, which was a bit strange for me as I’m used to have the tug on the horizon while towing a hangglider. I released in good lift and spent the next 30 minutes thermaling around the airstrip while Dave in the back seat did a good job of helping me get rid of bad habits from flying the Dragonfly and hanggliders. I did three more takeoffs and landings doing the flying myself, to experiment with the effect of airbrakes and handling the landing procedures.
The conditions were very good, but it got windy in the afternoon, I was surprised that the Paragliders got off Mt. Borah as we had gusts over 30 knots.
Atilla took off on a XC flight after getting his check flights and got signed out, he stayed up until dusk and called back on the mobile to let us know he was still flying as the radio was dead. I took one of the quad bikes and went out on the strip to chase the groups of kangaroos that come out to feed on the grass in the evenings. There were at least 30 kangaroos, and it would be a Bad Thing to hit one while landing a sailplane.
After packing up we went to Manilla and had dinner at the RSL club, the motel was booked because of the Paragliding comp and a wedding, so we spent the night in Tamworth. The next day was not such a great day weatherwise, but we had good thermals between the showers around us. I got two more flights in the Grob, the first was 1:15 hours in nice thermals, with good training in banking up and centering thermals. I only need to train spins and emergency aborts on tow before I can fly solo now. I hope to get this done when we go to Manilla for the comp in a week.
Right now we are at the Gold Coast in Queensland, in a town called Surfers paradise. So of course Georgia and I had to sign up for surf class. Paying for a 2 hour lesson from a pro surf school was a good idea as we got a very efficient lesson, and we both managed to actually stay up on the board surfing the waves in the last part of the session. How cool is that? I have the pictures to prove it, will post them later when I get them from the school.