Beach

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

Harness Tune Up

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

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

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

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

Post Nationals Thoughts

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

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