A Good Day to Fly

After a couple days of not flying due to strong wind conditions, it was nice to reacquaint myself with the sky today.

I had a really good launch, which is important to note as I’ve been flying with 5kgs of ballast which sits under my flight deck. I still find it a bit tricky with the way it sits on the biners, but it’s been manageable.

Anyway, me and one of the other pilots launched at basically the same time and took some slow climbs up while being trashed around a bit. With what I thought was enough height, I made a beeline for Goldmine (the next ridge across the valley) and took another trashy climb up to about 2400m. Then I headed for Pyramid and fought with a thermal which again took me up to base…

Pyramid is the spot where if you get high enough, you make the decision to head to Mount Beauty, or not. With 7k’s of trees, it’s obviously not something you want to do low, but height wasn’t my problem today – it was wind. At 2600m, I knew I had ample height, but I was fighting a 10k headwind/crosswind but I made the decision to cross anyway.

At first I thought I was kind of dumb for being worried about not making it across until I hit some -3m/s and then -4m/s along the way. Those bits of sink can make paragliding very interesting very quickly. Without speedbar, I think I would have barely made it across, but man, regardless, my heart was racing at a couple points. Good fun!

Anyway, the rest of the flight was spent pushing through a valley wind which has screwed me over many times in the past around Mt.Beauty. I concentrated on staying high and avoiding it as much as possible, but it wasn’t easy. The other two pilots who were flying in the same general area didn’t have a ton of height either, which made me feel a bit better. At one point one of the guys who was still making the crossing looked like he hit a lot of sink and got himself into a precarious situation where it looked like he hit a lot of rotor, which is when I saw his wing go all over the place for a few intense seconds. At one point I thought I would witness a reserve toss, but he kept fighting, and somehow climbed his way out. Man, that’s dedication. I don’t know how he climbed out, but kudos to him for doing it.

As I continued at my stealth speed of something like 15kmph, I started to get low. There was a spurline in front of me which I absolutely knew would kick something off. And yup, I was so right! As I approached, my vario was letting out screams of joy and I thought “yeah, I am so taking this climb back to base!” Wrong! Half my wing went and I struggled to keep the other side open..it all happened so fast, I don’t know what I did, but I sorted it out. I spun almost 180 degrees, but thankfully with the bit of SIV training and even practicing SATs helped me stay calm and get it flying again. Weird how at one point I thought I might have to full stall my glider. I don’t know why that came across my mind as I was too low to do it, but it did, the second before it popped open again. Once flying, I could feel my glider still feel somewhat funny, so I decided to fly away from the ridge. Whack! Another big deflation, but this one came out without a major turn, and also helped top up my dose of adrenaline. I’m sure all this happened within a period of 25 seconds or something, but it was pretty intense. My altitude at the time was like 1200 meters or so, but I don’t think I was more than 300m or 400m above the ridge when I got slammed. Yeesh.

Anyway, I decided to fly the flats instead where little bits of .5m/s lift was all I ran into, and after crossing onto the other side of the valley, I landed. An A+ landing I might add, just because I had to change fields at the last second where I noticed some cattle (and possibly bulls!) in my first field of choice.

I somehow hitchhiked back, which was amazing, considering there wasn’t a lot of traffic today. Really nice people too – even though the one guy had tattoos, smoked, and had a beer in hand when he picked me up, he was a really intelligent local who I had a very nice chat with. I should start keeping track of the people who pick me up hitchhiking – it’s cool to hear people’s life stories during a short car ride.

All in all, a great flight. I flew further than I normally do the Mt.Beauty way, and yes, I was outflown as usual, didn’t get to experience base when it rose up to 3000m, didn’t fly the mountains on the far side of the Kiwa Valley, but I suppose I should stop comparing myself to others so much. When someone asked me about my flight today, I told them the shitty part first, which is again something I need to stop doing. I really did fly well today and I don't think I could have replicated today's flight 2 months ago. The progress is there - I can't wait to fly tomorrow!

Mixin' it up

Yesterday I needed a change with my flying. Two days ago I flew to Harrietville (I really need to start looking at my GPS for distances, but it's maybe 15 k's away?) and made some crucial errors along the way. The main ones included leaving good climbs and pushing forward too much, including leaving a 3.5 m/s climb at 2200 m. Doh!

That night I started thinking about SATs again and how maybe I should try one the next day. After talking to a couple guys, the next day I had a few attempts. Man, that was EXACTLY what I needed! That rush you get when start feeling G's and when you see the trailing edge of your glider when trying manouevers - it's awesome! I totally didn't do any proper SATs, but I didn't really care. I landed with a shit-happy grin on my face because that was such wicked fun. Where else can you feel a sensation like that? Paragliding, for it's ability to allow such variation in a 3D environment is something I can't get enough of.

On the evening sleddie of the day I did some big wingovers...taking a wrap with your brakes makes wingovers SO much easier. Anyway, I got them really big and then took a nice asymmetric which turned me 90 degrees, but was a reminder enough to take it easy. I didn't have a lot of altitude to play with, and although sometimes an unexpected reaction from your wing can be exciting and fun in itself, the idea of plowing into the ground is not something I ever want to experience. So, I need to pace myself again.

It's 39 degrees outside which is ridiculously hot. Instead of assisting the students with high wind work today, I stayed inside and had an almost 2 hour siesta instead. This Canadian gets overheated quickly, that's for sure. Amazing how quickly the sun can make you sick - literally less than 10 minutes of direct sunlight creates a waterfall on my forehead and makes me feel a bit woozy. This country is HOT!

Me so tired

I've missed updating my blog over the last few days, because man, I've been tired!

Over the last week or so a balance has been struck between driving tandems/students up and down the mountain while doing some assisting with one of the pg schools, and of course, flying. I think it's been working out really well - the days go by pretty quickly, but they are fun. So far this month I'm averaging about an hour of flying a day which is good considering some days are more than twice that and other days are just a couple extended sleddies or whatever. I'm not complaining.

I flew in the Mystic Cup a couple days ago which is a little comp held every second weekend out here in Bright. It's a funny one because there seems to be the hardcore competitors who are game to win the thing and then there are others who approach it with a sort of lackadaisical attitude. I got something like half the waypoints but only completed maybe a third of the task because there was an inversion that I got bored trying to punch through after 20 minutes. Sometimes I have patience for that sort of thing, but that day I figured spiraling down the ground would be more fun - and it SO was!

I went tandem yesterday which was fun and since it was still the Mystic Cup, Fred (the pilot) flew the task. After almost 3 hours in the air, we landed - man what a flight! Flying in the same thermals with gliders that look like banana peels is interesting - especially when the guys in their fancy pod harnesses start getting collapses and they start rocking around - one guy especially put on a good show. Glad he regained control of his glider pretty quickly.

Oh yeah, I should note that most pilots didn't finish the task - even some of the better guys. Ha ha, a tandem to make goal is pretty sweet! Shows what a talented pilot Fred is and what a good passenger I was because I didn't have to go pee and I didn't puke!


Anyway, with regard to the topic in my previous post about rumours and gossip, yes, it seems things have cooled down a bit. And if they haven't, well, I'm not really in the mood for caring. These things tend of piss me off temporarily and then I just shrug - meh! I'll twist things around and say that I will take it as a compliment if people find me interesting enough to gossip about! But seriously thanks guys, as always, for the pat on the back!

Killarney (my first comp out here) is at the end of the month, which has been at the back of my mind for the last few days. Hopefully the weather will be good, and the flying even better. Can't wait!

100th Post! Happy 2008!

My 100th blog post on the first day of this glorious year - Happy 2008 Everyone!

It is HOT. No, it is fucking hot outside! I've experienced extreme temperatures before, but this is a bit much. 40 degrees with an incredibly powerful sun means you can almost hear your skin sizzle when outside. It feels totally suppressive the second you open your door.

I got sunstroke over the last couple days - apparently I haven't been drinking enough water. Combine that with maybe a bit of malnutrition from not eating properly, and I've been feeling lethargic and nauseous. Yesterday I flew twice and although there were abundant thermals on the second flight, I had to land early because I felt kind of woozy. I landed, came home and had a 3 hour siesta which definitely helped prep my body for a few hours of alcohol abuse to ring in the New Year...last night was entertaining.

Today I suppose I could've arranged to fly somehow but my hangover lingered until almost noon - tomorrow hopefully.

On a different note, I'm going to lash out a bit here and say that living in a small town is kind of irritating. I'm finding that people have nothing better to do than make up untrue rumours and gossip about people they know nothing about. Clearly their own lives aren't very interesting if they have nothing better to do than speculate about strangers. Some people really need to learn how to mind their own fucking business...

Ok, I've had my moment! Thank god I have blog where I've been able to vent and say exactly what I've wanted to over the last year or so. Thanks to you for reading!