Post by thevon on May 2, 2009 9:43:18 GMT 10
On Tuesday my wife Janet and I celebrated our 25th Wedding Anniversary (can you believe that??). So we managed to escape, sans kids, for a break at our inlaws’ place near Pedwell Rd Mt Mee. They’re away too so we have the place to ourselves. You couldn’t buy a better retreat, It’s just so relaxing and so quiet - surrounded by bush, with the sounds of birds and wind in the trees, instead of traffic, kids and TV.
“She who Must Be Obeyed” encouraged me to bring gliders on the break, but there was no wind, so I spent some time setting up the Miraj I got from Portfox, to get it fly-able on my radio.
Thursday morning there was a fresh SW and we decided to go on a flying expedition together (almost unheard of). But we got going very late and the wind was dying by the time we wre on the road. We went first to Kev’s Ridge and when we got there the wind was almost dead, but with big thermals moving through. I had a short fly of the Fazo and Janet took some photos, but we didn’t hang around long. But Kev’s is such a beautiful spot it was a privelege just to visit, wind or no wind.
Then we went down near Dayboro to the Lemontree site and Bob the owner was very enthusiastic about the clearing he’d been doing with the dozer. Wow! I was so impressed. He’s got stuck into this clearing purely because he’s so supportive of our flying! It’s very good of him and I need to find a way to show our appreciation. Lemontree is in my opinion the best Westerly site around and a great DS spot, even for learners.
Bob has scraped then entire inside of “The Bowl” clean and pushed some regrowth back. Further along he’s cleared a lot of the lantana on top of the hill, so you can now walk onto the frontside at the highest point and launch - and he’s scraped a big enough patch to land in good air on the front! I was so impressed. And .... (hold your breath) he’s completely pushed away the wall of lantana on the backside-side of the track, so you can look clearly down the backside all the way along the track!! Woo-oo-hooo!
Looking north from the newly-cleared hilltop area:
And looking south, towards the Bowl:
Unfortunately something big, rusty and important broke on the geriatric Caterpillar dozer and Bob was unable to do more, but he’s getting it fixed soon. The change already made is great!
So after making use of the photo opportunity to get some pics of the 2 of us sitting on the old dozer eating corn chips, I put the Fazo together and launched off the front of the hilltop .... where 2 weeks ago I would have been standing in an 8 foot high thicket of lantana! I DS’ed along the ridge, walking its full length, but it was really light conditions. The best power still seemed to be at the Lemontree end. Then after an easy landing in the newly-dozed soft dirt on the front, we moved down to The Bowl and found that it was working really nicely.The wind really seems to funnel through there, being the lowest point, and the inside of the bowl is absolutely clean, dead air. I thought to myself - “if you can’t DS here, you can’t DS anywhere!”
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www.windsock.net.au/andrew/DS%20Fazo%20bowl%201.jpg[/img]
I did a nice landing, pulled out the Prospeed and gave Janet a lesson in radar-gunning but she never got a chance. I launched, plummeted into sink and had to do an emergency landing into the top of the scrub. The wind didn’t come good, so we packed up.
About 10 metres down the track I pulled up asking “where are my sunnies”
Now as some of you know, I have a real problem with spectacles - sunnies in particular. It’s as if my body treats them as foreign object, to be rejected by the system. This was merely annoying when I was losing $25 sunnies, but now that I’m onto $400 prescription glasses, it’s a serious issue. Janet groaned and we unpacked the car (the first of about 4 times). We retraced my steps and searched where the car had been (many times). We went scrubbashing to where I’d retrieved the plane (twice). We drove back up to the hilltop, even though I knew they couldn’t be there. We prayed fervently. Janet berated me with truthful proclamations, e.g. “this is getting ridiculous! You HAVE to do something to attach them to yourself!” After about an hour and a half, during which time Bob came up to see what the problem was, we were ready to give up. As a last ditch effort we did a “grid search” of the hump, and after 20 minutes of silent glum crisscrossing I almost walked over the sunnies. They were that hard to see! And, they were on the road part of the paddock which we’d driven over several times.
Another dramatic AvB flying session ... always more drama than flying I think.
PS - I am quite excited about this site and am planning to take our little tractor out there to slash some landing areas, plus some chainsaws, brushcutter etc, to do a bit more tidying up. Probably the weekend after this (7/8th). So if anyone's keen, it would be good to have a few guys for a working bee ... and a fly if there's a Sou-Wester.
“She who Must Be Obeyed” encouraged me to bring gliders on the break, but there was no wind, so I spent some time setting up the Miraj I got from Portfox, to get it fly-able on my radio.
Thursday morning there was a fresh SW and we decided to go on a flying expedition together (almost unheard of). But we got going very late and the wind was dying by the time we wre on the road. We went first to Kev’s Ridge and when we got there the wind was almost dead, but with big thermals moving through. I had a short fly of the Fazo and Janet took some photos, but we didn’t hang around long. But Kev’s is such a beautiful spot it was a privelege just to visit, wind or no wind.
Then we went down near Dayboro to the Lemontree site and Bob the owner was very enthusiastic about the clearing he’d been doing with the dozer. Wow! I was so impressed. He’s got stuck into this clearing purely because he’s so supportive of our flying! It’s very good of him and I need to find a way to show our appreciation. Lemontree is in my opinion the best Westerly site around and a great DS spot, even for learners.
Bob has scraped then entire inside of “The Bowl” clean and pushed some regrowth back. Further along he’s cleared a lot of the lantana on top of the hill, so you can now walk onto the frontside at the highest point and launch - and he’s scraped a big enough patch to land in good air on the front! I was so impressed. And .... (hold your breath) he’s completely pushed away the wall of lantana on the backside-side of the track, so you can look clearly down the backside all the way along the track!! Woo-oo-hooo!
Looking north from the newly-cleared hilltop area:
And looking south, towards the Bowl:
Unfortunately something big, rusty and important broke on the geriatric Caterpillar dozer and Bob was unable to do more, but he’s getting it fixed soon. The change already made is great!
So after making use of the photo opportunity to get some pics of the 2 of us sitting on the old dozer eating corn chips, I put the Fazo together and launched off the front of the hilltop .... where 2 weeks ago I would have been standing in an 8 foot high thicket of lantana! I DS’ed along the ridge, walking its full length, but it was really light conditions. The best power still seemed to be at the Lemontree end. Then after an easy landing in the newly-dozed soft dirt on the front, we moved down to The Bowl and found that it was working really nicely.The wind really seems to funnel through there, being the lowest point, and the inside of the bowl is absolutely clean, dead air. I thought to myself - “if you can’t DS here, you can’t DS anywhere!”
www.windsock.net.au/andrew/DS%20Fazo%20bowl%201.jpg[/img]
I did a nice landing, pulled out the Prospeed and gave Janet a lesson in radar-gunning but she never got a chance. I launched, plummeted into sink and had to do an emergency landing into the top of the scrub. The wind didn’t come good, so we packed up.
About 10 metres down the track I pulled up asking “where are my sunnies”
Now as some of you know, I have a real problem with spectacles - sunnies in particular. It’s as if my body treats them as foreign object, to be rejected by the system. This was merely annoying when I was losing $25 sunnies, but now that I’m onto $400 prescription glasses, it’s a serious issue. Janet groaned and we unpacked the car (the first of about 4 times). We retraced my steps and searched where the car had been (many times). We went scrubbashing to where I’d retrieved the plane (twice). We drove back up to the hilltop, even though I knew they couldn’t be there. We prayed fervently. Janet berated me with truthful proclamations, e.g. “this is getting ridiculous! You HAVE to do something to attach them to yourself!” After about an hour and a half, during which time Bob came up to see what the problem was, we were ready to give up. As a last ditch effort we did a “grid search” of the hump, and after 20 minutes of silent glum crisscrossing I almost walked over the sunnies. They were that hard to see! And, they were on the road part of the paddock which we’d driven over several times. Another dramatic AvB flying session ... always more drama than flying I think.
PS - I am quite excited about this site and am planning to take our little tractor out there to slash some landing areas, plus some chainsaws, brushcutter etc, to do a bit more tidying up. Probably the weekend after this (7/8th). So if anyone's keen, it would be good to have a few guys for a working bee ... and a fly if there's a Sou-Wester.
