Save the environment...

The segway is of course a fantastic invention for Americans who are too fat or lazy to tolerate any form of exercise. For people who are perfectly capable of walking it is an interesting concept (presumably you start off not needing it, but as you eat more fatty food and use the segway instead of walking you will need it more and more). But what if you could have something just as practical that needs no electricity!  Gets loads of attention from your peers, save your shoes.

Bill the Kiwi showed me this and it is priceless....


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hmVQc91yVE

Dry Glory

This morning about 30mins before dawn the first dry glory came through. The disturbance was obvious in the pre dawn sky and a couple of very weak and patchy roll clouds appeared and then vanished as quickly. The ground was bone dry again today, none of the Hang Glider pilots bothered to fly, the novelty of a pretty sunrise wears off quickly when you factor in the early start required...


 

No Glory Today

The ground was dry again this morning.

What is it with the Japanese and this kind of stuff?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmAFVPwg7gg

Fading Glory

Today the Glory just crossed the coast but then faded quickly. The ground was dry this morning and there was a strong Easterly that helped break up the cloud.

I only noticed this photo last night, taken from the magnificent Stemme, that's me trying my best to stay in front of the cloud last Saturday. 

Easterlies

Yesterday the Glory stopped off the coast. Today it also died out to sea and was much less defined. Today above 200ft there was a howling Easterly,  35knots at height. I had a quick flight just to check that my repairs to the prop brake were OK and they were. The forecast is for a SE change by Friday, this probably means an end to the current run of MGs, although I would not be totally surprised if we still ended up getting something.
BillO and Scotty and too many others for me to name arrived last night and today they were out on the salt flats and aerotowing at dawn.
I am waiting for some mail to arrive and then I will probably head in the general direction of Canungra where the comps start for me, I can't wait!

Amusing

I can't believe that I am 34 Years old and I only just found this out...

Rolf

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Rolf is a male given name. It originates in the Germanic name Hrolf, itself a contraction of Hrodwulf, a conjunction of the stem words hrod ("renown") + wulf ("wolf"). The Old Norse cognate is Hrólfr.

Motor Sail Planes

If you want to know what impressed me so much here it is. Sorry about my lousy guess at spelling it in the last post.

The amazing Stemme:

http://www.stemmewest.com/pages/s10vt.htm

Distant Glory

Today the Motor sail plane guys had to fly 80NM out to sea to intercept the Glory. I would have assumed that the cycle had ended because it was not visible from the coast. They managed to surf the dry (invisible) Glory lift all the way to Mornington Island and then were able to glide back to the coast, quite an amazing soaring flight over water. I always figured that when I got older and fatter and could no longer run it would be a natural progression for me to get into sail planes, (Of course I am not suggesting that everyone who flies gliders is old and fat and incapable of running)  however having been given a few opportunities to fly in these awesome machines by the motor glider boys I have decided at the first opportunity to get myself into the GFA and get qualified. It certainly does not mean any less flying in Hang Gliders, but I can see where the 2 sports converge now and the sheer exhilaration that is thermalling or soaring is the same for me regardless of type.
I have something to aim for now, a Stemmie would be a real weapon and the Swiss flag would be extra special for me ;-)
There is no hardware store in town and I had no luck down at the tip, but the locals are so friendly they are going to let me cannibalise a couple of their bicycles to get the parts I need to fix my prop brake. It really is a friendly little town.

Online Photo Storage

Finally Google have their Picassa based online storage service up and running. I love picassa. It's as good as iPhoto on the Mac Platform and a must have if you choose to use XP. Currently I use Flikr for my online photo storage and I pay them around $25USD per year for virtually unlimited storage (2GB per Month). The interface is not bad but I think the google one is better. Also I find that the picassa client uploads much faster than the Flikr one.
For the same price Google offer only 6GB a year or just 500MB a month. Based on my last few months that would be pretty close for me.

You can find my Online Picassa Photos here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/r.schatzmann

At the moment I am just testing, but I would be interested to hear what people think.

And at the same time I will keep uploading to Flikr here:  (Notice the new easier URL)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/live2fly

Today the MG was very weak and fizzled over the cemetery. I slept in and watched it roll in at a very tardy 8.30am (hey, it's Sunday and I need a rest) the Motor Glider boys were up at dawn as usual and spotting new and interesting phenomenon as they do each time they go up. The more you study the MG the more questions as opposed to answers that you seem to end up with..

The Glider boys landed their machines out on the salt flats and we had some fun with my remote control sail plane. It was quite amusing to watch incredibly competent glider pilots repeatedly crashing the model. It's nice to know that I am not the only one who can't fly everything the first time I try.

I'm still looking for a spare prop for my Explorer, but at least the pressure is off now that I have had my MG magic. The legendary BillO and others will be here in a couple of days, probably around the same time the sail plane guys leave. Once my new base bar gets here I will be able to fly my C2 again, I am really not that comfortable with using the power harness with it, but perhaps I might be able to persuade someone to give me an aerotow up to the Glory.

As I was going backwards into the cloud yesterday and I was desperately trying to start my engine I initially thought that the automatic decompression thingy had failed because it was so hard to pull. After a couple of pulls I remembered the prop brake was still on and I was in such a hurry to release it I pulled the handle off completely, meaning I have no prop brake until I fix it. I think that considering how much more stable a hang glider is with the engine off I was much better off that it didn't start anyway, its not like I would have been able to get out of the cloud once it caught me...

Tomorrow will be another day off for me as there is not much point trying to soar a glory with a windmilling propeller behind you, and I certainly don't want the bloody 2 stroke racket behind me the whole time.

Morning Glory Video Clip

Here I am with the engine still on and in strong lift in front of the cloud. This was the moment when it changed from being a big dark scary thing that was bearing down on me to a soft, fluffy thing that was gently pushing me along in strong lift.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BP3_rrj7ZQ


I got about 100 great photos, uploading now, check Flikr later today.....

I think I deserve a beer now.

After landing. The first cloud has passed and the second is coming! 

Surfing the Glory Part 4 (starts lower down the page)

So I was riding the cloud and having a ball. Abundant gentle lift in front and above the cloud. You can tell how easy it was up to this point because I managed to take 142 photos during the flight and you cannot fly a HG easily one handed in rough air. I was getting further and further from Burketown, but really I didn't care, even if I had to walk back through the bush for a whole day, it would be worth it for this flight. The cloud was starting to become uneven at the leading edge, in places small holes would appear and then fill back in again, probably related to the terrain it was covering I guess. I was still tracking as far left as I could and staying in front of the cloud. As the terrain under me became more and more tree covered I tracked harder and harder left to stay closer to a landing option. It was about at this point that I stopped taking photos as it became obvious I could have the cloud or a safe landing  place, but probably not both. I was tracking left  and about in the middle of the front of the leading edge  when the cloud pounced.  Suddenly It was cold and I knew exactly what that meant. The cloud very slowly and gently enveloped me, I was desperately trying to start my bloody 2 stroke so I could perhaps get out again. I gave up once I was inside the cloud. I knew I was going down fast and just held the bar to my knees and waited. I was only whited out for about 20secs and popped out directly under the cloud. I had just enough time to unzip the harness and get the legs down and as luck would have it I was directly over a gravel road. I could see the second cloud only a minute away so I landed as quickly as I could and had all my weight on the base bar when the gust front hit. I landed on a small gravel road, on a cattle grid with barbed wire fence running down each side, and perfectly too!
Once the gust front from the second and third waves had passed I took off again and flew back to the airport. I had to stay low to get good ground speed, but if I was not 100% comfortable with the Power Harness before, well I certainly am now. I landed where I took off back at the airport and packed up. Wow.
I only used about 10mins of fuel to get into the Glory and was lucky with just a  cross wind on the way home so I was actually able to self retrieve! How cool is this sport!

Warm, Damp and very Gentle. 

Surfing Glory Part 3 (Go down the page for the first parts)

Even though I was flying as fast as I could to stay out of it and it was obviously a very powerful cloud, it was very smooth. The theory is that when the cloud forms the energy is concentrated according to its height, so the higher clouds that we have had previously move much slower. I was feeling pretty comfortable with my position in front of the cloud, but was really starting to get bothered by the lack of roads or landing options directly beneath me. The way I was looking at things I was not entirely sure how long the cloud would tolerate my presence and if I lost the lift I was in I was going to be on the ground within a minute, possibly landing in a gust front too,so I wanted a nice clear area and preferably a road too.  I decided my priority was staying over a safe landing area, rather than getting maximum distance and so I started tracking left to get closer to the one gravel road that I could see. I was flying the fun at a speed that meant I was slowly losing height and staying in front of the cloud, or I could slow down and go up over the cloud. I decided that going over the top would be a bad thing, I knew that a couple of hang glider pilots have been through the middle of it and survived so I figured this was the least bad option if I could not outrun it forever.
Several times the cloud caught me and then le me go again, the lift does extent into the cloud a fair way, I was accidentally whited out once and then flew back out the front of the cloud and kept going.

Surfing the Cloud! Engine Off and passing Burketown Airport. 

Intercepting the cloud over the salt flats. 

Surfing the Glory Part 2 (Go down the page for the start)

As I climbed up over Burketown it looked as though the cloud was almost stationary. It was only once I got within a few KMs of it, it suddenly seemed to speed up and grow in size. It became this huge, black ominous looking thing and I was level with the bottom of it. I changed course so that I could get more height before it caught me. It was about now that I realised how fast it was travelling over the ground, it was really moving. I rigged so fast today that I did not bother with the Sony Video camera under a wing-tip or any instruments or even any underwear. It was really seat of the pants flying. About 1km away from the cloud I could start to feel gentle lift, as I got closer to the cloud the lift continued to increase until I was flying with the bar to my knees, directly away from it and still going up.
As soon as I realised I did not need it any more I shut down the motor and braked the prop. The fun was just able to stay on the leading edge, I had about a 10kph speed advantage over the cloud. It quickly became obvious that the cloud was taking me into Tiger country and the nearest roads were disappearing off to my left. I started trying hard to work my way along the cloud to the left to keep the  road  in sight. It was interesting flying, the cloud would advance on me as I tracked left and as soon as the first wispy bits of cloud started to form around me I would change course to the same direction as the cloud and slowly get in front of it again.
As you can guess the first time the cloud started to form around me I was really interested to see whether it was going to let me go again.

Climbing over Burketown on my way to intercept the Glory Roll Cloud.
 

Surfing on the Glory!

Today was the day. It almost was not though.
I have been getting up whilst it is still dark for too long now. I hate mornings and they physically hurt me, I am not at my best. But despite this I have been getting up and rigging my glider in the dark and damp because I knew it would be worth it eventually.
My back is probably my weakest part and I have been pretty rough on it lately. This morning when my alarm went off at 4.30am I felt lousy. I really did not want to get out of bed. I looked at the radar from Mornington Island and that showed nothing, I looked at the infra-red sat pic and that showed nothing. I went outside and there was some dew, but the humidity was only 85%, 5%  less than yesterday. I decided that my bed was a safe thing, the last few Glories have been very slow moving and have fizzled on the coast, this would probably do the same. I went back to sleep.
Around 6.30am Charles one of the Glider Pilots (he has the zemango (sorry about the spelling)) knocked on my door and said there was a glory
about to cross the coast at 35knots, he asked if I wanted to come and watch it pass over head at the cemetery. Bugger that, I want to fly it, not look at it. I sculled 2 cans of Red Bull and threw on the nearest clothes and raced out to the airport.
I rigged up the damp fun in daylight for a change and took off in Nil wind with the cloud visible perhaps 6 miles away. It was the fasted rig I have ever done, Charles reckoned it was less than 20mins from when he knocked on my door to when they watched me intercept the cloud over the cemetery.

I caught one!

Story and Video coming soon. I need to come down a bit first!