You are being watched

Great day at Blackheath, the picture is by Kacper from a few weeks ago but gives you the idea - we got H-I-G-H!! 2900m ASL at launch in possibly the most consistent 5m/s climb I've ever experienced, cloudbase was a few hundred metres higher, exactly what XCSkies predicted. Headed NW towards Lithgow punching slight headwind, we had spoken about the possibility of crossing the mountains to Penrith, a flight that is yet to be done on a paraglider, I was keen and it was definitely the day for it but everybody just meandered off to the North. Of course I followed, bleating in their wake.

I landed with another pilot after flying through a world of sink and less than 20k from launch. The police came along after we had packed up and walked down the road a bit. They asked if in future we could avoid landing where we did as the guy who owns the land is quote "completely Jatz crackers" and he calls the police every time a hang glider lands on or near his property. The nice officer also told us that he (Jatz cracker land owner) also said "he told us he was watching you guys through a scope, but he didn't say what kind of scope"

Apparently it takes all kinds of people to make the world go round, even this kind.

Edit - for non-aussies, a 'Jatz cracker' is a type of biscuit which sometimes goes with cheese and dips. Can also be used as a colloquial term for a person who sometimes goes with a mug shot and hand cuffs.

Late start at Beechmont

Today we got off Beechmont pretty late, launching at the tardy time of 9.55am. Apparently in December there are days where you can get away from launch at 7.30am and be crossing the Kerry valley not long after. Beechmont is a great site, but this also says something about the sanity of the Queensland government in not introducing daylight savings. There are all sorts of reasons why they don't do daylight savings, I've heard the fading curtains and cows producing less milk arguments but until now I had never heard the 'children will be killed if we have daylight savings' argument!!

I flew today with Brian Webb, Middy, Matt Senior and Grey Hamilton. It was a really fun day, wind was more to the NE than yesterday and base was much lower (1500m) but it was great fun to keep pushing on with those guys and just see how far we could get. There were a couple of lowish moments but we all got out to the range, Middy flew onto the range at Carr's lookout and continued on to land at Andrew's house in Killarney. I eventually got high enough to take a committing glide onto the range but chose to fly back and land as I wasn't feeling well. I didn't have coffee in the morning and I know that is a really bad thing for me. Well, at least at my current 'caffeine maintenance level' if don't have coffee I can tell you when it's about 1pm because I will start to get a splitting headache, which I did today, coupled with some nausea while turning in the last few thermals which is a new and exciting sensation for me.

I know I can solve this problem long term by drinking coffee less regularly, but I can also solve it immediately by just drinking coffee. Not a hard call :-)

CC08 Day 8 - Task 5

Geoff climbing out from Beechmont, pic by Hamish

I had planned on not doing the comp task today and launching as early as possible with anyone else who was willing to try and do some long cross country. We decided to hang around and do the task when Enda said it would be a good XC day but not one where you could get away from Beechmont super early.

One of the big items on the the 'the things to do free-flying around Caunungra' checklist is to cross the Great Dividing Range. Today the task committee called exactly that with an 88Km race to a goal paddock Just over Cunninghams Gap and a turn point around Lake Moogerah. It was an almost perfect cross country flying day with all the right ingredients - nice cloud, light wind towards goal and a bunch of friends. Conditions were great all the way out to the lake where things got a bit slower and sinkier except for those who stayed well north of the course line. 35 people made goal including a couple pilots on 1/2 gliders and they don't go over the range very often from what I'm told.

Final scores are here Our team ('Election Fraud' - Geoff, Antje, Hamish, Dave Snowden and me) came second overall, woo hoo! Geoff was 5th overall/1st Serial, Dave was 9th and Hamish 2nd in the sports class after a hard battle with Lindsay Wooten on the last day and Antje was 2nd woman after Michelle. Electing to land on the rainy tasks didn't do me any favours on the scoring front but comp or not, flying in the rain is just playing with fire, well, and water, neither or which is good for paragliders. The next exciting episode will be seeing how the team selection ladder has been shaken after this comp is included. Stay tuned.

Thanks to Matt Rosser in particular for putting in a ton of effort to organise the comp. Looking forward to Killarney already!

CC08 Day 7 - Task 4

Photo taken over launch by Hamish Barker

We flew from Beechmont today under a very cloudy sky though conditions looked much better to the west which often seems to be the case on these moist days from Beechmont.

A 57Km task to Boonah goal was called and for me it was a carbon copy of Task 2 - launch, struggle around the hill for 45min, get rained on, head out to land. Perhaps I need to grow bigger balls to fly in comps because I just can't seem to sit with the idea that it's OK to fly an aircraft made of porous fabric in the rain. I chose to land not so much because I was already getting rained on at launch but because there was much worse looking weather nearby (towards the gold coast). About 9 got to goal. Much of the field flew through heavy rain along the course line with a few reports of parachutal experiences. Somehow most people were OK with that and I heard from several pilots comments along the lines of "Oh I couldn't fly out of the rain because that was the only place there was any lift". Enough said.

Several big names didn't get to goal, Fred, Craig C, Brian Webb so the comp results will be mixed up after today's task. Also the aussie team selection ladder for the worlds will be shaken up quite a bit as several pilots in the top 10 have said they won't be going to Mexico if selected.

Tomorrow is actually shaping up to be a good day for open distance, it's possible to launch at 8.30am and get away from Beechmont so a few pilots who aren't so concerned about a comp result are going to try for some big XC.

CC08 Day 6

Howling wind today so stuff other than flying happened. Here is a video that Dave Snowden made on Task 3.

CC08 Day 5

Windy pre-frontal today so no flying. Pool comp night at the pub was a hit!

CC08 Day 4 - Task 3

First gaggle away from launch with Trelawney front and centre. Thanks again to Hamish for the great pics.

The forecast for today was as poor as the last few but again it was
wrong, fortunately even more wrong than the first two tasks.

We had a 57Km task from Mt Tambourine to Maroon goal via one
turnpoint. Conditions were very light around launch so it took some time to get the whole field off the hill. Antje hung around the ridge just a little too long and was not quite able to glide out to the Cat Motel. Antje made it to a small backyard next to a dragon fruit plantation but both looked bad so she took the safer option of a small tree. The excitement was reported on the local TV news including that Antje was 'found' by the land owners jack russel named Ozzie, not true but it makes a warm fuzzy story for the Tuesday evening news :-) Antje was fine but the wing took a small beating. Some pictures from launch and Antje's glider being mercilessly yanked out of the tree can be found here.

A north east wind on course made the run to the turnpoint fast for those who managed to stay high, and for those who didn't it was an exercise in patience. Base was around 1500m but below 1000m the climbs were broken and about as organised as an explosion in a cat food factory. About half the field made the turnpoint and glided off on a strong crosswind leg towards goal but most didn't survive the glide away from the turnpoint as the sea breeze moved in. 6 were in goal, Fred, Middy then Craig with Ron Mackenzie sliding in fourth less than a minute behind. Day results are here and the scores for the whole comp are now online.

CC08 Day 3 - Task 2

XC Skies predicted a cloud base of around 600m and top of usable lift at around 300m today, the Queensland RASP actually confirmed this so we were less than optimistic.

Johnny Durand played wind dummy on Beechmont and managed to stay up (as he does) so a 50Km elapsed time task was set under a very low, 80% cloudy sky. Some small gaggles dribbled across the plateau only a couple hundred metres above launch while the majority of the field ridge soared around, searching for anything. Much of the field crossed the plateau and landed in the Flying Fox valley. I was around launch with about 20 others when it started to rain quite heavily. I made what I thought was a brilliant strategic decision to land, ride back up in the bus while the sky cleared and then re-fly in lovely afternoon conditions, surfing cloudstreets all the way to goal. Hmmm.

When we got back conditions were nicely launchable on Beechmont so I re-flew, got whacked around a bit then parking into a very strong NE sea breeze and then landed over the back. About 10 other pilots on launch wisely decided not to re-fly. Several pilots made goal and it turns out almost every pilot got rained on somewhere on course. Richard Costa was first with Brian Webb and Matt Senior following up.

Another picture courtesy of Hamish head.

CC08 Day 2 - Task 1

Despite a complete blanket of low level cloud, we headed to the Beechmont launch and had a social morning. When it started raining there was a rush on Alistair's coffee van as nobody was worrying about needing an in-flight pee. The day was cancelled at 11.30, more free goodies from Mr Coffee were consumed and then the day was un-cancelled about 10 minutes later.

We moved to the Hinchcliffe launch where conditions were light/soarable/not raining and a 38Km task was called. People dribbled away from launch in small groups with most not getting more than a couple hundred metre's above launch. Nobody got to goal but Craig Collings got within a few kilometres and locals Jason Turner and Dave Gibbs were just behind. The day was good in that it really showed what you can do on a day that almost everybody had written off at 9am.

Also Hamish got to test his head gear, the picture above says it works ok!

Canungra Cup Day 1

The first day of the comp was rained out so we went on a shopping expedition. Geoff, Antje, Hamish and I are sharing a house in a beautiful spot on Mt Tambourine. I wanted to post a picture of the view but the house is above cloud base today so maybe later in the week. Instead here is a picture of Hamish and his new helmet camera mount he which he hacked up himself. Despite what it looks like, Hamish is not drinking his own brain (though Trelawney wonders), the tube actally activates a pressure switch which fires the camera.

Hamish has so far dismissed the most obvious suggestion of turning it into a dual camera/beer helmet.