Lake Keepit, some flying

2012/12/28 Øyvind Ellefsen

It turned out to very windy again in Forbes, so I packed up and drove the 5 hour trip up to Lake Keepit, where I had booked a sailplane for the rest of the week.

Christmas day at Lake Keepit was stormy, so we had a very nice Christmas lunch at the clubhouse, with turkey, ham, and seafood for 12 people. Very nice food and a relaxing day. The storms were quite spectacular at night, and we lost power for a few hours.

After lunch I noticed this fella skulking around outside, probably looking for a lunch for himself;

The day after was forcasted quite slow and gray, with some storms in the afternoon, so we took the day off flying. Yesterday we got some OK conditions, with cu’s forming from around 11:30 and light winds. I did my checkflights in the Grob in the morning, and took the LS7 out for a flight after lunch.

Conditions improved during the day, with cloudbase increasing from 6′ to 8′ feet and thermals getting better, but it seemed like the day shut down early. I did around 300 km triangle’ish task, but could probably have stretched it a bit more.

Today is forecasted bleak, and looking outside it does not look too promising, we sit just under a through line, and between shading and predicted storms it looks like a day for going to town for coffee and some shopping. Forecast for tomorrow looks better, maybe a 500km day.

Hanggliding

Windy days in Forbes

2012/12/24 Øyvind Ellefsen

Two days ago we got a fairly good day with clouds and 15 kt northerly winds mixed with plenty of dustdevils. I towed up in some rough air, and my weaklink broke at around 250 meters in a strong thermal. I started climbing in the thermal, but had to avoid drifting too far downwind across the runway. I struggled staying upwind for around 20 minutes but had to come down out of the lift in the end. By the time I landed the wind had picked up a bit too much to go alone on the dolly with no groundcrew, so I parked glider in the hangar and had a nice aftenoon at the Forbes pool.

Weaklink break;

Yesterday we had a god looking sky early in the day;

But it was quite windy with strong thermals mixed in with the gusts, it would not be possible to keep the glider on the dolley. In addition we had storms building around us, so after some hanging around at the airport we decided to try some evening tows if the storms had passed by then. It was still raining in town at night, so no flying yesterday.

Today looks too windy again so far, but the RASP forecast predicts less winds in the afternoon and less potential for storms.

Hanggliding

Good times in Forbes

2012/12/21 Øyvind Ellefsen

Had a nice flight today, starting to get the gear sorted out and getting back into the routine of flying. Some more pilots showed up to tow around noon, I was first off the ground and straight into a 3 m/s thermal. Some of the other pilots were struggling a little in the beginning, but I think they all got away in the end. I had a knot in the harness zipper line and could not close it enough to relax my legs. It’s good to sort out stuff linke this before the comp :-)

Some pictures;