Some good flying here in Manilla lately, yesterday I went 166 km north, from Mt. Borah to Cootiai. Stein-Tore flew 150, and Per-Arne 134. Conditions were OK, but broken thermals, and weak tailwind. I landed in the goal-paddock for the comp, there was a electric fence made of a thick wire across the LZ, unbelivable! My chase crew tried to warn me, but their radio went flat and I flew over dragging my knee into the wire at high speed. No flying today as I’m waiting for my knee to heal enough to be usable again, I think it’ll be good enough to go flying tomorrow.
The day before we got off in a bad cycle, Kjell and I landed 19 km out, in a field with giant thistles, giant spiders, no radio contact, and 40 degrees. Olav busted and only got 7 km.
3 days ago Kjell and I flew XC and got lost, as we had not had time to prepare maps and GPS, but spent 4 days trying to get hold of a roof-rack for our car. We followed a road to a town, and went down from cloudbase in fantastic conditions to land, 48 km out. We checked the map, and thought we were in Boggabri, only to find out later we were in a town 40 km away… So much for navigating over the flatlands.
Little John Durand won the comp, Dustin Martin on second, and Conrad Lothen third. The comp is over, wich is good for us so we can launch when we want. Some of the pilots here are real launch potatos, they stand in line for hours blocking the start while everyone else is going up and getting away.
Today is blue, and I’ve spent the day preparing my GPS and planning routes. It’s supposed to rain on Tuesday.
The Litespeed’s have been performing great, we outclimb and outglide everyone we have been flying with. Yesterday the glide-ratio at high speeds gave me the possibility to catch up with every gaggle ahead of me without getting too low to catch the thermals. But it’s not a glider for “Sunday” flying, it’s stiff and quite demanding in the thermals. With the VG on it glides really fast without loosing altitude, but it’s nearly impossible to turn.
Oh yeah, we have seen kangaroos! Even got some on film…