Tag Archives: dalby

Dalby 2010, Day 7

Another good day today with less winds than the earlier days, so we could fly a triangle task of 94 km. The towing was slow as the winds were swinging around a bi and we had to move the towing lines, I was still on the ground as the first start gate ticked over, and got up in a slow thermal that only took me to 1000 meters. I drifted through the startgate at 900 meters, it did not matter that much anymore, I just wanted to fly the task and get to goal.

The conditions improved during the day, with cloudbase rising from 1500 to 1800 meters, and we got a few nice thermals of up to 4 m/s. I took it easy and did not get too low anywhere, and had a nice 12:1 final glide. Lots of people in goal, Dave Sieb will win the comp.

Results should be at http://www.hgfa.asn.au/~dhgc/ soon.

Now I will drive to Brisbane and get on a plane to meet Georgia in Fiji, we have a week of delayed Easter vacation. I will drive back through Manilla on the way home, hope to get a few more flights before shipping the glider back to Oslo.

Dalby setup day 6
Dalby setup day 6

Dalby 2010, day 5 and 6

I forgot to write-up about yesterday, sorry Trent! :-)

Day 5 saw a good day with not much shade from the morning, and what seemed like good lift. We got a 130 ‘ish km task, with a TP in the middle just for fun. I was one of the last to tow, and teamed up with a small gaggle taking a good start in cloudbase. We flew fast and dropped off most of the pilots from the gaggle, ending up with me, Dave May and Trent Brown flying together for most of the course. It was going OK with some slow parts over partly shaded areas. On the penultimate glide I had Trent ahead of me, and Dave behind and a little to the right. Trent god a good line and I followed him, but I got shit air and lost 2000 feet extremely fast ending up low and in the shade while Dave found something to my right that I could not reach. I had to land 27 km out from goal.

Today the conditions looked even better, but it was far between the good clouds. The task was a slight dogleg of 176 km. I got up in the middle of the towing line, but got a slow thermal and made the startgate 5 minutes too late and lower than the gaggle who just had left. I and one more glider spent the next 15-20 minutes just on the edge of the start circle, getting nowhere, slowly drifting away and not getting up. We were too low to go back to take a better time, and finally just had to go downwind and look for better air. We found some crap lift 10 km down the course, and a third glider came under us. We could not get high, and kept on going on small glides looking around for better air.

The course takes us over a big forest that have few good landings, and on the edge of that forest we needed to get high to cross it. We split up, and I went in over the forest for some good-looking clouds. I found nothing until I was down at treetop height, next to a small and shitty paddock between the trees, when the thermal I had found died after two turns I had to land there as there were no more options.

Xavier picked me up quickly, and we drove to goal to get Conrad. Tim landed just 4-5 km from goal, but in the middle of a big paddock 1,6 km from the road. It was getting dark as we drove into the rough paddock, where it was a big risk of driving into small waterholes and get stuck. We found Tim after about 2 km offroading and got back out without getting stuck in the dark, hanggliding is always an adventure.

I have no good idea why I am flying so bad in this competition, I just seem to miss the good lift and stay out of sync with the conditions every day. The conditions are not that difficult, and I have plenty of flatland flying experience, I’m in good flying shape, I climb and glide better than most here, but it does not seem to help much when I land short every day. Normally I can tell when I made a bad decision, and learn what I did wrong, but these days I can not see what I do wrong.

One more day and it’s all over, I hope I can at least get to goal tomorrow…

Dalby 2010, day 3

Much the same as the days before in terms of conditions, but a bit more sun from the morning. We got a 160 km task straight to goal. I got a long tow in very weak conditions, nearly had to go back for a re-launch but got up in some weak stuff and to cloudbase in time to take the third startgate at 13:30.

I saw a few other pilots taking the same start, but all were spread out quite far. I met up with Conrad after a few thermals, he got a ripper and got above me before a long glide towards a powerstation and the beginning of a overcast and shaded area. I got low there and spent the next 20 minutes getting back up to 1200 meters before spotting a dustdevil a few km ahead in the shaded are. I dived for it, found good lift in three turns and then it was weak and broken the rest of the way up. There was grass and leaves everywhere in the air from the dustdevil, but I could not find any stronger lift in the area no matter how much I was looking for it.

After getting high again there loosing another 20 minutes, I saw only a few small patches of sun on the gound, and overcast the rest of the way to goal. I found some lift, but it was not enough to climb in, and had to land 76 km from goal.

Today looks like a repeat again, very cloudy in the morning, windy from the SE.

Dalby 2010, day 2

The grey skies broke up at little, and we got a task of 77 km direct to goal at Chinchilla airfield. It was a bit more windy than yesterday, and with more overcast conditions it looked like a difficult task.

I got a great tow straight into a nice thermal and got to cloudbase donwind off the airport, where I pushed into the wind to get upwind on course when starting form the startgate. It was gray to the east where the wind came from so it was a balance of staying over somewhat sunny terrain, while not drifting too much off the courseline in the 35 km/h winds. I had an OK run about halfway, but soon found myself under some very overcast conditions and no good clouds ahead. I got down to 500 meters, and were going downwind before I finally found a very weak and broken thermal that took me up to a 15.1:1 glide to goal.

The glide varied around the 15:1 angle all the way in, and I would not have made it if I did not get a small bit of good air just as I came in over the end of the runway, it gave me 50 more meters and enough to get into the 400 meters circle and land.

So a bit better than yesterdays disaster, but I was still slow today. It was a pretty nice flight despite the windy conditions, I hope we get some more sun tomorrow.

Dalby 2010, day 1

It looked like a repeat of yesterdays conditions, windy and strong lift. We got a 12o km task via one TP, mostly downwind. I towed up and took the second startgate at 13:15, and headed down courseline with a few other pilots. It was OK going in the beginning, but as we got closer to the TP we flew in under a layer of high cirrus clouds that shaded the area.

I got there in a bad time as the clouds were dying and conditions in front of use were shutting down. It looked a little better further to the north of the course line, and after getting up from low after the TP I gambled on going a bit more to the north for some good clouds. I flew with Dave May for a while, but we got stuck in really slow conditions and just drifted more and more off the courseline.

I got up to 1800 meters again, and glided for a nice cloud ahead where I could take a final glide, but as I got close it started to rain from that cloud and I had to divert into the gray overcast. I landed 18 km from goal, but almost 90 degrees off course.

So it was not the best start of the comp, but I could not say I did any major mistakes, the other pilots who made goal were either one start in front, or came after us and took a different courseline.

I do not have a link to results yet.

Dalby practice day

Dalby sky
Dalby sky

Great sunset sky over Dalby. We had an excellent practice day today, booming conditions but a bit windy. I found out I had no batteries in my instrument, it would not turn on at all. But I was already on the dolly, so I flew and practiced flying without vario. It worked out allright, and I stayed up over the airport for about one and a half hour just pushing into the wind and trying to feel the thermals. Cool flight.

Lars went downwind on the Malibu and I picked him up around 30 km down the road.

Dalby competition postponed

It’s been really heavy rain in southern Queensland with some massive flooding in some areas. The competition in Dalby have been postponed due to the floodings. Dalby itself was not too bad hit so far, but there is more rain to come in the next few days. The new dates are 18 to 24/3. It’s a long drive from Sydney at around 1000km. Atilla said he used to do the “Queensland run” in one day, but I think I might want to stop in Manilla to maybe do some Sailplaning at Lake Keepit.