RIDE THE CORE

It's been a long time

2011-01-11T00:18:00.000-08:00

The Bright Open 2011 is less than a month away, and besides the Canungra Cup in October, I haven't flown much this year. A lot has changed since last year - the big one is we moved up to SE Queensland and are just now getting settled into our new house in Currumbin Valley...

A few other things have happened, one is I just passed by 1000 hours on a paraglider, it doesn't mean a whole lot, but it does mean I have survived a lot of crazy shit.

The flying in Canungra is quite different than Bright. Most of the years I was in Bright were during a drought, so the conditions were definitely strong, the last year in Bright it was very wet and so the flying was more pleasant, but the season seemed to be shorter.

It's very wet in Queensland, right now the flooding up north of us is making the world news, and of course the wet ground around Canungra means you have to have a whole lot of patience to go XC, and that is something I am not very good at but will be learning more about..

The harness tweeks I spoke about in my last post are paying off, the nose of the pod is pointing down finally and I like the feeling of the setup much better.

Hope you all are getting good flights.

Tweaking the Harness

2010-09-04T05:38:00.000-07:00

I have been flying an impress II harness for about 3 years now and haven't been able to tip the nose down as far as I would like.

The adjustment located about mid-way down my back is the one that helps me sit more upright, thereby pushing the nose down. I have pulled the straps as tight as they possibly go, and this helps, but I need more.

So, I pulled the straps out of the buckles, and passed each through where the carabiner attaches to the harness, and this gives me heaps more room to pull the the mid-back part of the harness closer to the carabiners and this should help me sit more upright and push my feet down.

So if this is the last post you ever see on this blog, don't try this...

BTW, a couple days ago I had my first XC since April. The pic is flying back to Mt. Tamborine.

The Art of Grovelling

2010-04-05T20:17:00.000-07:00

The flying season is winding down fast here in Victoria, autumn is here, the trees are turning colors and dropping their leaves before they sleep for the winter.

Looking back at the comp season, I realized a few things - comps can really expose the "holes" in your flying skills. I think one of the reasons people get into flying comps is they want to experience a new facet of flying, or to take their XC flying to the next level, and what happens is they learn new flying skills they didn't even know existed.

The last two comps were held in really weak conditions - at least I experienced it as really weak because I cherry pick the days I go flying, which means I only fly the best and booming-est days, and so I rarely am down low struggling. Interesting it took me so long to realize that the weakest days are when my results are usually the worst of the comp. I was blaming the weak conditions...

The comp at Corryong was composed of days of desperate grovelling, down low and bobbeling along for kilometer after kilometer, just about to land the whole time. And I am not used to that - so I was tense for long periods, and when you are tense, you don't make your best decisions. It's pretty easy to say to yourself "This is total shite, a complete waste of time, total suckage" and then give up and land next to the retrieve vehicle...

What I got from it was pretty amazing - although it's not my favorite type of flying - it's amazing at how far you can fly just barely above the ground and it is a really valuable skill as it takes a lot of patience and fast decision making to string together every every bug fart and terrain feature to just barely avoid landing time and time again.

I also had a few moments when instead of getting discourage about struggling in the shee-ite weakness, I instead became curious about things - curious about how I was going to dig myself out of tree tops, curious about how this was the 12th time I was sure I was about to land, but just found another beep that kept me alive until the next ridge, etc.

There were a few moments where I actually started relaxing and just letting the glider kind of find it's way around, let it do some sniffing about for the tiniest scrap of lift, and the more I believed I wasn't going to dirt, or at least sort of resigned myself to my incredible lack of altitude, the less desperate I felt and the more the glider felt my anti-gravity thinking and found another beep.... Jedi-mind tricks I guess...

The Happiness Factor

2010-03-29T05:23:00.000-07:00

It's no secret that the number of pilots entering competitions is in decline, and if the trend continues, it's just a matter of time before paragliding competitions are a thing of the past. Don't believe it? It takes a minimum of 40 pilots to have a AAA competition. The AAA Comp at Corryong in 2010 had 48 pilots in attendance...

About a year ago, I was thinking about writing an article for Cross Country Magazine. The title was going to be "Why we compete". I wanted to find out why people would burn every last second of their vacations to go fly paragliding competitions.

I started the article, but didn't finish it because even after interviewing some of the top pilots, I wasn't getting as close to the answer as I had hoped. Fast forward one year: I just finished 2 weeks of competition in Victoria, Australia.

The second comp was in a little town called Corryong, and the flying is brilliant there, well it's brilliant during a normal "dry" summer. The incredible amount of rain during the past couple months has made the ground so wet and green that the flying has been extremely weak, so we aren't getting as high as we usually do, and this has made it harder to get good tasks, and it's late in the season, the site is an afternoon site, so the flying window was extremely short. The end result was that fewer people had an opportunity to get to goal.

I was camping with most of the newer comp pilots, which was cool as the buzz was energizing, and I got an understanding of what they were thinking about as the comp went along. And when asked why they compete, the typical things came up - comps are a great way to learn from others better than you are, and the thrill of the game, etc, but what I somehow missed in my past search for the answer became crystal clear, and it was amazing simple - people compete because they want to make it to goal. The real satisfaction for most pilots comes when they and most of their flying buddies get back to camp and swap stories and celebrate making it round the course. This is what I call the "happiness factor" - the more pilots in goal, the more fun people have and the more likely they are to show up for next years comp. If the "happiness factor" is as important as I think it is, I could be vital to the future of competition paragliding.

To keep competitions from going extinct, you need to do three basic things:

1. Create valid tasks that provide enough decision making opportunities to sort out the best pilots from the good ones.
2. Get as many pilots into goal as possible, and still accomplish item #1.
3. Bring in new pilots and give them a reason to come back next year.

Getting fully valid tasks and lots of pilots into goal are not mutually exclusive! Some one may say "If 70% of the field get into goal, it's not as valid". And that is just not true - sure the task will probably be shorter, but so what? You don't need to fly 4 hours to separate the best pilots from the good ones. The idea of a paragliding competition is not to make the tasks so hard or long that only a few pilots make goal, that will just discourage the newer pilots from coming next year.

Maybe it's time to adjust the validity parameters (again) and for task committees to change their philosophy and start setting shorter tasks that are still fully valid and get the most pilots into goal?

Corryong Task 4 & 5

2010-03-19T15:20:00.000-07:00

Task 4 was a good one, the happiness factor was high (more on that later). The difficulty on T4 was that the task started at 2:30, nominal time is 2 hours, that takes you to 4:30, and the lift has been stopping by 5pm or earlier, so if you get stuck for 15 mins, you run out of lift just before goal... That's was my story for Task 4.

Task 5 was worth less than 200 points, as it took the leader 2 hours to go 12 kms, which was just to the first turnpoint.

Yesterday we didn't fly, and today we went up the hill and the task was canned, comp over... Results are here. Oh, and Fred Gungl is Aussie National Champ - for the seventh time.

Pic is of me on task 3, which took us over Pine Mountain, and in my opinion, gave us the best conditions of the comp.

Corryong Task 3

2010-03-16T01:41:00.001-07:00

Hazy Day, less clouds and no one makes goal.

#	ID	Type	Radius	Description
1	ell094	start	3000m	ElliotLaunch
2	wal030	waypoint	4000m	Walwa
3	tow040	waypoint	400m	Towong
4	cor030	endspeed	1000m	CorryongAir
5	cor030	goal	400m	CorryongAir

Lets pretend that there wasn't a task on day two, ok? Good, lets move on to task 3....
Today the sky didn't look as good as yesterday, but a 63k task was set out to Walwa and back, which meant we had a wicked valley crossing right out of the gate. Start was at 2pm, but we didn't get high enough to start on time, and the first glide was a death glide... We got into Mt Mittamatite super low, below the south east spur ridge and kicking trees. Nice way to start the day - yesterday I sunk out on this same transistion, but today I flew a little smarter.

Most managed to claw out, and once high over Mittamatite, the race got better as we had lots of features to fly over. I have never flown that far north at Corryong, so it was nice to see new country... Several hours later we were coming back into Mt Elliot, but the day was late and the lift was already shutting down and no one got a climb where there should have been one, so we tried to find the best line and get as close to goal as possible. Results are here

Corryong Task 1

2010-03-14T14:42:00.000-07:00

We are camping so I'm try to post everyday, but it's more difficult.

Yesterday was ok, but it is very wet and green here, so it's not the booming Corryong of years gone past that we are used to. The task was good, but high cloud moved in and shut the day down. About 3 pilots made goal. The rest of us were left ridge soaring in the shade.

Today looks a bit better. Results are here.

Bright Open is Over

2010-03-12T09:29:00.000-08:00

The 2010 Bright Open is over. Congratulations to the top 10 pilots:

1	Felipe Rezende	3327
2	Geoff Wong	3318
3	Shane Hill	3255
4	Ivan Anissimov	3112
5	Dave Gibbs	2878
6	Andrew Horchner	2873
7	Benn Kovco	2827
8	JJ Bastion	2675
9	Paul Underwood	2664
10	Schuster Mirko	2606

Here are some stats for the Comp. A successful comp in all metrics in my opinion.

Sunday is the first task of the Ozone Corryong Open! The weather is looking good and we are psyched.

Metric	Value
Comp Days	7
Tasks Flown	4
Sum of Task Kms (flown)	225
Sum of task winners points	3621
Pilots in Comp	59
Local Pilots in Comp	3
Reserve Tosses	0
Number of Smiles	68724

Task 4 - Bright Open

2010-03-11T23:46:00.000-08:00

Good day, last day of the comp!
Task 4:

#	ID	Type	Radius	Description
1	mys080	start	400m	MysticTO
2	7P-100	speed	1000m	GoldmineTwr
3	7S-100	waypoint	400m	SmokoRidge
4	lpy073	waypoint	400m	LittlePyramid
5	5F-022	waypoint	400m	Eurobin
6	7S-100	waypoint	400m	SmokoRidge
7	6S-034	endspeed	1000m	MysticLZ
8	6S-034	goal	400m	MysticLZ

We launched from Mystic again today. The task was great, 62km. The day was a bit weird - really slow in places and really fast in others, a great day to know when to speed up and when to slow down. Photo is of me, nice shot Hamish!

Today was the only day of the comp that I had a good start, but I lost the lead gaggle after the 2nd turnpoint - it is so easy to do on a weak day. Our up valley turnpoint made everyone decide if they were going to go up the left ridge or up the right ridge, and the right ridge (MT Porepunkah) was the faster way. I followed the lead gaggle around the left ridge and it was so weak and slow and painful until we crossed the valley at the Valley Homestead TP, and got over Mt Porepunkah, then it was fast until Lil Mystic where it was really painful, and then fast again. It wasn't a typically day.

Meredyth went with the second group which took the fast route and she made goal, nice way to end the comp!

Tonight is presentation night, free food and wine! Tomorrow we head over for a week of racing at the Ozone Corryong Open! Bright Open Results are here

Task 3 - Bright Open

2010-03-11T00:16:00.001-08:00

Finally, good conditions give us the best task of the comp!
Task 3:

#	ID	Type	Radius	Description
1	mys080	start (exit)	400m	MysticTO
2	7P-100	speed (exit)	1000m	GoldmineTwr
3	7S-100	waypoint (entry)	400m	SmokoRidge
4	4D-020	waypoint (entry)	1000m	HappyValley
5	6F-028	endspeed (entry)	400m	PorepunkBridge
7	6L-028	goal (entry)	400m	PorepunkAir

We launched from Mystic, making the day way easier than the long drive and hike to get to launch that we did yesterday. Blue sky and not much height to it, and the thermals were fairly weak, so we really had to shift gears and make good decisions.
The task was the perfect length - 58km, and took Geoff Wong 2:50 to complete. The crux was at the Happy Valley TP, it was very weak all around the TP, and I and a few others decided to cross the valley and hope for a climb on the ridge and then tag the TP, which was in the middle of the valley. The leaders gambled and most of them went directly to the TP and got it and were able to find climbs on the north ridge, but not everyone.

I had to scratch so low for so long, but I finally got back up and was drifting towards Myrtleford Hill, and because it always works, I deviated course and went for the sunny side on Myrtelford Hill, I found my best climb of the day, then got the TP, and flew over the scatchy part of the course. I caught up with Hamish, Benn and Jason T, and Benn and I found the highest climb of the day (1700m) and we flew to goal together, but we barely made it as it was getting late and the lift was really shutting down.

One day left to race, and then we head over for the Ozone Corryong Open! Results are here

Task 2 - Bright Open

2010-03-10T23:56:00.000-08:00

South winds, so we went to the Pines - but the conditions are so weak, the airspace doesn't matter!

Task 2:

#	ID	Type	Radius	Description
1	ray057	start	400m	RaysPlace
2	pin055	speed	2000m	ThePinesTO
3	eld020	waypoint	1000m	Edlorado
4	red020	endspeed	3000m	RedesdaleRiverinaRd
5	red020	goa	2000m	RedesdaleRiverinaRd

It has rained this summer more than anyone can remember and a front has just swung through so the temps are low, and a south wind is blowing. It's not the combo we want.

The task was long - 80km, which was too long as no one made goal, but Andrew H. got pretty close. I shitbombed 1k after leaving the start cylinder, and then I had to hitch for 3 hours to get home, I want to have this day removed from my memory, like Jim Carey in the movie "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"

Cool Tools

2010-03-07T14:14:00.000-08:00

Since it's been raining for 2 days, so I did some analysis on my flight on Task 1. Geoff Wong's online comp scoring program has been in use in Oz for a couple of years now, all the Cat 2 comps use it. Because pilots upload their own tracks, anyone can download anyone else's track.

Once you have the igc file for the flight you want to compare yours too, you can use gps visualizer to convert it to a klm and then look at it along side your flight in google earth. In gps visualizer, be sure to set altitude to Absolute (for flights) or your track will be clamped to the ground.

What I saw my track doing was taking lines that required 2 more climbs than the leader to reach the same turnpoint, no wonder I was slow. Well, that and I completely stuffed the pig on the start. I also saw the leader hitting a thermal after each transition, just when he needed a climb, and then doing 10 or less turns and off on glide again, rinse and repeat... what a sweet flight, no drama.

stayed tuned

Task 1 - Bright Open

2010-03-06T02:47:00.000-08:00

#	ID	Type	Radius	Description
1	mys080	start (exit)	400m	MysticTO
2	7P-100	speed (exit)	1000m	GoldmineTwr
3	6Q-061	waypoint (entry)	400m	LittleMystic
4	7S-100	waypoint (entry)	400m	SmokoRidge
5	lpy073	waypoint (entry)	400m	LittlePyramid
6	6M-070	waypoint (entry)	400m	Blackfellas
7	7Q-090	waypoint (entry)	400m	Reliance
8	6S-034	endspeed (entry)	1000m	MysticLZ
9	6S-034	goal (entry)	400m	MysticLZ

The forecast for day 1 was very dismall, but we woke up to sunshine and lots of CU, game on! Helka took this pic, Brian Webb is on the white wing, I am on the other wing.

Perfect task for the conditions. Getting high over Mystic was pretty easy as we had a big CU overhead and we just boated around under it waiting for the start. Pilots headed over to the start cylinder at Gold Mine Ridge pretty early, but when they got there, they looked like they were just surviving, and the CU was much less, so I stayed at Mystic playing with the edge of the cloud, looking down on them thinking "haha, I'm higher!".

I left about 15 mins before start, and went to a cloud upwind of the start cylinder but found nothing, and so my haha turned to "ah, shit, I just fokked myself". My tactic didn't work - Gold Mine is usually consistent and with that many wings there, even if they are just mantaining, at least I could have had a chance of getting a good start and staying in touch with the leaders, a pretty basic concept...

The first half of the race was pretty straight forward. I was flying conservatively, partly because I tend to not fly that well on the first day of a comp. For the transition to Little Pyramid, I went up the Gold Mine ridge instead of crossing the valley diagonally - I saw a few gliders droppping out of the lead gaggle and landing because they arrived to Little Pyramid too low. I crossed the valley perpendicular and saw gliders turning on the sunny side of Lil Pyramid, easy enough. I flew through the TP to join others in a climb and then headed back to Mystic, stopping for a climb over GM ridge.

I didn't turn over Mystic, and flew into Clear Spot low, but saw a bird coring a ways out, so I knew there was lift. The climb was super slow. High now I went for the Black Fellas TP and took a climb there. I decided to bypass Clear Spot and head straight to Mystic, but the line was bad... Took a good climb at Mystic to 1500m and left for the last TP at Reliance saddle. I got the hydraulic press for a glide - just complete shite and arrived below Gold Mine peak to find nothing but dead air with huge holes in it - it felt very weird, like 2/3 normal gravity, not enough air in the sky to pressurize the wing... And so I lurched around in tiny bubbles, dribbling down the ridge, watching other gliders hit the dirt, pretty depressing...

I dribble/lurched/gasped for air all the way down the ridge to Little Mystic where I got another 1m/s shite climb which saved me, but it was so weak that it took forever to get back up, and since there were no gliders near me, I figured there was no rush to get to goal, so I might as well make sure I got there. I made goal, but way way slow. 27 in goal, I was 25.

I'm glad day one is out of the way... If it's my worst day, i will be ok, and next task I am going to try to stay up front, and stay in touch with the leaders, at least that is the theory anyway...

Comp results are here.

Wet Summer and Jedi Mind Tricks

2010-02-21T04:22:00.000-08:00

El Nino, global warming, green house gasses, something is happening in the southern hemishere, as this is the wettest summer I have seen in Bright. I rains all the time and water is running out of the ground...

It's great in a way, no fires, lots of water for the garden, and the cows are happy.

I haven't flown anywhere near as much as in past summers, but that don't matter, as each hour of airtime just builds on the last hour and there is always another level to take your flying to...

This year I have been thinking about thinking, rather, thinking about what I think about when flying, and what I've come up with is that I need to relax a lot more.

I think the best pilots make the best decisions and that's not happening if you are tense, not breathing smoothly, and generally feeling fearful.

So I have been imagining that I actually know what I'm doing up there, ok, I have to admit, I have been imagining that I am the best pilot in the world, (Chrigel Mauer, in my opinion) and then I imagine I fly as much as I want, and all over the world too, and I even get paid for it, and guess what, I start relaxing. And I have more fun and I stop thinking about throwing my reserve as much (it's all just a mind game anyway - who wants to play?... )

How to fly 155 miles (250km)

2010-01-10T17:34:00.000-08:00

It's really summer here now, and getting bloody hot too. Hot is good for making thermals, but it sucks if you land out in the middle of the day, because in places there are only scrawny sheep around, for miles and miles, or kilometers if you prefer.

Over the weekend I did a 4 hour drive out near a little town in the flatlands called Deniliquin where a feller has a tow rig on the back of his ute. This feller has been towing for many years and has flown over 200 miles from this part of New South Wales.

So some other fellers showed up for a tow and on Saturday the conditions looked purdy good for a long flight.

A feller named Gazza went for the first tow and dribbled away from the paddock fairly low, they say every tow starts with a desperate low save, and I would see a lot more of that happen on this day....

Another pilot named Benwazza got away on his 3rd tow attempt. I took 3 tows but couldn't commit to leaving the paddock with such weak climbs, and since I love to state the obvious, here goes: you can't fly XC if you don't leave the hill (paddock in this case).

Then the last feller named Rozza pinned off really low, and scraggled his way down wind.

About 40 km away, the sky turned from blue to beautiful cu, a perfect 3/8 sky stretching as far off as you could see, and that made me giggle like a little girl.

To make a long story short, Benwazza told us how he struggled for 20 kms, and then got a nice climb to 2500m and was just a climb or two from the start of the cu's when he got vomited out of the sky, just hydraulic pressed right to the ground and into a treeless paddock at a modest (for these parts) 107 F (42C).

The other two fellers flew all day long, from cu to cu, getting very high, higher than I can say, with Gazza touching down as the sun was setting at 8:25 pm. His last glide was almost 50 kms! So both these fellers, Gazza and Rozza landed a few kms from each other, 249 and 254 kms, which for you yanks is around 155 miles. As we drove down some dirt roads, we got to watch Gazza land, backlit by a gorgeous sunset.

And the tail wind was pretty light, with them fellers getting glides in the 50 - 65 km/hr range. Them fellers say they like it closer to 100km/hr as they want to break records and such.

We got home at 1am, and only because we lucked out and found a 24 hr fuel station in a peanut sized town called Culcairn.

Anyway, that is how you fly far in the land of the down under.

Storms

2009-12-31T03:52:00.000-08:00

Rain, thunder, lightning...

Forward Launches are Cool

2009-12-29T01:38:00.000-08:00

Chappo Rocks!

Chappo is the only pilot I know who regularly does forward launches off of Mystic, and I don't think I have seen him mess one up yet. The best days in Bright have a south influence - and on a south, launch is often windless, and it could go over the back at anytime, shutting down the day - exactly like today was.

Because it's the holidays, we have heaps of pilots in Bright right now, and today launch was mostly nil wind and pilots were set up 3 deep, 6-7 pilots abreast, and no one was going. No one going, no where to layout, hotter than hell, CU popping 4000 ft overhead, 4 gliders spinning up in front of launch, and no one is getting off launch because they all want an up the face cycle...

From the launch slot highest up the hill, Chappo does a perfect forward, and then I get in a forward, and then Heike gets one, and we all spin up in 3 different cores, and everyone else stands on launch, wearing 3 layers deep, sweating like pigs, and no one is getting off launch because they all want an up the face cycle...

Thanks a ton Alex for holding up my wing - that makes it the second forward I have done on my wing, and I was sure glad to hit a core right off launch and cool down as I spun up towards base...

Forward launches are a little weird when you never do them, but if a forward launch is what it takes to get off the hill, then that's what it takes...

Today was great in Bright - getting to base a lot and checking out the the tree tops in the Kancoona bowl was a first for me, not sure if I will go that deep any time soon.

Clouds from Heaven

2009-12-26T15:04:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was good - really good. Not very often do we get light winds and really good cloud streets, but we got both yesterday.

The cu was popping at 9am, but the forecast didn't look that great - we are under a trough system and that's usually not good, but occasionally it can be great. We weren't planning on flying as the forecast was so average, but it changed dramatically about 11am and so we got to launch quite late, and took off after 1pm - loosing at least 1.5 hours of the day.

I dialed in the big triangle as my route, 125km, and started on my way. It was slow going all the way out to Gundowring, and coming home was fast but it was late, 5:00pm. The happy valley was totally blue, from Eurobin to the Pines, not one cloud, so I decided not to try for the tobacco sheds at Myrteford, so the 125km triangle would have to wait for another day.

The best clouds were on the east side of the Kiewa valley, if you could get to 2000 meters, you could just blast along the bottoms, no turns necessary.

Heike was following me in her car, which is probably why I kept going, usually I am more conservative, as hitching home from the Kiewa can take hours. Thanks love!

From Kancoona, I flew almost to the burrs and then to Mystic paddock, 109 km triangle. Today looks ok, but tomorrow looks to be another great day, so I'm taking the day off.

cheers mates!

Conargo - means "FlatLands"

2009-12-20T21:49:00.001-08:00

Photo by Hamish Barker, taken somewhere near Conargo, NSW.

I finally got to see the tow site near Conargo, the little town in the middle of nowhere that has been the start of some very long flights in New South Wales.

13 pilots spent the weekend towing up and flying into the outback in conditions that were pretty challenging.

They didn't have enough drivers, so I sold my weekend to them and took on the challenge of finding them using only a cheap chinese handheld radio and a gps...

Time to get a 3G mobile - I learned that GSM mobiles are totally useless away from civilization.

They all had spots that were sending me their landing coords, but I didn't get the info until 2 days later while on the drive back home... But I did find all the pilots.

I learned a few tricks too - like how to turn someones bearing/distance from take off into GPS coordinates using the 76s... (thanks Hamish/Benn).

I am going back out there to go towing when the conditions get good, must break Steve Forslund's longest flight, as I can't stand hearing about it for another year...

Take care all my friends!

Brett

Sweet Air

2009-12-14T20:37:00.001-08:00

Yesterday was my best flight here in Bright so far this season. 5 hours in the air, lots of turns, a few nice clouds and a nice out and return. Leonardo is down so I couldn't post the flight...

With the closed valley systems, wind is one of our main problems here in Bright. But yesterday we had really light winds - south aloft which is always good. I am amazed at how the wind direction can be so different at various altitudes around here... But it can really help you do out and returns, like yesterday, you get high and fly out and then get low and fly back. But there was the west at mid levels that made things interesting when I got deep around Kancoona bowl....

Tomorrow could be a very high day, might be wearing the down jacket..

ciao

Brett

The Origins of Vegemite

2009-12-05T19:38:00.000-08:00

In my continuous quest to explain Vegemite to the rest of the world, I have come up with yet another theory on how Vegemite came to be.

It was petro-chemical engineers that first created Vegemite - they were trying to produce synthetic petroleum in the lab, in an attempt to solve the worlds looming energy crisis. Their research produced a thick black sludge that was not quite volatile enough to burn, so they tried using it as wheel bearing grease, and that didn't work either, not because it didn't work as wheel bearing grease, but because mechanics complained of the smell, so the problem was passed to the marketing department, and after examining the sludge, someone in marketing was heard saying "It smells like meat sludge!" and that's when the idea hit them - let's sell it as food.

After a few weeks of tests on many mice, rats and monkey's, Vegemite was born and the rest is history, in Oz anyway. Why the word Vegemite? Well, the marketing department worked really hard on that one, and to get away from it's meat sludge smell and appearance, they decided to let people know it is made from vegetables, and to spice the name up a bit, they then rhymed it with dynamite, and the iconic Aussie "Vegemite" was born.

By the way, I eat Vegemite all the time, usually on buttered toast with honey (I actually prefer promite, a competitors brand). And the reason all you yanks hate it is because the first time you tried Vegemite, you slathered it on your toast like it was peanut butter and then just as you went to take a bite, you dry wretched from the smell. The trick is to use the tiniest amount spread extremely thinly on toast, and then cover it up with some honey... this produces a lovely meaty, salty, sweet and crunchy food that is really good for brekky (breakfast), and actually quite addictive. Also, you can find it in a plastic squeeze tube, which makes it easy to travel with once you get addicted.

Stay tuned!

I was a big fish yesterday!

2009-12-02T18:08:00.000-08:00

I was a big fish yesterday. Let me tell you how I know.

This morning, Heike and I went for a swim at Sarina Beach. We swam up the beach for about 10 minutes and then turned around and began to swim back. I was wearing swimming goggles and as soon as we started back, I saw a small fish right in front of my face. It was a handsome little fish, greenish yellow with black vertical stripes, and it's tail fin had black on both tips.

As I swam, this little fish was swimming with me, anywhere from right in front of my face to just under a meter in front of me, seemingly unfazed by my arms as I did a freestyle swim stroke. When I would stop, this little fish would stop and swim around my body, occasionally nibbling at my skin.

This went on for a full 10 minutes until I caught up with Heike and showed her my little cleaner fish, who I had named Remora.

I gave Heike my goggles, and she saw Remora who was now checking her out, but seemed to like my orange shorts better than her black swimsuit...

I fly back to Bright today, which is 4 hours from the ocean, so goodbye Sarina Beach, I will miss the full moons, fruit bats, mangoes, morning swims, and to Remora - thanks for making me feel like a big fish little buddy - take care and I hope you find a big fish to look after you...

Beach

2009-11-23T20:26:00.000-08:00

I'm up north, at a place called Sarina Beach. This is the view off the balcony. I'm feeling lucky.

Harness Tune Up

2009-11-13T23:02:00.001-08:00

It's been very xc-able for days on end in Bright. I've flown the Impress II harness for 2 years, and it's a size medium. My sholder straps have felt tight after a few long flights, so I hung the harness up to investigate. I have the sholder straps as loose as possible, so I checked out other ways to reduce the pressure on the shoulder straps. The shoulder straps are routed through the chest strap, as is the leg straps, all are adjustable and affect the tension on the chest strap, so I tweeked them all....

Then I figured that the pod length would have an effect on the shoulder strap tension as the 2 major points of contact that determine overall length are your feet to your shoulders, so lengthening the 4 pod skirt straps should help. Then I noticed the low back adjustments had slipped at least 2 inches, and put them back where they were, which is as tight as possible.

From a lot of previous efforts, and for my body's CG, tightening the low back adjustment straps and loosening the upper skirt straps seem to be how to lower the nose of the impress, which seems to be a major challenge for anyone with a new Impress. Ballast under the seat board would help too.

I made a few little adjustments to the seat board and tail-bone area straps, and so I have fully contradicted the adage "adjust one thing at a time so you know what it does"... But that would take a whole season, unless you lived at Point of the Mountain.

The weather is changing, with some trough's moving in and South aloft, which can make for good or bad conditions, more unstable for sure. Stay Tuned..

Bright is On

2009-11-07T23:18:00.000-08:00

The flying has been on in Bright. The first day I was here, I flew to Wangaratta, and the hitch home took as long as the flight (3 hours).

The pic is of Karl on his Tycoon. The other pic is from one of the tasks up at Canungra, perfect cloud cover as far as you can see.

Good forecasts for the next couple of days, I hope to get a nice triangle in.

If any one needs a vacation, let me know, I've got room here and I'm 10 minutes from the LZ.

Ciao from down under.

Canungra Musings

2009-11-03T17:49:00.000-08:00

I got on a plane in Hawaii, and 14 hours and 2 airplanes later, arrived in Brisbane the morning of the comp, then a short taxi ride, then wait an hour, and then an hour plus bus ride to Canungra. It was 4:30am Hawaiian time when we arrived at the camp grounds, and the back seat of the bus was where I slept.

Canungra is a little country town in the green hills about an hour from the East coast of Australia. We used beechmont, the east facing launch, for 3 tasks and the west facing launch, Mt Tamborine for the first task. beechmont is a special flying site because on the best days you can take off at 7:30am and start your XC flight. There are several 300km paraglider flights from beechmont, and a few 500km hangie flights from there.

Our tasks started at 10:30ish at beechmont, and because you normally don't get very high, we had 2 elapsed time starts and a race start on the last day. Lots of Cumulus cloud, quite a bit of shade at times along the course, but still heaps of lift even under the shade.

The last day was the most memorable day for me. There was a lot of CU spread out behind launch, but the clouds were not sucking very hard, and the sweet spot was right up under them, because if you didn't hold there, the lack of well defined thermals in the mid-levels meant you would be struggling to stay up. Cloud base was probably only 1500 feet above the ground. The start cylinder was a big 8km, and so the field drifted under the cloud mass and slowly moved toward the edge of the cylinder as the start approached.

Cloudbase was quite varied, and I followed the best lift north and got up and around the edge of the main cloud bank. Now there was a big band of cloud between me and everyone else, so I had to find a sinky glide line to join them for the start or I would fly right into the cloud - not safe or legal. The line I took was sinkier than I had hoped, and I wasn't as high as many others at the start, so once again, I was behind the lead gaggle.

Back in June I started flying a competition glider and it has been an interesting transition. When I was flying a serial glider, it was quite difficult to keep up with the lead gaggle because the comp gliders had a 10% performance gain over my serial glider. I thought that once on a comp glider, things would get easier - I could keep up with the super-hero's on their super fast ships, and I could pimp off their super powers and getting to goal would be easier. Well, after 3 comps on my comp glider, I can tell you it isn't as easy as I once thought.

I found out that being in the lead gaggle on a comp glider is a double-edge sword, in many ways. The lead gaggle is always out in front, discovering by trial and error what the conditions are really like, and without gliders in front, we have less information compared to the gliders behind. We are out on course earlier in the day, and conditions can be weaker. I have been on the ground many times, after struggling with the lead gaggle, and one by one we hit the dirt, and 30 minutes later an armada of DHV2's effortlessly slides over our heads, thousands of feet above the ground.

I also found out that the lead gaggle can make weird decisions, being just as susceptible to the downsides of group-think, the lemming-effect and other strange small group dynamics. And worst of all, the combined power of the lead gaggle can't generate thermals when they need them - they don't have any super-powers after all! I found this out the hard way on the last task.

I was flying the course on my own and met up with the lead gaggle at the only tp, and we broke apart again as we pushed into a head wind and weak conditions. I flew solo to a small sunny hill, and found a thermal which was weak and drifting perpendicular to the course line. As I climbed, I watched the lead gaggle flying toward an obvious spur off of a nice little mountain. They were lower and a little in front, so I left my climb thinking there is no way they all could sink out, someone will surely find a climb and then we will all get to goal. Well, we all sunk out. One straggler on a comp glider flew by us about 10 minutes later, and then about 25 minutes later, the serial gliders came in really high with goal on glide.

That was a super lesson in downshifting when conditions deteriorate - staying up becomes the only priority. You might have to forget about the course line, you might have to turn around and fly back, you might have to ridge soar for an hour, you do whatever it takes to stay up. But for gods-sake, don't leave a climb until you have a much better climb within reach! If you stay up, at least you have options, and sooner or later something will present itself, a bird coring, a cloud forming, improving conditions, or other gliders will come along and you can help each other out.

There is so much luck and randomness in racing paragliders, but the pilot that consistently makes good decisions and the least mistakes will get the most points and with enough tasks to filter out some of the luck, win the comp.

I am now in Bright and I have never seen it this green - all the streams are full, the water restrictions have eased, and I think we might see some different flying conditions this season...

About the picture - one day driving home from goal, the bus stopped and Warren looks out the window and spotted this Koala bear chilling out in a eucalyptus tree. He didn't mind all the cameras pointing at him one bit...

CANUNGRA CUP 2009

2009-10-31T00:31:00.000-07:00

Four tasks were run. A good time was had, more later. The pic is of goal on task 3.

Post Nationals Thoughts

2009-08-29T14:35:00.000-07:00

When I have a really bad day, I don't look at the scores - that would be like stabbing yourself with a pencil.

All you comp pilots know what I mean. Flying comps can be really stressful, but most of the pressure is pressure we put on ourselves.

I used to take comps way to seriously, back then I felt like I needed to prove something, as if my self-worth was on the line - stupid thoughts, I know, and it wasn't all that much fun. Then I began to realize that nobody gives a shit about my score, and that it doesn't matter anyway because scores come and go, they are temporary, just like everything else...

So lately I have been trying a new approach to calm my pre-launch anxiety, I call it the "I don't give a fuck" approach.

If I feel the pressure starting to build, I tell myself that "I am just going for a fly..." which is more truth that fiction, and I focus on launching and getting up, like it was just another weekend boat-around session.

That works pretty well, except it fails if you have a task like the last task of the US Nationals at Inspo. On that day, the absolute crux of the task was the first 20 minutes spent scratching along the steep rock wall to the south and way below launch, using every trick in the book just to maintain my position on the wall. It would have been so easy to give up, on safety grounds alone - No terrain clearance, flying a comp glider with solid rock below, tiny thermals bubbling through, and to top it off, droves of wings landing just below me in a deep green football field - proving how futile the whole effort really was.

But it wasn't futile - I watched Brad Gunn ridge surfing just above me, patiently waiting for a little bubble to come through and when it did, he didn't let once ounce of hot air get by him, - he did figure 8's and keeping his wing in the tiny chimney of lift. He managed to slowly gain altitude and leave the rest of us scrabbling below like desperate guppies trying to find the way out of the tiny fish tank. I held on, and kept scratching as if my life depended on it. Sure enough, a small bubble came through, and after gaining some height and seeing it was a real thermal, I moved out front slowly to find the stronger center and it was my ticket out of hell and away from the hot cliff below...

Once we got above 1000 meters, the thermals were good, predictable, and reliable, and the rest of the day was easy, cheesy, and a lot of fun. Well, easy until the final glide which I mis-judged and landed 1.5 km short of goal, giving up almost 200 points because I left the last thermal early to beat a couple gliders in - man, where is that pencil...

US NATS - Task 7

2009-08-23T20:53:00.000-07:00

I just got home after a 10 hour drive. Yesterday was the last day of the Nats and we tasked. We had a late start because a fire broke out right on our course line - no one had launched yet, so a new tasked was called...

Conditions were weird, it was going to be a slow starting day due to high cirrus clouds. The race started a 4pm and was a 50k task south, then north, then to the LZ below our launch.

The start was wicked hard - I was ridge soaring for 15 minutes not gaining anything, way low and to the south of launch. Finally a bubble came through and I climbed out. Running the course was straight forward. I was behind but caught a lot of people, and I felt like racing a little harder - on the 3 days I made goal I was coming in way to high.

I left the last big thermal over the top of whatever the mountain to the south of launch is, and ran out into the valley to tag the Stouff TP. From there I had goal on a 10:1, the 6030 said I had 2000 ft over goal, so I left. I will never believe the "alt over goal" field again!

The glide started good, then went to shit, so I tucked into the terrain, where I saw Hayden just in front. That line was even worse, so I went out to the valley and tried to maximize my glide. I wasn't going to make it, then as I got down low, my glide improved, I was getting 12:1 and looking at goal but it was to close to continue as there was no where to land between me and goal, and then I crossed the end of speed section and landed in the only big field around.

The final glide was weird, many pilots landed short - it was the one day where extra altitude was needed if you had a chance to get in.

The comp is over, what amazing weather. Good organization, great tasks, and a lot of fun.

Final results are here.

Ciao

US NATS - Task 6

2009-08-22T08:08:00.000-07:00

Light winds enabled us to get a 110km (60+ mile) task in that went south then way north and back south to the flight park at Point of the Mountain. I'm staying at HQ, which is right next to the flight park, and it sure is nice to land 100 yards from where I am staying, open a cold beer and fold up on a perfectly mancured lawn.

A few pilots got to 14k, but the group I was with saw more modest climbs to 12k, and not as high for the second half of the task. The race started at 3pm, and one pilot came in just before goal closed at 8pm. Josh and Farmer crossed the finish line at the same time, one will win the day based on leading points.

The forecast is for pre-frontal conditions today, so we may or may not get a task in, which wouldn't be so bad considering we have tasked 6 days in a row now.

Results are Here

US NATS - Task 5

2009-08-20T19:55:00.001-07:00

Light wind, stable conditions, and a huge task of 111 km. Start was at 2:30 but it didn't really turn on until about 4pm, so a ton of people only made a few kms, and maybe half the field got on course. Three pilots in goal, several more just short because they couldn't get the End of Speed section which was up on the hill.

A lot of people had a good day flying. The scores should shake up the rankings a bit.

Tomorrow looks flyable...

US NATS - Task 4

2009-08-20T08:14:00.000-07:00

Much friendlier conditions today. We had an 89km task going south along the range, same course as T2, but a bit farther, ending at a tiny town called Lavan. NW winds were forcasted, but we had to use lots of bar all the time to go anywhere, although it was easier going in the beginning and harder at the end, which was opposite of what it was like for T2.

About 10 in goal, a bunch of us landed 10km short. I had a really good start for a change, and got to fly with the lead gaggle up until the end, where I didn't realize where goal was, which is something that sure helps... I think I was in the air for about 5 hours. I got to 11,500 a couple times, in some fast climbs.

Mads was in first, then Matty Senior. A whole lot of the usual suspects were not in goal today, so the scores should shift around quite a bit.

Tomorrow looks flyable.

US NATS - Task 2 & 3

2009-08-19T08:39:00.001-07:00

Hello all and sorry about the late posts.

A little about task 2 and 3. Task 2 was long, it took me just under 4 hours to get through the 65km course. Start was at 3pm, so I landed just before 7pm. We went south from Inspo pushing into a headwind for 3/4 of the course, then the range that we flew along hooked to the right and the valley went North/South again. At this 'corner' it shaded out and we had to ridge soar for 15 mins up the shallow face covered with burnt trees, until we got back into the high range. The sun came out and I got boosted to 11,500. Now we had a strong tail wind into goal at NarAir, a small airstrip. We didn't get home until about 10pm. The air was much smoother than task One. Climbs were mostly to 11-12,000 ft. A large fire started behind us, and it became huge. Almost 30 in goal. Mads Snydergardd won the day, 20 minutes in front of the lead gaggle.

Task 3 was into a headwind again, but this was due to yesterdays fire to the south. The day started out mild with a little overcast, but that burned off fast and conditions became burly. We flew north from Inspo, pushing right up against the front of the range, some people flew just a few hundred feet above the 9000+ ridge top. I wanted more terrain clearance. Very strong thermals were mixed in with the strong head wind, and we had to cross several huge canyons, it was the most committing flying I have ever done, and we were only 1/3 into the course.

Lone peak is a high point in the range, and has a small lake in back of it, we climbed in the lee of the pinnacle - there was no other way. The top of lift was about 12k, but the drift put us behind the ridge and it was hard to fly over the ridge as we still had to push into a NW wind. I cleared it, which was the crux of the task for me, probably because I had to clear a small cravat while en route. Now more into the wind to the TP at Hounds, which is a pinnacle of rock lower down on the face of the front range. Not long after I hit hounds, I heard the wind picked up and very few gliders were able to get the Hounds TP.

After Hounds it was downwind to the North side of the Point of the Mountain flight park. The wind picked up a lot. For the last leg, I hung onto any lift cause I was getting low, and I let Darius get out in front where he found a boomer that got us high enough to go on final glide, thanks Darius. About 15 minutes later we landed with very little penetration, that makes 2 days in a row. I think Josh won the day at just under 90 mins. Many people were happy with the shorter task (it was originally longer). about 20 in goal.

The temps go way up for the next couple of days and we should get much higher. Time for the 02 system, thanks to Joe Evans for lending it to me.

Brett

US Nationals Task 1

2009-08-16T19:26:00.000-07:00

We had a 50+km task today from Inspo. Conditions were challenging in many ways and for people that aren't used to it, the terrain is a bit intimidating.

Maybe 10 made goal today. Scores aren't up yet, but will be posted here.

We did have an injury out on course, I hear a broken leg.

Tomorrow sounds like it may be better.

ciao,

Brett

RAT RACE FINAL DAY

2009-07-05T11:09:00.000-07:00

Day 7 had a great forecast, possibly getting way high. Once on launch, the wind techs weren't getting as high as we hoped, it looked like another slow starting day.

The task committee discussed our objectives for the last task of the comp: keep retrieve simple, keep difficult sections away from the beginning of the task, and try to get a good number of pilots in goal, typical stuff.

Then Nicole, one of the wind techs, found a climb and just specked out, stratosphere baby... We also noticed some of the other wind techs were experiencing huge sink. The task committee met to set start times, but some of the locals weren't happy with conditions towards Rabies Peak, I think the large areas of sink made them think about safety. A vote was put out to the committee, it was "Who wants to keep the task the same". It was voted to keep it the same. About 5 minutes later, another vote was put out, it was "Who wants to change the task" and it passed... So the task was shortened.

I just wanted to get off launch, out of the heat and get boosted to 10 grand, so I launched first and started going up right away. The vario just kept getting stronger and I kept flying straight. When it was about 800 ft/min I started turning and the ground dropped away. I saw 1200 ft/min up for sustained periods, and topped out over Burnt at about 10k. I flew towards Rabies peak and found convergence. Then I found sink, like 2:1 for minutes, all the way back to a couple thousand over launch, found another core and rode it to 10k.

Others were heading towards Rabies Peak, but I noticed the rest of the field heading towards Longswords winery, yup, task cancelled. Conditions on launch got funky.

Landing at Longswords was not easy, very hard to get down, very thermic everywhere. This comp was the best comp I have been to in a long time, really consistent conditions, good organization, 5 out of 6 good task calls, and the mentoring was a smash hit, I heard lots of pilots say things were clicking into place like never before. This event is fertilizing the next batch of comp pilots. But not just comp pilots - XC pilots are learning serious skills at this meet too.

Huge thanks to organizers Mike and Gail Haley, all the volunteers, Bill Hughes for scoring, and the rest of you for making this event so much fun and good times.

cheers

Brett Hardin

Final Results are Here

RAT RACE TASK 6

2009-07-03T22:41:00.000-07:00

Conditions were suppossed to be like yesterday, so the task committee wanted to do a big task. The task we ended up with was very similar to the longest task ever done at a Woodrat competition, just 4.7 km shorter.

WOODLZ 1K
GRANTS 4K
GOLD-H 2K
NAVAL 2K
CEMETA 1K
DARK-H GOAL

But the conditions weren't like yesterday, we weren't getting as high on the upwind run to Grants, and after Grants conditions really deteriorated - the thermals were small and very drifty, and when they weren't falling apart, they would only get you to about 1400 meters, which is less than half our big climbs yesterday.

I got stuck with Bill B and Josh C at ridge top height about 10km after Grants. We were joined by Brian Webb. It was educational to see how the gears got shifted, I had the urge to bail and run downwind - it would have been a mistake. It seemed the plan was to stop and ridge soar until a thermal came through. We found small ones and several times turned in them and drifted over the back, but they fizzled and we would push out in front of the ridge and wait and search for something better. This went on for quite some time.

Finally we found one that held together, barely, and we drifted downwind over the valley and saw that a few gliders took a direct line to the downwind arm of the valley, but they were really low. We basically repeated the above procedure for the next 30 minutes, and 2 valley systems, and waited as more gliders arrived and increased our chances of finding lift, but we were drifting closer to the Gold Hill TP, and would have to make a move to run out and tag it, and then run back to the hills.

The next turnpoint was called Naval, and is in the Medford Valley, away from the foothills. After a few drifty bubbles and it became clear that I was going to drift past the Naval TP, so I had to run at it crosswind. Only Josh was ahead, but he is not in the comp, and Meredyth was slightly behind and still in the foothills, but she was climbing when I left. She later said after her climb, she was downwind of the TP, and had to push headwind to get it. That was a better move, as if you are high, you have options, even if you have to burn some altitude going upwind for the TP. When I get low, I get panicky and tend to run which isn't as good as focusing on getting back up at all costs.

I aimed at a good trigger but got there too low to search and it was getting windy. I picked the last decent LZ, and set it down short of Cemetary TP. Meredyth was the only pilot in goal, she took almost 1000 points for winning the task, well done! I think I came in 7th, Webb, Belcourt, Farrell and a few others flew over me.

Tomorrow is the last day and I bet we have a task that puts a lot of pilots in goal, it makes for a happy ending...

Results are here

stay tuned

RAT RACE TASK 5

2009-07-02T21:32:00.000-07:00

Forecast was for 100F and top of lift at 9500 ft. Task call was pretty good, but we didn't expect as much west wind as we got, and so the run towards Grants Pass to Bald Hill required heaps of speed bar, but we were getting very high. Race started late at 3pm.

Task was:

Woodrat LZ 1.5K Exit
Burnt Ridge 400
Bald Hill 1.5K
Poormans 400
Donato's as Goal

To get to Bald Hill fast required leaving the lift when it dipped below 400 ft/min, and then pushing as much bar as my speed system is set up for, which is 1/2.

After Bald Hill, we turned 180 and headed back towards launch, grounds speed was 50+ k/hr and just a couple climbs to get to Donato's which was shaded out by high level cloud which was from OD to the south.

Just after Poorman's TP, I found some light lift and Rick Ray and Lindsay from OZ joined me and we climbed until we had goal on an 8:1. Lindsay left, and I was right behind him. He was pulley to pulley, I was 1/2 bar and we raced the last 10km. Rick was a little lower but close to Lindsay. We were doing over 60+km into goal and of course there was gobs of lift from Dark Hollow to goal so we got there stupid high.

Paul Murdoch was way in front of us, lone wolf and into goal first. I was next, then Lindsay and Rick. 25+ pilots in goal.

Two more days to go.

stay tuned

Brett

RAT RACE TASK 4

2009-07-01T23:43:00.000-07:00

What a bizarre day. The buzz about today's conditions started a couple days ago... I think the world epic was heard, and off the chart, and so forth. On launch, we came up with 2 tasks, one 70+ Km, and a shorter one. But the wind techs could barely get above launch, and we ended up changing the task 3 times, each time making it shorter. The start got pushed back to 3:15.

Woodrat LZ 1 km
Woodrat launch 400m
Burnt Rigde 400m
Rabies Peak 1.5km
Cemetary 1 km
Donato - Goal

The task above was perfect in the end, worth 973 points to Brian Webb who crossed first. My day was very interesting - unlike yesterday, today I stuck to the game plan, stay high and keep a handful of gliders in front. It sort of worked, but the handful of gliders turned into 3 gliders, and about 10k out the way ahead grinded to a halt, and the full on survival fest began... only 2 gliders ahead now, and Paul pulls off the low save, with me 150 below missing the bubble. I went on glide to the last trigger source which was bubbling and I made 5-6 turns, started to climb, and then it was gone.

Now on the ground, I watch a few gliders join the leaders, and survive, and a few drop out, and then a giant mob of gliders drifts across the last leg, high and in a slow but boaty line. 22 in goal. A LTF 2 class glider came in second, amazing.

This is my first comp on a comp glider, and while I am really enjoying having the ability to be in the lead gaggle, I am also realizing that on days like today, it is a double edged sword - you are blazing the trail and if the trail disappears, you got to bush wack. But more than that, when the trail disappears, sometimes the essence of paragliding becomes crystal clear, we bungle through a sky full of invisible thermals and it is so amazing how often we bungle into lift or pull off low saves...

Tomorrow's plan is to embrace my inner loser! TEAM LOSER, I LOVE YOU GUYS!

RAT RACE TASK 3

2009-06-30T22:23:00.000-07:00

A really quality task got set today, many more pilots got out on course, and the day was worth 929 points, highest scoring task yet.

The conditions were not quite as good as yesterday, but lots of lift sources in the launch, Burnt, and Rabies triangle. The course was:

Woodrat Lz, Exit 800 meters
Woodrat Launch 400m
Burnt 400m
Fly Air 1.5 km
Cemetary 1km
Donato's Goal

9 in goal, but not me today... I got goal fever and headed to Cemetary with just me and Bill Hughes in the lead. It got tough, and he survived and the rest caught up and they went to goal. Before the others caught us, I tried a different line and hit the dirt just after tagging Cemetary... Results will be here.

Tomorrow's forecast looks quite good, we could get a long task.

stay tuned

Brett

RAT RACE TASK 2

2009-06-29T20:54:00.000-07:00

Conditions were similar to yesterday, but a little better and maybe a little more active - I saw a few comp gliders coming apart and loosing big chunks of altitude. I also saw a reserve toss right over Woodrat just before the start. The pilot got injured upon landing and I don't know the extent of the injuries... I may post more about what I saw as it could be helpful to others, but not at this time.

I must mention that Sam Mulder showed showed his selfless character when he side hill landed just below the top and went to help the pilot. (Sam is a firefighter and has first responder training). Well done Sam and hats off to you! I hope you got all the poison oak off of you. David Norwood also top landed to help, hats off to you also for putting yourself at risk to help another pilot.

More about the task:

We decided to keep the start similar but move goal to Dark Hollow which is in the Medford valley. As usual the transition to Rabies was hard for the sport gliders, there seemed to be a little wall of wind just before the ridge. Tomorrow we are going to think about making Burnt ridge the first turnpoint as it seemed to work quite well today.

The scores should be our very soon, but I know there were 20+ pilots in goal.

Bill Hughes won the day, I came in right behind him, and then Paul Murdoch and Bill Belcourt, not sure what order those two finished.

Results will be here.

A little about what makes this comp special: tonight I sat in one of the evening classes put on by a couple of the real pros of our sport and I am thinking of how much the people in the room are learning, the information transfer is worth 10 years of trial and error, unbelievable value. Tomorrow's class is one I won't miss - tricks on using speed bar.

Just the daily courses are worth the 395 bucks... seriously. But then we get to fly what looks like to be every day, and get mentored by pilots that know so much more than we do... and the social scene is off the hook. The river is really nice too.

Cheers

Brett

RAT RACE TASK 1

2009-06-28T18:08:00.001-07:00

We have big inversions forecast for the first part of the week, and today was forecast to be like yesterday, which was pretty hard to go anywhere. So we set a task to try to satisfy our nominal distance and time but tried to make it achievable for the field which is mostly beginners.

The task committee worked really hard to achieve that end, and I thought we pulled it off, until I saw the scoring software came up with 24.1 km as our task distance (it calculates the shortest distance around the course), and nominal distance is 25km. We were seeing 29km on the GPS when we set the course. We had 15 in goal out of 62 pilots, and a lot of people came in just short of goal.

The task was:

Woodrat Launch
Rabies
Woodrat Peak
Burnt Ridge
Fly Air
and Purcels as goal.

First 3 in goal: Bill Belcourt, Paul Murdoch, Brett Hardin. We got around the course in just under one hour, that only very slightly devalued the day, it was coming up short by 0.9 km for our task distance that knocked the top score down to 770 pts. But no one really cares as this comp is a training comp and NTSS means nothing here.

Mike and Gail really put on a fun comp, HQ is at their house and there are always tons of people hanging out here, BBQ is on, pool is cool, and there are lots of tutoring going on - they hold classes, and have an experienced mentor per 3 beginners, it is a really a good time and a good value too~

I lost my camera battery, so not many pics coming at you this week...

Results are here

cheers

Brett

The clouds are White in Oz too...

2009-06-14T21:58:00.000-07:00

Hey! This wing has a built in cloud magnet! You don't even need to steer! (Note the free swinging brake toggles...)

Seriously, I'm selling this wing for $350, it's a Boom Sport size M, and I bought it from the super famous Will Gadd! So you can impress all your friends by telling them it used to be his wing....

This wing is really easy to fly, very comfortable and I love it, but it's time for me to get on a competition glider and go faster, I keep getting left behind... Superb coast wing, or inland boomer rider....

The wing is in Portland, Oregon. Email me at cloudbase [at] gmail [dot] com if you are interested...

WCPC Task 4, Final Day

2009-06-07T12:03:00.001-07:00

Today was good, conditions were a little better, lowish base but a lot less wind. We had a task worth a 1000 points, which means the task committe did a good job setting the task. The start of the race was more like a Rat Race task:

Launch 1km Exit start
Rabies Peak (1km)
Burnt (400m)
Launch (400m)
Rabies (400m)
Cemetary (1km)
Donato ESS 1km, Goal 400m

Good clouds at the start and easy to stay up, but shady on course. After the 4th TP, as we left Rabies to start towards Cemetary, Woodrat mountain must have blown it's wad of hot air - a bunch of us headed for Burnt/Woodrat to find either massive sink (as was my case) or zero's. While I was packing up, I watch a group of pilots circle in super weak lift, just enough to keep from sinking out for 20 minutes, it took a huge dose of determination and patience and they finally got away, most of them to make goal.

It was a weird day - if you weren't on a comp glider, slow and patient worked well. But pilots landed in a nice spread all along course, and we got nominal time and nominal distance in, so the scoring program was very happy and Eric Reed won the task and took the 1000 points.

Sam Mulder flew well, 22nd overall. I dropped 2 places from the day before, finishing 11th overall. Cumulative Scores are here.

Race Race is in 3 weeks, I will be there for that.

Brett

WCPC Task 3, Day 6

2009-06-05T16:13:00.001-07:00

We got to launch and there were lots of clouds, but also sun. The task was: Launch to Wellington Ridge, to Cemetary, and goal at Donato.

Start was at 12:45, which is early, but we wanted to get the race on before the clouds built. Just as the race started, Eric Reed took a big frontal on his brand new wing, and something went wrong with the recovery, so he had to throw. Perfect landing, and not in the trees. Glad he is OK.

On course we headed up Rabies ridge towards Rabies peak, and we were pushing a head wind using a lot of bar. Multiple tries were needed to make any headway up the ridge, and gliders were getting low, turning downwind and landing. A few gliders got to base and made it over Rabies Peak and tagged the first turnpoint, a bunch of us couldn't get over the top and we needed to try something else, so we went around the south side of Rabies and got 3 km from the TP, and had to turn and land in the valley. Only four pilots got the first Turnpoint, and only Hayden made goal, Josh and Nick got close.

When we first got to launch, the tilt of the clouds showed how much NW wind there was, and setting the first TP that far into the wind was a mistake, it put the hardest part of the race as the first leg. Having so many pilots not make the first TP will massively devalue the day, but more than that, we could have called a task that resulted in pilots getting to goal, something we haven't seen much of in this comp. I am on the task committee, my first in a major comp, so I am pointing a finger at myself, but there are 4 other pilots on the commmittee that have done the job many times. Sure, hindsight is 20/20 but I think the signs were there.

Tomorrow is the last day of the comp and hopefully we will have pilots in goal.

Results are Here

stay tuned

WCPC Day 5

2009-06-04T09:03:00.001-07:00

The forecasts say stay at home today, and it's been raining lightly since we woke up. Friday and Saturday look better.

Stay Tuned

WCPC Day 4

2009-06-03T23:36:00.000-07:00

Because T-storms have been threatening us every afternoon, we rushed up the hill and quickly set a task and set an early start time of 12:30. The T-storms get started as huge clouds way off in back of launch, but today it wasn't the typical big white billowing clouds, it was one big dark mass...

We all dove off the hill and grovelled. The dark mass shaded out the sun and everyone landed, and the task was cancelled. About an hour later, the sky cleared and cu lifted off... It looked very flyable until 3pm and shortly after the thunder and lightning started and then a bit of rain.

This is a must see, it was on Good Morning America, and is about the Worlds in Mexico in January.

WCPC Results are Here.

WCPC Day 3

2009-06-02T15:25:00.000-07:00

The forecast was for nukular bomb clouds (thunderstorms) but I guess we have to try anyway?

It was a lot of fun surfing the front edge of a big cloud over Woodrat mountain for almost an hour, and then about 7 of us left for Rabies from 2k meters.

Rabies was not working, but it seemed there was a convergence over longsword and a gaggle got high there, but the sky was going nukular, and so the task was stopped with less than 1.5 hours into the task, so it won't be scored.

A few wings actually got on course, which was pretty amazing given the weird conditions (wind coming from Ruch in the LZ). Rumor has it that Matt Dadam made the Grants Pass turnpoint, and I just saw him 5 minutes ago, so he survived.

Just after the task was stopped, we heard thunder and it has been raining and gusting around HQ, the sky is completely dark now.

So we will try again tomorrow.

ciao

Brett

WCPC Task 2

2009-06-01T17:24:00.000-07:00

Very cloudy this AM, but it burned off and we set a 42k task that went from launch towards Grants Pass (TP at Bald Hill) then to Rabies and then Jacksonville LZ.

It was really weak at the start, but a gaggle crossed to Rabies and grovelled hard, while we waited over Woodrat Mt for the climbs to get better. It seemed to work, because we got higher about 20 minutes later and crossed, and what was left of the first gaggle was starting to climb out, so we jump in on their climb.

We slowly got onto the high ground and once we got to Rabies peak, biggish clouds were setting up across the high ground and we were able to mash bar and really cover some ground toward the Bald Hill turnpoint.

We stopped for a climb and then hit the TP, and turned back. The clouds were backing off a bit which was surprising, because on the way out they were building fast and sucking hard, and it was OD'ing to the south. Once we hit the Rabies turnpoint, it was apparent that there was to be very little lift on the way to goal, so those who slowed down and topped out before the Rabies turnpoint had a good shot at goal.

A few gliders had enough height to get to goal, but without any lift it was a toss of the dice, and in the end, Farmer was the only one in goal. I landed 3.75 km short in a big field with 3 others gliders. Back on the course line, the clouds blew up and the task was stopped, but we got nominal time in (1.5 hours) so we should get it scored.

All in all it was a really challenging but very enjoyable task, especially when we realized that the clouds were sucking all along the high ground and we stopped turning and hit speedbar and climbed under the street for a couple kms...

We had a little thunder today, but so far it hasn't hailed like it did yesterday afternoon....

ciao!

WCPC Task 1

2009-05-31T18:10:00.003-07:00

Task 1

The day started off bleak - lots of high cloud and also thunderstorms in the forecast.

The high level skud burnt off while we made two tasks, one big one and a smaller one, we ended up going with the "smaller" one which turned out to be quite tough. Unfortunately, the hardest part was the begining - the first glide off the mountain and onto Rabies Ridge.

Nobody got to Rabies high, and it was windy and scratchy and rough, it was the place where you had to get tough. The climb out was in a saddle just before the ridge gets steep, the comp wings climbed out there, and people dove over the back low and managed to find the core, I wasn't willing to do that as the LZ's are crap back there.

I surfed the end of the ridge where the antennas were, lone wolf. With a little altitude, I slid over towards the the second load of circling gliders and my timing was good, a small but strong core got me out of there and high. I tagged the Rabies turnpoint while I was ridge soaring, now it was off to Burnt. A gaggle formed after Burnt, and we got high and back onto Rabies and high again and then headed towards the Grants TP. Lots of into the wind over the high ground, mostly good going until the last ridge before the TP.

All the serial gliders got stuck before GP, and we landed at Hadley Creek Rd. Only 7 in goal, Farmer got there first. I can't think how the task could have been set better, maybe a later start, maybe going to Burnt for the first TP, hard to say. The forecast isn't stellar for the next couple days, but woodrat is pretty resilient...

Results here

stay tuned

Hawaiian Style

2009-05-15T22:08:00.004-07:00

When friends tell me they are going to Hawaii, I always recommend they visit what the locals call the neighbor islands.

So I took my own advice and went to the oldest Hawaiian island - Kauai.

Oldest means it has the best beaches - more time to make sand, you see.

This is Hanalei bay. It has a world class right hand point break, but no swell while I was there.

My friend Matt paddles, so I got to practice with them in Hanalei bay on a 6 seat outrigger canoe.

Fall in Bright

2009-05-06T00:59:00.002-07:00

Fall colors are here. I sure will miss my driveway... gotta be one of the best in the world!

Next stop, Hawaii for 5 days, then Portland for some spring flying.

Gotta get it while the gettin' is good!

Ciao!

No Flying - so here is a fact!

2009-04-28T00:41:00.005-07:00

It's autumn in Bright and it's been storming like hell...

But here is a fact which turns out to be true!

"The USA, with 5% of the world’s population houses 25% of its prisoners. "

Put that in your bong and smoke it!

Ummm... actually that might not be a good idea, as you can go to jail for that... in the US anyway.

See what The Economist has to say about it

Also check out:

http://yourbrainonbliss.com/Blog/

Gear Mod

2009-04-01T22:56:00.003-07:00

Sarah Black took this pic of me just after take off at the Bright Open. She has a really nice web site.

Really nice weather here for the last couple days, nice clouds today but I am working, sort of.

By the way, the Bright Open was the first Cat II comp scored using AirScore, which is an online scoring system written by Geoff Wong. Pilots were (mostly) submitting their own tracks via the web site. It went smoothly.

AirScore was written using all open source tools and is also open source, if you are geekish, check it here.

Blue skies...

The Tank

2009-03-23T01:06:00.002-07:00

Post comp blues have set in, it happens after every comp for me.

Free flying just isn't as exciting as comp flying, but we have one task left in the weekend-warrior series called the Mystic Cup, and then I guess I need to set some goals to stay interested in flying...

I'm already thinking about the West Coast Paragliding Championships, held at Woodrat Mountain, 31 May.

stay tuned...

Final Task - Bright Open

2009-03-21T16:41:00.006-07:00

Task 4

Today saw the best conditions we have had in at least a month - beautiful CU showing the way, with base at about 3500 meters. The morning air had that high pressure light blue hazy look to it, and not a whisp of cloud in sight, but a big front to the south and a forcasted trough developing over us brought in some instability that gave us some stellar conditions.

The task was very racy - and we had some wind, but not as much as other days, so you could really step on the bar for most of the day and get that average speed up... The task was well set, the winning time was 52 seconds past minimum valid time, which is 1 hr 30 mins. Shockingly Craig Collings came in second! Craig Donnell won the day.

Memorable moments for me were just after tagging the first turnpoint and heading downwind over Goldmine ridge just behind the lead gaggle but higher and watching the worst line of the comp happen just to my left. I was deviating slightly right back towards the cloud line loosing no height and on full bar going 50-60km while watching a white boom5 lead out and loose 3 thousand feet in a few minutes... The sink alarm was echoing through the valley...

The line from Smoko, the downwind turnpoint, to Pyramid was kind of painful - full bar the whole time and keeping the glider in a straight line was the only way to conserve the hard won altitude, but it sure was better than the nail-biting full-mash into the leeside of Clearspot that we did so many times in the previous tasks.

Once over Pyramid, I was alone in the climb to base and I was thinking carefully about when to cut and run as the black bottomed beauty above me was hungry for nylon. My vario showed I was approaching 3000 meters, and then I remembered....

On Full-bar and ears and pointing towards the blue hole to the north I watched the vario start climbing, nothing to worry about, big blue hole ahead. While watching the vario tick towards 3100 I suddenly recalled the one rule that can ruin your day, that thing called airspace...

The vario never got to 3100, but as I knew well enough, I should have been looking at the GPS altitude, oh well, I wasn't going up now, so I either broke it or I didn't, and throwing spirals under a sucking cloud is kind of senseless anyway.

The curving line of clouds over Apex was a good way to get to the next TP, but there was big sink when you crossed into the blue over the valley, but that got me to the Black Fellas turnpoint with enough height to run up ridge to Clearspot and grovel around for a climb which finally came. Andrew H, Gaven, JJ, and Ivan joined in after I centered an ugly little core that finally got better.

We all headed towards the Freeburg spur turpoint with tons of height, but I could tell Gaven was in a hurry and based on the 200+ points I had between me and the pilot below in the overal scores, I had no reason to rush so I stayed a little higher. Crossing Gold Mine and not finding much lift was disappointing, but I did a couple more turns in some light stuff and watched as Gaven and crew dove in to tag the Freeburg spur TP...

I don't like the lee of Goldmine so I let them test the waters, and they found a weak climb over the valley and only made a few turns, and they left with a 5/1 glide to goal, but there is a lot of solid rock between them and goal... I didn't come this far to sweat the last bit, so when they left, I stayed for a bit more height and I think Andrew came back to join me. We watched as they plummeted into the lee side of Goldmine, putting a kilometer of rock between them and goal and sinking into places that I didn't even want to think about.

Our climb slowed and we needed one more climb to make goal a sure thing, so I left with just enough height to reach the saddle behind Gold Mine which must love me as I always find a climb there, and sure enough a beauty was waiting. Andrew dove in under me and I cored up until I had a 3-1 to goal - there was no one near us to race in, so it might as well be a relaxing final glide, and we slid into goal 7th and 8th place. Gavin pulled a miracle and later made it in, JJ and Ivan didn't.

This was my best finish of the comp, but inside my tracklog were a few numbers that held the answer to whether this would be my best finish of the comp, or just another free fly...

Lets just say that it was close - I spent 45 seconds in the red zone getting 16 meters too high, and that's all you need to get a zero for the day. Dropping 13 places in the comp will help me remember to leave a little earlier next time...

Ahh, well, scores come and go, and what you learn is what you take with you, and I learned a lot and had a good time - out of all the comps this season, this one had the most quality tasks. Benn and Hamish worked really hard to make it happen, and so did many other people, and I hope to make it again next year.

Comp results are here. PS: This was a "no reserves tossed" comp.

Ciao!

Task 3 - Bright Open

2009-03-20T04:01:00.002-07:00

We had a tough task today, tough because the end of the day was on in spots and off in others, and you just had to take your chances.

The task was different in that after the typical Smoko run, we had to push up valley into a fair bit of wind to get the 2nd to last TP, and then we had to cross over the Clearspot/Black Fellas range to get to goal at the Porepunkah Airstrip.

I had a perfect start but a couple turnpoints later, I ended up alone on Clearspot.. I can't remember how that happened... Ivan came in below me, and I finally found a climb and watched him really scratch for a long time, then run down the spur still unable to find a climb. Usually Clearspot is just cranking thermals out, I've never sunk out there, and usually get the best climb of the day there, but today it was funky.

Nothing was happening at Black Fellas, kind of unusual too, and I joined up with Gaven and Craig Donnell out in the valley and Gaven went for the Burr's and Craig and I went straight for the Valley Homestead TP. I couldn't keep up with Craig on his comp glider and was alone again just before the VH turnpoint. With VH tagged, and moving downwind finally, the problem was Black Fellas was bathed in huge shade, so I went for the sun hoping to find a thermal on the ever present late evening boomers coming off the ends of the fingers that touch the valley.

It's funny, but every time I come into goal at the main LZ, there are huge thermals just before goal, but if goal is somewhere else, those thermals are somewhere else...

I slide into Little Mystic below ridge height, just barely tagging the TP, and then found some beeps, but couldn't get into the elevator, and game over. Ivan must have found his climb as he made it in... Tenacity pays dividends...

Tomorrow is the last day, my plan is to make goal...

Bright Open T2

2009-03-18T21:56:00.002-07:00

We got in the second task in today. It was shorter because stronger winds were forecast - but that didn't happen and so Craig Collings got around in under minimum time...

I enjoyed the task today, it was shorter and we were getting higher so the transistions worked instead of sucked like yesterday.

Yesterday the End of speed section was 2k, today it was 1k, and that is why I thought the start cylinder was 1k instead of 2k, which goes to show that brain synapsis follow random patterns all the time....

Dave Wheeler says he has thought about putting rear view mirrors on his helmet, and I could have used some today, I left Gold Mine on glide for Clear Spot with 2 pilots in front of me, but if I had looked behind, I would have noticed that Geoff Wong and Heike's line from Gold Mine to Clearspot was way way better than mine, I arrived below the peak, they arrived 1600 meters above it. I need to do neck stretches I guess.

Tomorrow is another day - stay tuned. Scores are here.

Brett

Task One (I lost an entry, so Task One is posted here)

We got a task in today. It was just like yesterday's task, except no one crashed, so we got to bash ourselves into lots of headwind around the mother of all zig zag course-lines.

The most memorable part of the course was coming back to Launch after the third turn point and getting stuck there for what seemed like an hour, yo-yo'ing around hoping the next thermal was stronge than the last and that we would get another chance to bash into the wind, and into the lee side of the next peak called Clearspot.

Only four into goal - Craig Collings, Andrew Horshner, Craig Donnell, Fred Gungle, in that order. These guys were in the group that made the crazy dive into Clearspot early in the day, they surfed the spine up out of Baker's Gully and made it up onto Clearspot, we watched and just scratched our heads.... and then continued our yo-yo contest over Mystic...

- stay tuned.

Brett

Bright Open 2009 - Task One, Almost

2009-03-17T00:20:00.000-07:00

The comp started Saturday and the weather has been horrible, until today. We had a SW aloft and NW coming up the valley down low, and that might explain why the task was a 52km zig zag skally wag never getting that far away from launch.

We got in the air, and up to a nice cloud base and got started on the course, but a pilot crashed into the trees near launch and the paramedics called in the helo, so that stopped the task.

I hear his injuries were not severe, but they couldn't have been minor if they called the helo... I hope he recovers quickly and hate it when one of our own gets hurt doing something that should be easy and fun...

Anyway, we tried and tomorrow is another day - stay tuned.

Brett

How to Influence the Weather

2009-03-11T16:58:00.000-07:00

If you want to fly with really amazing clouds, actually the best clouds of the whole flying season - I have a simple technique for you - leave your camera at home.

Two days ago we had a lot of instability that made the sky 'go off' here in Bright - so we flew away from the mountains where it was going to OD, and out onto the flats where the clouds were tall but with narrow bases, and it was cloud flying nirvana... just like connecting the dots on those 'draw by the numbers' coloring books you did as a kid...

I could have gone really far (excuses, excuses..) but my unofficial retrieve drivers were on vacation and I didn't want to stress test that relationship, so I went cross-wind to the biggest town in the flats where I knew they could find me, and petrol, etc

We spent the log weekend in Corryong with the Melbourne club, and the Amerikaners were there too, so we flew hard and did nice 4+ hour triangles. We flew 3 days at Corryong - Corry takes a west wind and Bright gets rough and ugly in a west... I highly recommend that site if you have a driver.

The last big comp of the season starts Saturday, the Bright Open... let the weather gods smile on us. Pic is of Geoff Wong over Mt. Mittamatite, just NW of Mt Elliot, the launch at Corryong.

Blue skies!

Every once in a while

2009-02-26T01:22:00.001-08:00

Every once in a while, when you fly your paraglider around in the sky, you get up high, way above the ground, and you look around you, and you think "I want to go there". And you point your toes in that direction and off you go.

And when you pick a place to go, it is usually more than just somewhere you want to be, it's usually is a spot where you think a nice big fat juicy thermal will be kicking off, which will then take you back up into the blue...

Today was just like that - I went where I wanted to go, and when I got there, there was a nice, big fat and friendly thermal waiting to take me back up into the sky... And it was like that from Noon on.

After 4pm I was getting tired, so I went to land, and the landing zone had a nice, big fat juicy thermal right over it so I took one last ride up until I was high enough to do a couple of tail slides... which is a interesting way to loose altitude (you actually fly backwards), and land sooner rather than later.

When I think that my entire flying kit takes up just one car seat of space, it blows my mind... this little bundle of gear is the coolest gizmo that can harness one of natures ultimate Free Rides...

Today's Flight is here.

Not Again!?

2009-02-21T22:26:00.000-08:00

Not another day flying into clouds!... How much more can one take!

At least tomorrow will be windy, and we can stay home and play computer games...

and drink beer.

Euro Style

2009-02-20T20:06:00.000-08:00

Fly with cloud, good - make easy lifting and fun.

Launch position forward as not as good fun making... but repeatable often making easy....

Yah, ok.

Flying Faster just got Easier...

2009-02-18T04:20:00.001-08:00

I have been thinking about how to fly faster - just mashing the bar and flying the course line doesn't seem to work, except on the most perfect of days.

At the risk of giving away my IQ, I have noticed that the winner of a comp always has the fastest average speed... that thought started the heavy metal cogs in my mind turning, and another Eureka moment happened - if I spend more time flying towards goal, I'll get there faster! Which means I need to use only the strongest thermals to climb, and the time I saved climbing can be used to get to goal sooner....

As the cogs turned faster and faster, formulas started appearing in my head - math symbols I've never seen before but now made perfect sense - Auto-Regressive Integral Moving-Averages and the like, and through these I visualized how polar curves, fluid dynamics, Reynolds numbers, you name it, it all became as natural as pulling the wing up in a perfectly smooth breeze...

By now all the obvious tips were miles back, way before the whirring stream of equations, stuff like be high and upwind at the start, know when to stop racing and start flying like it was an XC, using the power of the gaggle, etc, and then it changed. The math stopped. Sentences started appearing, like: "Good Decisions and a little gambling can put a LTF 2 across the line first..." and "Pimping isn't glorious but can get you on the Team..." stuff like that.

Humm... the math seemed easy, translating straight into flying faster, but these one liners had a bit of irony in them, they suggested there were subjective psychological components to flying fast as well... Things like "Good decisions are proportional to your awareness and level of relaxation", and "Sheer determination is unquantifiable and extremely powerful...". I was starting to question the sanity of the mysterious insights...

And then the last sentence appeared: "At the end of the day, what really matters is that you learned something new, made a few new friends, had a good time and are able to fly off the hill tomorrow..."

Wow, what a strange trip it's been...

Mystic Cup Task 6

2009-02-14T22:39:00.000-08:00

The weekend has ended - and we got 2 tasks in for the Mystic Cup. Today's conditions were more challenging - stronger SE winds aloft made us think a little harder out on course. We were getting tired of the same cats cradle tasks we do so often, so the task committee decided to use a few new turnpoints and do something different...

The sky was absolutely gorgeous - big cumulus cloud showing were the lift was and where it wasn't. The SE winds made launching tricky, but once off the hill, the climb out was straight up at 4 meters/second right to base... couldn't ask for more...

The western most turnpoint at the Deer farm was in the blue, and I watched several wings speeding downwind over the valley, but I figured it would be best to get really high before going in there, so I slowed down and then noticed there were clouds on the buffalo side of the valley, and also one Fred Gungl, so I took that line in and out of the Deer Farm turnpoint. It seemed to work.

The Burrs decked a good percentage of the field, which is not unusual even on a normal day... We thought the valley wind down low would draw up valley as usual, but I never got low enough to find out...

The final glide from Porepunkah Airstrip to goal at the main LZ(ed) took about 15 minutes on full bar as it was almost straight into the wind. They say the hardest part should be last, but a high base really helped...

Check out the Mystic Cup online, and have a look at Geoff Wong's web-based competition scoring software while you are at it.

Stay Tuned...

Fires and Honking Things

2009-02-11T16:57:00.000-08:00

Big Fires are burning in the state of Victoria - we have our eye on the Beechworth fire, which is now burning 15km from our house.

This wild Koala survived a fire but must have been in shock, as you don't normally walk up to a Koala and offer it a drink of water...

Luckily the wind has been blowing from the south for the last week, so the fire isn't moving our way very fast. Having a south wind for a whole week is unusual - it will switch back to north soon and with a north wind comes high temps, and when we see that in the forecast, we may think about evacuating.

Speaking of wildlife, the other evening I was walking on a track in the forest and heard something moving in the bush, when out out pops a deer, a very large deer. Australian deer are big, more like the size of a north American Elk, and they are very dark brown, and this one had a large rack of horns. He bounded across the road and up into the deeper bush.

A while later, as I was deep in thought walking through the forest in the dimming light, out of the blue an extremely loud noise startled me, badly enough that I almost made a Chockie Bickie in my pants. Then I saw another deer running away from me...

One curious thing about the Australian deer, when they get frightened they make a very loud noise - it's an unusual noise, and it is the last sound you would expect to hear in the middle of a forest. It's sort of a piercing honk, like the blast of an air-horn from a huge truck, but it could also be described to sound like a seal's bark, but on steroids.

The smoke and south wind have pretty much shut down flying at Mystic for now.

Hasta Pronto.

Task 3 & 4 Mystic Cup

2009-02-02T18:10:00.000-08:00

Last weekend we flew 2 more tasks for the Mystic Cup. It's been super hot, over 100F, for about a week now, but despite that, the flying has been pretty good. Sat was fairly stable, small slow cores, and hard down low, but easier if you could stay above 2000 meters and over the peaks. A few clouds popped and gave up superb climbs with base appearing to be around 4000 meters. Saturdays task was OLC style, and this meant long hours in the air if you wanted a big score. A few went over 100km in triangle attempts, but the boaty PM conditions never really happened and this made getting home tough.

Sunday was much better - the day started earlier and the climbs were clean and fast over the short task of ~40 km. The final race to goal at the main LZ was fun - Brian and Heike on a tandem managed to take the lead and Jeff Wong and I went pulley to pulley starting from clearspot and thru Porepunkah bridge TP, and then to the LZ.

Brian/Heike had a good lead and we couldn't catch them. I caught Jeff and passed him just before goal. Brian/Heike crossed first but my leading points compensated for that and I won the day by 3 points.

The cloud over clearspot was sucking massive air into it, and growing rapidly as we left for the last TP. By the time we landed, the sky was starting to look spooky - cloud was forming everywhere, and 2 small lenticulars formed high above us. The big CU over the range dropped rain and was flushing wind down valley, that wind was colliding with the up valley wind around Bright and the resulting convergence was powering the rapid cloud development.

Over the LZ, we had to work hard to get down the last 500 meters, and there were twitchy landings. The task was stopped shortly after. Big storms Sunday night, lots of lightning and a good rain.

The Mystic Cup is such a great way to hone your racing skills, and learn how to fly fast - I am perplexed as to why more of the talented local pilots don't play the game....

The pic is of me, taken near Corryong, Photo by Hamish Barker.

Ci vediamo!

Corryong

2009-01-27T15:07:00.001-08:00

More great racing - we had 2 superb tasks on Sunday and Monday at a site called Corryong which is 2.5 hours NE of Bright. Corryong is a little rural town just west of the Snowy Mountains. There are several free camping sites on the Murray River right on the Victoria/New South Wales border, the river water is cold and deep.

Corryong has some major advantages over Bright - the valley systems are much more open and also sheltered and this mitigates the wind better than Bright and makes for easy XC. We launch from Mount Elliot, which sits in the middle of the Corryong Valley. Thanks to the effort of local Warren Appleby, and many others, launch has recently undergone a major improvement - three gliders can now lay out and launch side by side.

This comp is open to serial gliders only, no comp wings are allowed. This is great as the people that normally fly comp gliders are now on serial wings and it levels the playing field, well at least for the pilots on 2-3's...

Sundays task had a few cruxy sections, the transitions just after the 1st and second turnpoints were tough - after the 2nd TP I got desperately low twice, the second time I was over the flats preparing to land when I bumped into a monster core that didn't want me hitching a ride. That climb was very strong and put me back into the game.

Ron and I were in the lead and after climbing over the towers on Mount Mittamatite, I deviated course and flew straight over the high ground in a magic line that allowed me to take the lead. At the last turnpoint I got race fever, left the TP a little to soon, flew across the valley and hit the foothills a little too low and dirted...

Monday's forecast was even better, but the start of the race proved to be by far the hardest part for me - I struggled to survive from the start, at one point as I flew low over tiny hills to the east of Mt Elliot, I must have spooked a herd of kangaroos because when I did a 180 degree turn and looked down, I saw a pack of over 50 Kangaroos in a dust-raising stampede - bouncing straight towards me, and at first I couldn't comprehend what I saw - it reminded me of the onslaught of ants in the movie Starship troupers - little alien rats rushing towards me hoping to tear me to pieces upon landing....

I was finally able to climb out of the death bowl, and caught up with the main gaggle. Things were much easier from then on as we stayed together for the rest of the course and only raced the last 10km into goal. The course was a triangle that went east - I haven't flow that way before so it was quite fun seeing new terrain. At goal, which was the main LZ, the whole valley was lifting off, huge thermals everywhere you went, I tried to land but gave up and rode one last plume of hot air up just over 3000 meters.

The comp was a complete success - I should mention that scoring was team based, 3 pilots per team, and to make goal, everyone on the team had to get to goal, so we were helping each other out and using our radios much more than usual.

Big thanks to Geoff Wong and Colin Page for organizing the event, and also to Jim A. for driving a bunch of us up to launch everyday. Comp results should be here.

More racing schedule for this weekend at the Mystic cup in Bright...

Go Team USA! (Eric Reed wins Task 1, Brad G. wins Task 2 at the worlds in Valle)

Down Under, Post One for 2009

2009-01-10T21:30:00.000-08:00

The flying has been on in Bright for about a week now. The day I arrived we drove straight from the airport to launch and flew in nice XC conditions. A few days later James Thompson flew from Bright to Corryong, and about the same time, 4 hours north of Bright near Deniliquin, Bill Oats towed up and flew 289 kms (185 mi) in 6.5 hours. Tail winds make that kind of flight possible, or not as was the case with my 99 kms, 6.5 hr flight from Bright to Baddaginnie on Friday.

Saturday saw the first successful Mystic Cup Task this season and the conditions went from dodgy in the morning, to full on by just after 12 noon. Beautiful clouds and huge areas of lift (and sink) gave us a racy task during which I made a calculated gamble which paid off and put me first in on the 41 km task. Not having any comp gliders in the race was for sure a help, and a first as long as I've done the Mystic cup.

Picture taken from the new Gundowring launch.

Tiny Bubbles

2008-12-13T17:15:00.000-08:00

It's snowing in Portland this weekend, but it's only two weeks until I see this.

Warm sand on my feet, swimming in the blue Pacific. Then it's off to Oz for the winter.

I should be blogging some flights in January, so come back soon...

Ciao!

Dude

2008-11-11T17:09:00.001-08:00

Dude - this guy is one of us. He's not a punk-ass rich kid from a powerful political dynasty, like, yeah, you know who.

What's different about him? Well, just take a look at the picture, he's saying "I work for you."

I don't envy him though, as he is inheriting the biggest flocking mess in the world - left by, uh, yeah, you know who.

Ned Kelly's Helmet

2008-11-02T16:04:00.000-08:00

I saw Ned Kelly last night, staring Heath Ledger.

It was really cool seeing the Australian landscape around Victoria, and also the cockatoos, kangaroos, and wombat's (didn't actually see a wombat, but they were eating wombat stew...)

The helmet (at left) was part of Ned Kelly's home made iron armour made from heating plow shares and hammering them to shape around a green log.

During his last stand against the 100 or so coppers, he donned his armour and walked straight at them while firing his weapons. The dents in the helmet were made by bullets is my guess, must have really rung his ears...

Meltdown - Time to Drop Out?

2008-10-27T20:01:00.000-07:00

I think it's pretty safe to say that the people responsible for the global economic meltdown don't give a shit - they are sipping cocktails on their mega-yachts anchored just off shore of their newly purchased private islands. One thought for you, I hope you step on a Scorpion fish!

On the bright side, it's a great time to take a vacation - the dollar is strong in places like Australia and Mexico. Beer is still twice as much in Oz as the US, but Australian wine is pretty cheap. Ok, we've covered the important stuff, like beer, wine and exchange rates, let's move onto to paragliding.

Important stuff first, does anyone have a Boom 5 (with the 2008 line set) they want to sell me? I'm kind of broke because I haven't had a job since October 2006, but I got a few dinero's. Second, does anyone want to buy my boom sport for cheap? How much you ask? Well that depends on the selling price of the Boom 5, of course...

Someone reading this probably muttered "get a job scumbag" and just so you know, I've been trying but the economy is in the tank - and most jobs suck anyway - I mean, who really loves their job? If you love your job, let me know what you do because I need some ideas.

I can't even get a shitty job. But that's ok, because shitty things happen at shitty jobs, like when I got the end of my finger chopped off in this piece of machinery on my 3rd day on the job in a factory a couple years ago...

Hey man, this is it!

Olive Oil

2008-10-19T18:50:00.000-07:00

The olive oil has gone cloudy - when this happens, it means the paragliding season is over. Of course you can still fly here in Portland, but fall has arrived in a big way and the good flying has shifted to other parts of the world, like Oz.

Speaking of Oz, the Canungra Cup just finished. They had 5 tasks in the 8 day comp. The conditions were challenging - really weak and cloudy and reports of flying in the rain even. You can read more about the comp on Benn's Blog.

Stay Tuned, Stay Warm, and Stay Safe!

Task 3 - Chelan Open

2008-08-04T17:29:00.000-07:00

The last task of the 2008 Chelan Open was a huge triangle - 73 miles (118 km) to be exact. Conditions were really good, light wind, Cu at 11,000 ft, and it was cold aloft, 35 F...

Dean Stratton won the day, completing the course in 3:48. That put his average speed at 30.5 km/hour, that is fast! My flight was a little slower (way slower) it took me 5 hours and 42 minutes to get home... and I was really lucky on course, 2 very low saves and for the final glide, we had to cross over the rim of the Columbia gorge, which I cleared by a mere 25 feet... and then had to ridge soar with tons of bar to get across the river and to goal at the soccer field.

I was way under-dressed and spent a lot of the day shivering like mad. This flight was the biggest triangle I've ever done, and the longest I've been aloft - 7 hours.

So we only had 3 tasks, but they were all good ones. Chelan is a great place for XC when it's on, and it was on for the last day.

Results are here

Over and Out!

Task 2 - Chelan Open

2008-08-01T11:49:00.000-07:00

Blown out today, but tomorrow looks great.

Yesterday we had a 68 km task going straight to Okanogan. The field split into 2 right at the start, the upwind group crossed the river and the downwind group took the direct line. The downwind group was the larger one.

The direct line had some tough spots right after the first glide - the lift was broken and drifting hard, I was one of the people to sink out at the airport, so I can't tell you much about the task except that Cherie Silvera won the day.

41 in goal, 985 points for Cherie. Mike Steed is first overall.

Stay tuned.

Task 1 - Chelan Open

2008-07-29T09:08:00.000-07:00

Good flying conditions today gave us a 58k task out to Sims then to with goal at Leahy. Gotta love these 2 waypoint tasks!

The view over the butte looking back at lake Chelan was priceless... One day I want to fly the mountains here, but yesterday we flew out over the flat, dry wheat fields which are famous for their huge dust devils.

The sky got shaded by high cirrus at the Sims waypoint and a lot of us got low for the first time on the course and the wind was strong down low so it was a slug fest for those of us not shifting gears or just getting lucky.

If you got to Sims high, you turned downwind and had goal on glide... If you got low at Sims, it called for some desperate and creative moves, as Josh Cohn demonstrated by turning towards goal without tagging Sims and getting a low save that put him back up high but half way to goal, so he had to slowly push back into the wind for a long time to get the Sims turnpoint and then blast downwind to goal... Desperate and creative and in goal...

Results are here

Shifting gears was the game at Sims.

Four Brett's in Chelan

2008-07-21T22:46:00.000-07:00

Check out the pilot list for the Chelan XC Open - there are four pilots named Brett entered! At last! Some anonymity!

Between the four of us, we can easily say "Are you sure it was me that flew straight through your gaggle? -- You must be confusing me with one of the other Brett's"

I am looking forward to 100km tasks with 2 or 3 waypoints...

Stay Tuned!

Rat Race 2008 Final Task

2008-07-13T10:30:00.000-07:00

A tough start for this 33km task that ended at Donato's. The conditions were weak, but Burnt was working really well, especially later on, which was what fooled a lot of people into thinking it was a stronger day.

Patience was key - 49 out of about 90 pilots sunk out, most trying to get to Rabies or because they followed the lead gaggle to Burnt without enough altitude. I tried but couldn't make the first turnpoint at Rabies, I had to fall back to the spine on Burnt just behind HQ and was able to save myself. That spine was the best place to get up on this day.

After tagging the last turnpoint at Cemetary, I flew in under the lead gaggle as they went on final glide, Dean and Phillip Russman were with me and we climbed in the left overs of their thermal. We left the lift with a 10:1 glide and a nice tail wind. Dean and Philip made it in, I took a different line and even though I had a 10:1 all the way until the last ridge before Donato's, I didn't hit one bug fart along the way and landed 3k short.

This happened on one other task, and I think I am getting "tunnel vision" on my final glides - I am watching my instruments too much and not using the same "power of observation" that got me that far around the course. I am going on final without enough height to slide straight into goal - I am typically thinking that there has to be at least one climb between me and goal, and if there isn't, I'm stuffed...

Tragically, Dean Stratton got only 5.8km worth of tracklog even though he made goal, if his tracklog would have worked, he would have won the comp. Marty Devietti took top honor - nice flying Marty!

Results are here.

Stay tuned for the Chelan XC Open and Canadian Nationals which starts on July 28th.

ciao!

Rat Race Day 6

2008-07-11T17:08:00.000-07:00

The task board had 3 tasks on it before the day was canceled - NE winds are not the best direction for Woodrat and it was a little too strong.

After the day was canned, we flew around and found good convergence over the Longsword LZ. It might have been taskable, but I think the day was canned due to safety concerns.

The Rat Race is very different from any other comp out there in that every night, one of the masters of the sport gives a presentation about a crucial subject that took a whole career of flying to perfect - this knowledge transfer is worth 10 years of trial and error in the air. This is is a real "value add" for a comp and you won't find it at another comp.

the last day of the comp...

Stay Tuned

Rat Race Task 4

2008-07-10T21:17:00.000-07:00

Much better conditions today - pilots were getting up to 7000 feet, and much cooler temps on the ground too. The race was a 47.2 km task ending at Donato's Goal. Brad Gunn got 1000 points for being in goal first. 29 pilots in goal!

Paul Murdoch was second in goal on his DHV 2-3, very impressive considering the next 10 gliders in goal were comp wings (Len's wing is incorrectly listed as a Boom Sport).

There were 3 gliders in the trees today - no one got injured, but I wonder if people are flying to aggressively?? Personally, I don't think it's worth gambling for the points...

Two more days to go.

Results are here.

stay tuned

Rat Race Task 3

2008-07-09T20:06:00.000-07:00

Tough conditions today. 54 pilots got minimum distance. 18 in goal. 12 somewhere in between. This type of spread across the course is what makes the winning pilot get only 461 points - the scoring software recognized the day was tough.

Pilots got very high today, over 7000 feet, but it was tricky finding the climbs. Hayden won the task, I think a first for him.

More hot weather coming our way, but not as hot as the last two days.

Results are here.

stay tuned

Rat Race Day 3

2008-07-08T15:31:00.003-07:00

Day canceled, not enough lift in this extremely hot weather.

stay tuned

Rat Race Task 2

2008-07-07T21:07:00.000-07:00

It's getting hotter everyday - and more stable, but conditions were good enough for a 31km task that saw 21 people in goal. Pete Schaefer won the task today on a DHV 2-3.

The task was just under minimum time and quite a few pilots hit the dirt early on so the top score was just under 900 points. I came up 2k short after taking no risks, except a little one on the final glide and I got no love...

Yesterday we had a reserve deployment - but Cherie was back in the air today and made goal ...

It's going to be 100+ degrees for the next couple days, which should make for some interesting conditions.

Rat Race Task 1

2008-07-06T21:28:00.000-07:00

Good conditions today - we got a 35.5km task zipping around the valley and with goal up the Applegate Valley at Purcell.

There are 85 pilots flying, and 38 made goal. I tried to race with the lead gaggle which is a mistake I keep making. This got me coming into Mid launch from the first turpoint really low and I came very close to sinking out at this point - I wasted a lot of time crawling my way out.

Sam Mulder won the serial class (DHV 2) today, this is only the second goal he has ever made, way to go Sam!

Results are here.

Stay Tuned.

Pine XC

2008-06-24T12:21:00.000-07:00

Portland pilots made the migration to Pine on Sunday - what a long day, 4 hours to get there and Pine is a roll of the dice, it can go any which way. You can fly 100 miles or it can blow out at 11am, the forecasts seem pretty random for this area.

It turned out well, totally blue skies were sliced by big jet contrails that expanded to make a lot of stratus, the contrail shadows were blitzing across the desert floor showing the speed of the upper air mass. Mike Steed flew 87 miles towards Burns, I went 54 to just past Glass Butte, Steve went 36 to Hampton, Doug got 20 miles to Brothers, and Dan got a PB, so it was worth the drive.

The air was active, it was a lot of work to keep centered in the fast drifting cores and there was huge chunks of sink. I got a climb to 14k and was happily over dressed.

Thanks to Paula for driving and to Steve for the use of the short bus. It was great to see Frankie at the farm and spend the night there.

The Rat Race comp is in 2 weeks, I hope to get a few days flying before then.

stay tuned...

Post Comp Thoughts

2008-06-19T23:37:00.000-07:00

You hear about the lead gaggle racing each other into the ground - and it's true, it happens more often than a logical person would allow themselves to repeat the mistake. When it happens, I've noticed I do much better in a task...

The mistake is thinking that you can't allow someone to beat you - what happens is you beat yourself - you beat yourself because you couldn't stand the thought of people passing you. What really matters is the total results (or do scores really matter at all?).

What really matters is that you get to goal, because the penalty for not getting to goal is much more severe than getting to goal slowly.

I think it's safe to say that the real tactician has their ego in check - they know that points are points and it doesn't matter how you get them, just that you get more than the others.

Of course that same tactician isn't going to win a task, they know winning a task has a price - it takes coming up short of goal 5 times for each task you win, and those odds don't win comps.

What wins comps is consistency. The pimpers are the most consistent, damn their souls! But I think every pimper one day gets tired of taking the safest odds and needs a little more excitement, and eventually ends up pushing out in front and taking the risk that comes with being first into goal.

At least they better stop taking the "low road" all the time, cause we know who you are...

West Coast, Final Task

2008-06-15T11:04:00.004-07:00

Another perfect flying day has been delivered - a 67 km task went along terrain that we had seen in bits and pieces on earlier days.

Goal was at the Purcell LZ which is in a fairly narrow valley with a lot of terrain on the downwind side. The excitement began just before the second place pilot, Marty Devietti, was about to enter the goal. At 150 feet above the trees his Airwave FR3 exploded and he instantly threw his reserve.

150 ft isn't really enough for a reserve to fully deploy, but it turned out to be a smart thing to do because it was the reserve that caught on a tree top and stopped his descent. As he swung a few feet above the ground, his GPS beeped to let him know that he had crossed the goal line...

That secured second place for Marty. Greg Babush was super consistent in this comp and wins first place for his efforts. Jack Brown was third.

The week's weather went through a very noticeable shift - it was bitter cold aloft for the first task and by the end of the week we were in shorts (inside the pod) and light jackets with thin gloves. We had some nice Cu for the start of the comp and pure blue for the end.

This comp had the best set tasks I have ever experienced at Woodrat - and I've been to every comp there. Along with the weather, the tasks make or break a comp, but unlike the weather, we have control over the tasks.

I want to acknowledge the task committee for an amazing job - thanks for making this comp spectacular. The task committee was: Jeff Wishnie, Brad Gunnuscio, Dean Stratton, Hayden Glatte and Marty Devietti. You guys rock.

Competition Results are Here.

See you all at the Rat Race!

West Coast, Task 5

2008-06-14T09:27:00.002-07:00

Another really well designed 68 km task today - I am very impressed with the quality of the tasks, they have been matching the conditions and remain very challenging.

Much warmer weather for task 5, no clouds but fairly consistent climbs up to 700 ft/min.

The course went to Grants Pass then to a tricky lee-side turnpoint near Apple Gate and then goal at Donato's. The high ground was working well, but there we some tense moments when we got low and scraped out of a small clear cut right at the top of the ridge line.

Nineteen gliders in goal, I raced too hard and came up 1k short which cost me 200 points - another lesson learned.

One more task remains and Greg Babush and Marty Devietti are within a few points of each other, the excitement is building.

The weather looks good for our last task.

Competition Results are Here.

Stayed Tuned

West Coast, Task 4

2008-06-12T20:32:00.002-07:00

High pressure, blue, NE wind, weird, scrappy, but if you connected with the convergence that was set up over the valley south of Ruch, it made this pinball task a lot easier, for me I was one of a handful of sacrifices that had a very short life out on course today.

Josh Cohn won the 30k task in an hour and 31 minutes, the task was worth just over 700 points, nineteen total in goal.

I have enjoyed learning how some competitors are so consistent - they are opportunists of the highest order, minimizing risk and capitalizing on others mistakes, and flying a fast glider doesn't hurt either.

Two days left, conditions look to be challenging with the current forecast.

The FS scoring program is being used for this comp, and so far I like what I see, but at usual, there are a few kinks and have to be unraveled, and Bill Hughes and Greg Babush are good at untying knots. Competition Results are Here.

stay tuned

West Coast, Task 3

2008-06-11T19:09:00.001-07:00

Marty Devietti won today's task - a 61 km see saw that ran over high ground towards Grants Pass and then out into the flats near Jacksonville and back into the high ground with goal almost to Grants Pass. The wind was brutal on the last leg and only 7 pilots made goal.

The sky was much bluer today and high pressure is moving in, the temps are rising to the 90's by the weekend.

Three days remain. Competition Results are Here.

West Coast, Task 2

2008-06-10T17:21:00.002-07:00

We had strong winds aloft that were forecasted to get stronger in the afternoon, so we had an early start and a shorter race that ended at the now famous Donato's LZ.

A fair amount of cloud showed where the lift was, but there was also strong sink especially on the way to goal. The air was unstable an quite active, I was calling it "jiggy".

Lots of people in goal, Donato was there to greet us and pass out cold beer, it was as good as it gets.

Mike Steed won the task, which may be a first win for him. Sam Mulder made goal too, a first for him. The flying is supposed to improve tomorrow.

Competition Results are Here.

West Coast, Day 2

2008-06-09T10:23:00.001-07:00

A fast moving front crosses the state today, high winds aloft are forecast, so we won't race today.

Stay Tuned

Brett

West Coast, Task 1

2008-06-08T18:21:00.003-07:00

Perfectly clear blue skies today, with small Cu popping in the distance and snow on the high peaks of the Cascades.

The forecast was good so a 65k triangle was called. Woodrat to Grants Pass to Gold Hill and Longsword winery as the goal. Just one big Cu popped over the high point midway to Grants pass and we were getting almost to 8k. It was pretty straight forward until Gold Hill where the lift got scrappy and a crosswind wind picked up. Lots of people decked here.

After Gold Hill, we had to cross a peak with no LZ options, it was a little scary but there was lift. 18 or so in goal, the last 10k was a speed bar stomping race.

A really sweet day to start this comp.

Competition Results are Here. I forgot my camera download cable, so this comp report may be just words...

ciao

Brett

West Coast, Baby

2008-06-03T17:21:00.003-07:00

The first paragliding comp of the season starts in a few days, and I am planning to make it through without getting injured - after all, one needs goals right?

Last year, on the last day of the first comp of the season, I threw my reserve about a mile from goal and broke my pelvis when I landed. I didn't do another comp until seven month's later.

Five years ago, at my first comp, I experienced my first rush of tactical decision making. In the last thermal before goal, I waited for the only other pilot in the thermal to turn away from me before I left the thermal on full bar to do a final glide to goal - I had no idea where goal was, except it was a physical white line in a field somewhere ahead.

Dumb luck and a few minutes later, I was the first to cross the line. From that moment on, racing these nylon contraptions through the sky is one of the few things I do that makes me feel really alive.

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about why I compete, thinking really hard about what motivates me. I've found lots and lots of reason, but it wasn't until recently that I found a reason that is sustainable, a reason that is simple and timeless, and will keep me coming back for more no matter how well I do or no matter what happens - I race because I love playing the game.

See you in the Blue...

Time to Migrate North

2008-05-15T23:30:00.003-07:00

The trees have lost most of their leaves here in Oz, not the Eucalyptus, but all the non-native trees. Really gorgeous fall colors for sure.

The pic was taken up on Mount Buffalo a couple days ago. Most of the mountain burned a while back, leaving miles of skeleton trees behind.

We have had some nice flying this week, smooth fall conditions and nice Cu, good enough to do little XC flights.

I leave for the States on Wednesday, Portland is finally warming up, global warming up, it will be 96F there tomorrow...

The West Coast Paragliding Championships starts on June 8th - it runs at Woodrat Mountain near Medford Oregon, a spot that resembles Bright.

Stay Tuned

Smoke means something is Burning

2008-04-21T02:12:00.003-07:00

The flying is still good in Bright, nice Cu and people going XC - but not as good as the picture makes it look - as that one is from my trip to Manilla for the worlds last year....

All the farmers and the fire authority are burning everything around Bright - this is how they keep the forest fuel low and the fields cleared of weeds, but it makes for some thick smoke when the winds aren't blowing in the right direction.

I am still trying to heal my shoulder tendon, does anyone have a spare shoulder in the garage, just collecting dust? Let me know, I would love to swap it out for my broken one.

Ciao

Clouds plus a Tandem

2008-04-08T00:48:00.003-07:00

Lots of people out flying today, nice clouds and light wind. I went for a XC with Fred Gungl on his Tandem - so I got to shoot as much film as I wanted.

The clouds were weird today - we would fly under a nice darky and there was no lift, you could see cloud forming right above you, even pieces of cloud sticking down lower than base and churning upwards but search as we may - the lift just wasn't where you would expect it to be.

So we came up with a theory (ok, maybe it was Fred's ...) the scruffiness in the clouds were being caused by a layer of strong wind up around base and the clouds were being blown away from their sources, we tested the theory and found the thermal source on the very upwind edge of the clouds, even out away from the cloud.

So the cloud was being blown out in front of it's thermal but it was still condensing and so showed all the signs of lift...

The view from base at 2200 meters was sweet, we were now able to connect the dots and do a big lap of the valley and "seize the day".

Ciao!

Fall Flying

2008-04-05T23:52:00.002-07:00

Fall Flying is here - nice CU for the last couple of days, and the weather looks good for most of this week.

A sore shoulder has kept me out of the sky - it feels like it could be a while...

I went up the hill today and took some pics and drove some cars down, it was nice to just be around the flying scene here in Bright - lots of people getting airtime.

I'm here for another 6 weeks, then back to the States.

Back in the Saddle

2008-03-22T23:55:00.001-07:00

Wow, it's been over a week, but I got back in the air yesterday. There have been a few flyable days since my last flight, but mostly it's been windy and troffy.

The Cu is back, making for a beautiful sky. One peak over from launch is a mountain we call Clearspot and it usually gives up the best climbs, yesterday was no exception - I found a nice strong climb and Cu began forming way above head. The vario went into solid tone just below the cloud and I clipped the edge of it around 2200 meters.

Just out in front another nice Cu was building so I pushed out to it, and it was a repeat. The wind was really moving at us from the north and progress was slow over the crossing to the next range called Little Buffalo. The Porepunkah airstrip was busy with lots of sailplanes being towed up - they have a meet every Easter weekend. I pushed out and just made it to the end of the spine where there was just enough lift to get me over the ridge and to a nice LP (landing paddock) next to the Mt Buffalo highway. Brian Webb got there high enough to connect with the climb and he made it out of there.

Looking at Brian's tracklog was interesting - he flew right over the top of the ridge that parallels the valley and the wind must have been hitting it square enough that his line was in ridge lift as he didn't have any big climbs but made it out of the Ovens valley - I just couldn't see it happening but I think down lower the wind was less - determination, a comp glider and lots of speed bar is all one needs... if you want it bad enough.

The weather looks pretty crappy for the next few days, but it could be very flyable (today was an example) in the mornings or evenings.

Beep Beep

2008-03-13T02:23:00.002-07:00

This morning the haze was gone from the air and Mt. Hotham reported light south - time to go flying.

The day started off slow, so we watched droves of students dive off of Mystic - these students aren't signed off yet, they couldn't have more than an hour airtime but they were learning how to thermal and were skying out!

Which meant it was time to get on the horse and ride. Clearspot gave a good boost above 2000 m, and the crossing to Mt. Porepunka was going well, at 55k/hr.

Once on Porepunkah, my wing was being pulled up the spine and I climbed slowly over the top where I found the elevator up to 2k again. I left Mt. Porepunkah and pushed toward Myrtleford, crosswind aloft and headwind down low. Chappo got boosted over the mountain just behind me and went over the back, towards, well Gundowring way.

The south aloft had shifted to west and I wonder how far Chappo got - I could see coming back up the Kiewa but the crossing back to the Ovens valley could have been interesting. I didn't get too far down the ridge, the incessant valley wind was killing my glide.

The forecast looks dodgy, so I am going to Melbourne for a couple days to check out the city.