Last Friday of school holidays. Last chance for any sort of flying for a few weeks as an east coast low is going to develop over the next few days. And soccer season starts tomorrow.
Weather has been unseasonably warm due to the northerly winds which has also ruined all chances of any form of aerial activity. Today, Friday, saw a light southerly gently blowing up the coast. I actually read Sea breeze wrong and was convinced it was a howling easterly at 20kts, which it wasn't. Not even close.
Went up to Merewether to see what was happening. A couple of blokes were there and one pilot had just landed down near the beach. It was very light and seemed to be quite south. No joy there so I figured I might as well fill in time by checking out Strezzie.
Cottsy and Waynus were packing up in Empire Park and another guy who thought I was Adrian. I don't know who Adrian is but he must be good looking.
Their assessment wasn't overly encouraging as they had barely managed to stay above launch although the air was smooth.
I drove the boys up to the hill to fetch their cars and I decided to check it out for myself. It seemed OK if a little on the light side still but I thought I could at least get my glider out and give it a flap on launch.
Two women were cuddling and kissing on top of the gun emplacement which was quite distracting so when I kited the wing up it folded over and got a bit tangled. I still was not convinced as to the flyability of the day but thought I'd give it another go at least. Try and impress the chicks in any case.
The breeze seemed to have picked up marginally so this time I thought I'd go for it. Wing came up nicely and seemed to have a bit of lift so I ran down hill. I scraped my butt on the bitou bush but that's happened before.
Made a few passes down to Monument and back and got to at least the top of the poles next to launch.
Not so bad I thought. I flew down to King Edward park and the fortifications but lost a lot of height on the way back.
Scratched again over Monument to regain lost height. Got a good look at the new ANZAC Walk- very nice construction.
More passing between launch and Monument. Lots of scratching practice. Made one last downwind beat to the fort and got really low. Below launch height low. Oops. More scratching. Got back to at least launch height and decided it was time to head home. Headed for the park but lost a lot of height over Bar Beach car park. Landed in northeast corner of the park and was applauded by a bunch of lads playing soccer. Text book landing, thank God on account of everyone watching.
Good flight overall. Good to get in the air and got to get some low strength practice in.
Flew for about 90min all up.
