Denman

I arrived in Denman on Friday evening. It was calm and would have been nice for a blat with the power harness, not having been run since Gulgong the power harness had other ideas though. In the end I had to strip the carby and clean it all and then set it up from scratch and then it ran like a champ again. I have fitted the new motor I got from Doggy and used a pressure switch from a spa together with an automotive relay to replicate the NRG style "blow in the tube to start" and it works great.
I also don't have  a prop brake setup on the new motor, but don't really need one, you just climb a hundred feet higher and push the bar out to stall the glider and as you plummet with no forward airspeed you hear the blades fold up after a couple of seconds. Saturday was a howling westerly to be replaced by a howling easterly when the seabreeze came in late in the afternoon. On Sunday morning I took the power harness up in a light westerly and it was moderately turbulent but not unpleasant. Scott took off and then as the westerly increased on the ground decided to fly home to Readhead rather than risk landing in the rotor from the hills.

Today (Monday) I flew Merryweather and then got flushed with a bunch of other pilots when it dropped and swung around to the east, again i got some great exercise carrying the glider up the face.

On Weds I'm heading down to Sydney to fly Stanwell as its forecast to be on...

Sydney

Today I drove to Sydney to get my gearbox looked at by the guys that rebuilt it. It turns out the guys in Innisfail used a very thin oil and that overheated and hardened the drive shaft seals, hence the oil leak. The guys at Metro were very professional they obviously live and breathe Subaru and their customer service is polished, if you need any Subaru work done go see them at 1052 Forest Road, Lugano Tel:0295840379

After a fantastic love affair with my climax 2 over the last couple of years  the relationship soured and its been on the rocks for the last month. Today I  made a new friend in the form of a C4, a very special one indeed. I can't wait to take to the skies and see where she takes me...

Back in Newcastle

The drive back was uneventful except for a minor detour to avoid a bush fire on the outskirts of Sydney. Today I caught up on the domestic stuff I managed to ignore for the last few weeks. It could have been on if the wind had been less fickle at Merryweather, for once I made the right decision not to fly as there were allot of surprised pilots on the beach. I'm hanging out for a nice relaxing soar on the coast somewhere... My gearbox is losing oil from the drive shafts, but I have spoken to the place in Sydney that rebuilt it and they say hopefully its a minor warranty  covered adjustment, on Weds I will head down there to get it fixed..

Bogong Over

Sadly events have conspired against the organisers this year, smoke, storms, rain and high winds have all come at once and resulted in only one valid task in 8 days. If you only go to one comp a year you could do much worse than Bogong, the event is the best organised I have been to, heaps of other activities planned and more prizes and sponsors than anywhere else. Mt Beauty is a lovely little HQ filled with interesting and entertaining people and if you were looking for a place to hang out for a week you would be pushed to find a nicer spot. Everyone's heart goes out to Heather and Carol for having put in so much effort to once again put on such a wonderful show and then get cheated by the weather at the last minute. Presentation and dinner/dance is today and in the morning I head back to Newcastle and some better flying conditions hopefully....

Bogong Update

It has been a tough week for those wanting to fly. First the smoke stopped play and now a front is keeping a solid layer of cloud over our heads. Yesterday we saw some magnificent flying during the spot landing contest, some of the legends showed just how amazing their judgement and control was given the switchy light winds and relatively small area surrounded by obstacles. Yesterday was another wait up on Mystic with the spot landing a way to get people into the air for at least a couple of minutes. Today we wait for the rain or a break in the solid cloud cover and hope for a late task from Emu, the briefing starts in 10 mins, so I am off now.

Smoke

The smoke was really thick today, this evening visibility is down to a couple of hundred meters and my eyes are burning from the smoke. I really hope we get a wind change soon so that the local area becomes flyable again.

Bogong Day1

The morning brought alot of smoke. After the morning briefing we headed up to Emu1 where they called an 80km task. At the time it was just about possible to make out the shadow from the mountains on the far side of the valley, but it was always very heavy smoke. The rules say 5kms vis is required and there were mixed opinions when the field started to launch. After about half the field had launched pilots started to radio back with reports of very limited visibility on course and the day was canned. BBQ tonite and hopefully better conditions tomorrow.

Bogong

I flew at Corryong on Thursday, got 3000ft above launch and then only just made the bombout. Got to Mt Beauty this afternoon. It was 36'c on the drive here, quite gusty and with patches of smoke in places. We had a great briefing this evening, the show here is every bit as good as last year. My back is still giving me grief so I am flying the fun and really enjoying it.

Awesome Day

Flew for over 2 hrs on the fun, went everywhere, landed downwind and got away with it, i love my fun. Got to 9.500ft and found insane lift 1200fps+ sustained through thousands of feet. Great fun, got some neat photos, see flikr ...

Corryong Day 1 & 2

Both days were called, day 1 was blowing over the back and day 2 brought thick smoke. The smoke does look like it is starting to clear as the Northerly change sets in so Day 3 is looking promising.....

Corryong

Just arrived safely after struggling over the blue mountains with the caravan. Looking forward to a cold beer and a shower and meeting the other pilots that are starting to trickle in.. Howling Northerlies at the moment.