It’s officially day three ‘down under’ and I’ve basically been forced to take it easy and catch up on some internet work, e-mails etc. due to feeling like crap.
I’ll start by summarizing what life’s been like over the last few days. My flights out here were fine for the most part. Of course, flying United, you have to expect some sort of delays due to, fuel tank leakage problems, debris on the runway, an electrical problem, ATC shutting down their radar for 5 mins, etc. My flight from San Francisco to Sydney was a pain this way, but after the plane being delayed for like 4 hours or something, we were airborne. To United’s credit, they fed us 3 times and made me feel fat sitting for 14 hours, so God Bless American airlines.
I got to Bright in the evening, exhausted but happy to have made it half way across the world in one piece, with all my bags. The next morning was the Mystic Cup (a little comp that runs every couple weekends or so at the Mystic launch in Bright) and so I headed up there with everyone. A few people launched, and as I didn’t feel like waiting around much, I did too. My flight was short, and because I played around a bit too much to make it to the regular LZ, I landed in an alternative LZ which was fine. It was a good way to see a bit of scenery, walking back to the main road and to the bigger LZ, which went well, minus the super-annoying flies. I later found out that shortly after I launched it started blowing from the back and after waiting 4 hours, everyone went home.
I’m staying with a very kind retired pilot, who’s welcomed me into his home. It’s cool to be living with somebody who shares the same enthusiasm for flying, so things have been going well. In fact, he lent me the car yesterday and I drove to town to pick up groceries. Ha ha, I’ve never been so freaked out behind the wheel of a car, driving on the wrong side of the road and to a supermarket in a foreign country, that I didn’t exactly know where it was. It went fine though, except for having to deal with a bit of a detour because of a bike race, and also except for getting lost on the way home and having to drive on every single fricken road in this small town outside Bright, for like half an hour until by process of elimination, finding the place. I swear, adventure follows me everywhere.
Today we went back up to launch, and by 12:30 or so, it was blowing from the back. I wasn’t feeling very well (probably a combination of jetlag and a bit of a cold) but I figured I could launch. So, I geared up and after watching a few pilots get airborne, I got ready. My launch officially sucked ass, because I had to run down half the fucking mountain to get off and almost had a frontal, but somehow I pulled it off. I’m not sure what the other pilots thought of me because it must have looked really really sketchy, but hey, when launching, if you run like hell in nil wind, most of the time you’ll be fine.
My flight was terrific – I thermalled up to about 2000’ or so above launch and just kind of boated around. Although everyone else in the comp had a task, I just kind of played around thermalling here and there and experimenting with some wimpy spirals and big ears for maybe 45 minutes or so. I forgot to turn the sound on my vario on and I don’t usually fly with my flight deck opened, so it was cool to thermal up so high without any instrumentation help. Towards the end though I got spanked by a nasty little thermal which threw me around a bit and had me controlling some relatively big surges, but it did wake me up and reinforced my desire to land. I landed in the main LZ fine, got a ride back to the house, fell asleep, and am now writing this. It kind of sucks that I could have easily stayed up and gone XC to wherever today, but I figure if you’re not 100% with it when flying, then land. Besides, it’s day TWO out here – the flying literally just begun.
My personal task right now is to rid myself of this cold and jetlag in the next couple days and then kick some ass later in the week. I can’t wait to be feeling better and flying farther soon…!
