Jan 25th Flight

Last night there was a lot of excitement about the weather for today with talks of 1000km flights. It did not turn out very good however but I flew anyways. The LS-7 was taken and the Mosquito went to a camp at Mt. Beauty so I flew the Astir CS-77. My plan was to go to Temora as most of the locals were going in that direction. I was below 4500ft for most of the way out. I got a bit past Wagga Wagga and decided I needed to turn back if I wanted to make it home today. I heard a few of the locals on the radio turning back as well. I did 422km total which is good enough for first in Australia on the OLC so far. I was the first glider to launch this morning and the last one back. It was a blue day again which seems to be the only thing we have been getting. My first flight here was in clouds and all since have been blue days. Its been good practice and even in the blue the weather can be quite good here. The link to the OLC is here:
http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/getScoring.html?scoringId=1&year=2009&month=01&day=25

Comps

Since Christmas there has been three contests here at Benalla. They started with a club contest then directly after, the Victorian state contest and then the Australian Multi-Class Nationals. The Nationals just ended yesterday and it has become much quieter around here. There were 60 competitors in the contest which required 7 towplanes to launch every morning. They had some spectacular weather with top speeds in the 150km/h range. The highest speed was by Tom Claffey in an ASG-29 at 165km/h over 498km. Scores are here http://www.soaringspot.com/austmulti2009/results/. The picture above shows six of the tugs we used. 3 CallAir A-9's and 3 Pawnees. There was also a Scout but it did not fly everyday due to cross/tail winds.
I did not get much glider flying in but last week I jumped in the LS-7 and flew to Gough's Bay, a small town 70km south of Benalla. I also managed to get a flight in an ASH 25 with Dave McManus the winner of the open class with Paul Mander. Dave is a former junior pilot who flew in the worlds in England in 2005. The ASH 25 is unique because they have added LS-8 winglets to it. I like the look of it but they tell me it does not go that well.

January

Saturday, December 20 flight

Yesterday I took out the Mossie for a flight. I had planned to try out the hills but it was blue and the locals recommended staying in the flats. Most of the guys were planning to go to Temora so I decided I would go that direction as well. I declared The Rock and figured I would go past if it was good. I was hitting good lift in the blue including a thermal that was showing 10.5kts on the 30s average most of the time and got to The Rock at 2:00pm so decided to keep going in the direction of Temora. I planned to go until 3:00pm then turn around. I stopped 245km from home, 25km from Temora. The trip home was much more difficult with the lift getting further and further apart and thermals getting harder to work. Over Corowa I got a bit low and thought I might have to land there but managed to scrape away. I started a final glide back to the club and hit a good thermal along the way and took it. I did another 12km leg past the club to pick up a little more OLC distance. The total OLC distance was 520km which is a personal best for me. It also placed me in third place for the day in Australia and first in Benalla. We were happy to beat the Corowa guys as well. Today may be a better day but I am taking a day off. I went for a bike ride around town this morning and will be getting checked out in the scout later today.

JoeyGlide Banquet

The banquet was a good bit of fun with most of the pilots going to the reuse shop to buy suits/dresses (we had a couple guys come in drag). I missed the trip to the shop so I just threw on my hockey jersey to represent Canada. Michael Sommer, the winner of the two previous world championships in the open class and a member of the Benalla club was there to present the first place trophy. I had a chance to sit down and chat with him about flying and he told me about flying in Sweden where he won his first championship. Since Finland will be similar conditions I was taking good note. Michael likes to stay up drinking to the early hours of the morning so he got on well with us juniors. He stresses having fun at a contest. Today was a rest and recovery day and tommorow I will be back towing.

JoeyGlide Day Scrubbed

It is raining today so the day is scrubbed. Tomorrow does not look very promising either. It looks like I will end up in sixth overall for the contest. I am disappointed in the result but I have learnt some good lessons over the contest and had lots of fun. It has been nice to have so many people my own age to talk about our flights with and sit around the bar with. Tomorrow is the banquet. It is being held in the clubhouse and the bar has been stocked accordingly.