Post by thevon on Sept 1, 2008 10:45:29 GMT 10
Well it seems no-one’s done any reporting on the NNSW side of the weekend’s flying, so although I currently feel like sulking in a corner (more later) I’ll kick in with the first précis.
I planned to go to the thermal comp at Lismore some time ago – seemed like a great weekend to hang out with the guys - then nearly cancelled due to family stuff, then we decided that most of the tribe would stay at the in-laws lovely holiday house in the hills behind Pottsville and I’d go to the comp. So we rolled up Friday night, and Sean who’d opted to stay with us for the 2 nights turned up late after the vague instructions got him lost up various driveways and being chased by dogs.
Next morning after a 45min drive we got to the field and bounced across the paddock to a colourful splash of huge moldies, spread around the cars and tents. Brian (Bananaman), Ezza, Ken, Jeff and Chris were there plus some familiar faces from the MRSA club. The atmosphere of the event couldn’t have been friendlier. There were about 15 winches strung across the paddock which had lots of lovely soft grass and soft-ish earth. There were 24 entrants. Six launched at a time, then the other 3 lots of 6 for the round, then the next heat started. They had 5 (or 6?) heats over the day.
Us newbies (Sean, me, Chris) worked hard at trying connect with the concept of finding and staying in thermals which was frustrating at times. Meanwhile the pros like Brian (who was leading the comp by day’s end) were landing on the mark, at 10 minutes. It became more challenging around lunch when it got cooler and cloudy, and the wind turned downwind. The launches were much lower and it was hard to find lift, so there were lots of early landings and on one occasion while the pros were measuring their landings in 10/ths of a metre from the spot, Sean and I were walking about a hundred metres across the paddock to pick up our landed-out gliders!
It was all great. Lots of time to meet new people and hear lots of good stuff. Peter Pine was taking photos of people and asking lots of questions for an article he’s writing for a mag called “Silent Flight International”. It was a huge paddock so people chucked DLG’s and flew electrics now and then. Nige and Astan (Airtime) came for a while too so the social aspect of the day was a plus.
Karl (?) who’s been to world championships was one of the really pro guys. He had an Icon Light which flew like magic– just seemed to float like a butterfly. Between rounds he was hand throwing the huge >3m plane & doing giant circles around the paddock and hand catching it. Beautiful. But tragedy soon struck this beauty … Karl was using a short (100m rather than 200m) winch length, as practice for World events where launches are lower. On one launch, with the tailwind, he tried a fancy move called circle towing, meaning that rather than going straight up on the line he does a big fast semicircle around the turnaround pulley, then the plane’s being pulled back towards him, upwind, for a more powerful launch. But he pushed it too far - the plane snapped into the ground at the ¼ circle mark and went in with a very big crunch. It was a Baaa-a-a-d mess. Not worth fixing. I felt really sad – it was a lovely plane. But he was upbeat and philosophical about it, pulled out a backup stronger Icon, and kept flying.
I was still having trouble with thermal circling, then Ken gave me some advice, to increase aileron differential and reduce elevator rates and hey presto, it got so much easier! Can’t say my results reflected that, but the Fazer circled so much more smoothly. At the end I spent ages with some guys doing hand tosses with the Nemesis in the paddock and bringing it round for hand catches. Could have kept going, it was so much fun. Felt like a kid again. The day ended with a quick visit to the pub before Sean and I had to bolt home for dinner.
I decided to skip the 2nd day of the comp, because I was worried that I couldn’t get back in time. I sadly waved Sean off as he left for what turned out to be a really great day of flying, where he got some near perfect scores. There was a very strong northerly blowing, but apparently the lift was strong at the thermal field.
Did a few things with the kids but due to the increasing wind the flying bug still bit hard, so around lunch we drove down to the beach for the wife and kids to have a swim while I fly. I checked out Hastings Pt, but the wind was too north so we went to Cabarita. My first time there, and wow! What a spot for frontside! Heaps of wind - a bit side-on but a big patch of mown lawn to land on, with lots of soft grass and bush around too. I flew and trimmed out the rebuilt Reaper, moving the CG back till it was carving it up. Then with a few nerves put some ballast in the new Nemesis and threw it out and man, it was so good. Carved it up. The best bit was you could come across low and with flaps, put down on the short grass strip and ski into the soft grass verge! All this is about 3 metres in front of the parked cars.
The headland looked like it might have DS potential and it probably does, but it wasn’t my day. The wind was so strong it was hard to carry the planes up. The top is a knoll with the backside being a vertical cliff with gullies – not ideal, but I gave it a go. The first dive-in the Reaper stopped dead and only just got back over the lip. The next time I went faster and didn’t dive so deep, and on the exit it got spewed around like a kid being tumbled in dumper surf. Doinked the nose pretty bad.
After lunch with such strong wind, we headed about 25mins south to a lookout on the highway near Byron Bay. Just where Coolamon Scenic Drive turns off. It’s a huge high bowl, used by hang gliders and real gliders too. I put the Reaper up, and even with about 400gm of ballast, that patched-up plane was totally carving. It was fantastic. It was so good, it was like the first few minutes on that “Lift Ticket” DVD where the Higgins Rodent is carving in front of the Golden Gate Bridge. Flying in huge lift like that was very special, but Ezza and Astan, who turned up soon later, said they have heaps of days like that!
Ezza had said to me it’s a DS spot too, but it didn’t look any good and didn’t work either. Down the road further along the ridge was a big line of tall trees, right behind a house. I thought no way, you wouldn’t DS over a house? When Ezza turned up he pointed to the trees and said “that’s it!”. It’s where Ezza first got his 184mph with the Opus. Astan knows the owners too. So I headed down and started DSing the Reaper just as Jeff Irvin and some others turned up. The great part was that my wife could sit in the van with a perfect view of the backside circles! Her first time seeing what DS is all about.
Ez meanwhile was setting up the Kinetic 60. This is a DS specialist plane he recently bought 2nd hand – it has strong links to the development of DS in the US – a very special plane. This was Ezza’s first flight in reasonable wind. With the throws set exactly as recommended by Spencer Lisenby, the designer of the plane and the current world record holder (365mph) he threw it out and it looked solid. Over the fence we clamber and the speeds are straight into the 120’s and after 5 or 10 mins the PB was 137. There were a bunch of very impressed onlookers amazed by the speed, the sound, and the snapping paperclip topturns.
Ezza landed for a break and Sean got the Erwin up. My 9yr old daughter Lisa had a great time radar gunning alongside me – Sean’s best was 130mph and as usual he was so smooth – but the most impressive thing is the sound the Erwin makes. There aren’t words to describe it, but it’s exciting.
Ezza threw the Nemesis off for me, with almost full ballast. Could happily have stayed frontside, it was so good but we climbed the fence and over the back. Compared to E&S, my circles were pretty wild, but I hit 112 pretty easily. It was great! The Nemesis is really very fast. But the day ended sadly for me (again). I have to hang my head and shuffle my feet and embarrassedly say I mashed up part of the Nemesis wing. I kept going a bit too low and on one exit I honestly don't know what happened - seemed like a flick and it hit the top branches, fell back, dropped and fluttered about 40m and landed like a javelin almost in front of us! I could waffle on with various excuses but one problem was that after DSing a while I remembered to switch the rudder mix off, but by mistake switched the dual rates off, so I was zinging around manically with high rates and ail/rud mix on which probably contributed to the bad flying. Plus, new site, flying with painkillers for headache, etc, etc.
Sometimes I think it would be better for me to be a spectator - to write these reports and keep out of the flying! But you have to choose whether to get out and have a go, and accept the risks if you do. The damage is hard to live with, but the buzz of a good time flying is hard to beat. Writing this article I realize it was a huge weekend, lots of memories and experience. But I think I need to withdraw from flying for a while and give myself a course on moldie repairs.
I planned to go to the thermal comp at Lismore some time ago – seemed like a great weekend to hang out with the guys - then nearly cancelled due to family stuff, then we decided that most of the tribe would stay at the in-laws lovely holiday house in the hills behind Pottsville and I’d go to the comp. So we rolled up Friday night, and Sean who’d opted to stay with us for the 2 nights turned up late after the vague instructions got him lost up various driveways and being chased by dogs.
Next morning after a 45min drive we got to the field and bounced across the paddock to a colourful splash of huge moldies, spread around the cars and tents. Brian (Bananaman), Ezza, Ken, Jeff and Chris were there plus some familiar faces from the MRSA club. The atmosphere of the event couldn’t have been friendlier. There were about 15 winches strung across the paddock which had lots of lovely soft grass and soft-ish earth. There were 24 entrants. Six launched at a time, then the other 3 lots of 6 for the round, then the next heat started. They had 5 (or 6?) heats over the day.
Us newbies (Sean, me, Chris) worked hard at trying connect with the concept of finding and staying in thermals which was frustrating at times. Meanwhile the pros like Brian (who was leading the comp by day’s end) were landing on the mark, at 10 minutes. It became more challenging around lunch when it got cooler and cloudy, and the wind turned downwind. The launches were much lower and it was hard to find lift, so there were lots of early landings and on one occasion while the pros were measuring their landings in 10/ths of a metre from the spot, Sean and I were walking about a hundred metres across the paddock to pick up our landed-out gliders!
It was all great. Lots of time to meet new people and hear lots of good stuff. Peter Pine was taking photos of people and asking lots of questions for an article he’s writing for a mag called “Silent Flight International”. It was a huge paddock so people chucked DLG’s and flew electrics now and then. Nige and Astan (Airtime) came for a while too so the social aspect of the day was a plus.
Karl (?) who’s been to world championships was one of the really pro guys. He had an Icon Light which flew like magic– just seemed to float like a butterfly. Between rounds he was hand throwing the huge >3m plane & doing giant circles around the paddock and hand catching it. Beautiful. But tragedy soon struck this beauty … Karl was using a short (100m rather than 200m) winch length, as practice for World events where launches are lower. On one launch, with the tailwind, he tried a fancy move called circle towing, meaning that rather than going straight up on the line he does a big fast semicircle around the turnaround pulley, then the plane’s being pulled back towards him, upwind, for a more powerful launch. But he pushed it too far - the plane snapped into the ground at the ¼ circle mark and went in with a very big crunch. It was a Baaa-a-a-d mess. Not worth fixing. I felt really sad – it was a lovely plane. But he was upbeat and philosophical about it, pulled out a backup stronger Icon, and kept flying.
I was still having trouble with thermal circling, then Ken gave me some advice, to increase aileron differential and reduce elevator rates and hey presto, it got so much easier! Can’t say my results reflected that, but the Fazer circled so much more smoothly. At the end I spent ages with some guys doing hand tosses with the Nemesis in the paddock and bringing it round for hand catches. Could have kept going, it was so much fun. Felt like a kid again. The day ended with a quick visit to the pub before Sean and I had to bolt home for dinner.
I decided to skip the 2nd day of the comp, because I was worried that I couldn’t get back in time. I sadly waved Sean off as he left for what turned out to be a really great day of flying, where he got some near perfect scores. There was a very strong northerly blowing, but apparently the lift was strong at the thermal field.
Did a few things with the kids but due to the increasing wind the flying bug still bit hard, so around lunch we drove down to the beach for the wife and kids to have a swim while I fly. I checked out Hastings Pt, but the wind was too north so we went to Cabarita. My first time there, and wow! What a spot for frontside! Heaps of wind - a bit side-on but a big patch of mown lawn to land on, with lots of soft grass and bush around too. I flew and trimmed out the rebuilt Reaper, moving the CG back till it was carving it up. Then with a few nerves put some ballast in the new Nemesis and threw it out and man, it was so good. Carved it up. The best bit was you could come across low and with flaps, put down on the short grass strip and ski into the soft grass verge! All this is about 3 metres in front of the parked cars.
The headland looked like it might have DS potential and it probably does, but it wasn’t my day. The wind was so strong it was hard to carry the planes up. The top is a knoll with the backside being a vertical cliff with gullies – not ideal, but I gave it a go. The first dive-in the Reaper stopped dead and only just got back over the lip. The next time I went faster and didn’t dive so deep, and on the exit it got spewed around like a kid being tumbled in dumper surf. Doinked the nose pretty bad.
After lunch with such strong wind, we headed about 25mins south to a lookout on the highway near Byron Bay. Just where Coolamon Scenic Drive turns off. It’s a huge high bowl, used by hang gliders and real gliders too. I put the Reaper up, and even with about 400gm of ballast, that patched-up plane was totally carving. It was fantastic. It was so good, it was like the first few minutes on that “Lift Ticket” DVD where the Higgins Rodent is carving in front of the Golden Gate Bridge. Flying in huge lift like that was very special, but Ezza and Astan, who turned up soon later, said they have heaps of days like that!
Ezza had said to me it’s a DS spot too, but it didn’t look any good and didn’t work either. Down the road further along the ridge was a big line of tall trees, right behind a house. I thought no way, you wouldn’t DS over a house? When Ezza turned up he pointed to the trees and said “that’s it!”. It’s where Ezza first got his 184mph with the Opus. Astan knows the owners too. So I headed down and started DSing the Reaper just as Jeff Irvin and some others turned up. The great part was that my wife could sit in the van with a perfect view of the backside circles! Her first time seeing what DS is all about.
Ez meanwhile was setting up the Kinetic 60. This is a DS specialist plane he recently bought 2nd hand – it has strong links to the development of DS in the US – a very special plane. This was Ezza’s first flight in reasonable wind. With the throws set exactly as recommended by Spencer Lisenby, the designer of the plane and the current world record holder (365mph) he threw it out and it looked solid. Over the fence we clamber and the speeds are straight into the 120’s and after 5 or 10 mins the PB was 137. There were a bunch of very impressed onlookers amazed by the speed, the sound, and the snapping paperclip topturns.
Ezza landed for a break and Sean got the Erwin up. My 9yr old daughter Lisa had a great time radar gunning alongside me – Sean’s best was 130mph and as usual he was so smooth – but the most impressive thing is the sound the Erwin makes. There aren’t words to describe it, but it’s exciting.
Ezza threw the Nemesis off for me, with almost full ballast. Could happily have stayed frontside, it was so good but we climbed the fence and over the back. Compared to E&S, my circles were pretty wild, but I hit 112 pretty easily. It was great! The Nemesis is really very fast. But the day ended sadly for me (again). I have to hang my head and shuffle my feet and embarrassedly say I mashed up part of the Nemesis wing. I kept going a bit too low and on one exit I honestly don't know what happened - seemed like a flick and it hit the top branches, fell back, dropped and fluttered about 40m and landed like a javelin almost in front of us! I could waffle on with various excuses but one problem was that after DSing a while I remembered to switch the rudder mix off, but by mistake switched the dual rates off, so I was zinging around manically with high rates and ail/rud mix on which probably contributed to the bad flying. Plus, new site, flying with painkillers for headache, etc, etc.
Sometimes I think it would be better for me to be a spectator - to write these reports and keep out of the flying! But you have to choose whether to get out and have a go, and accept the risks if you do. The damage is hard to live with, but the buzz of a good time flying is hard to beat. Writing this article I realize it was a huge weekend, lots of memories and experience. But I think I need to withdraw from flying for a while and give myself a course on moldie repairs.