Flight Fiesta!
The closing days of 2015 saw me once again take to the skies over the azure beaches of Newcastle.- Wednesday, 30th December - 90 minute flight from Strezzie.
- Thursday, 31st December - 45 minute flight from La Strez.
- Friday, 1st January 2016 - 30 minute flight with added adventure in the form of an unexpected CRASH LANDING!! Stay tuned for details.
Wednesday 30th December, 2015
Things were looking enjoyably flyable so I headed up to Merewether for an assessment of its flyability. The direction looked OK - a definite East South East trend was evident but at the time it was a bit light. A punter had taken off and was heading straight to the beach so I thought I'd check out Strezzie.A few hangies were setting up and one was flying around. Neil Bright was getting set to launch as was Cottsy. After enduring the requisite para-insults from Cottsy I got my gear ready.
The wind strength was gradually increasing and more pilots were gathering. Cottsy gets nervous when you launch within 50km of his glider so he "helped" me launch by holding onto my harness lest I stray into the Zone of Death around his Moyes Lightspeed.
I got away fine and proceeded to follow Neil around the ridge. After about 30 minutes another paraglider from Melbourne flying a Sol launched. He kept way out of the lift band but, hey, to each his own.
By this time there were 5 paragliders off the east face at Hickson Street (Merewether), and 3 paras at Strezzie as well as 3 hangies. Wayne Collison was on launch throwing battens into his wing so it was going to get crowded real soon.
The flying was fun as the whole ridge from the Bogey Hole to Susan Gilmour could be utilised but with the traffic starting to increase I followed Neil down to Empire park. Landing was fine and as I had parked the car down at Empire it was an easy pack up.
Thursday 31st December, 2015
Brighty rang me around midday and said it was looking promising. I had my wing in the car from yesterday so I motored up to the lookout at Strezzie.Neil wasn't there but Cottsy was observing the top landing of a hangie. The wind was slightly off to the left (moderate Easterly) but with consistent windlines on the water so the strength wasn't too bad.
Once the hangie had top landed I launched and flew left past the gun emplacement. Lift was not as abundant as yesterday so I had to work the parts of the ridge where I could find it. This turned out to be between the gun emplacement to the north of launch down to the little rocky promontory just past the 3 big poles on the south of launch. Not much to play with but I was the only one there so it wasn't a real problem.
I narkled for about 45 minutes then a hangie started setting up so I decided to head to the park. Tons of height over the park so landed about 40 metres in the park and kited the glider about 30 metres towards the car. Nice flight - good landing.
Friday 1st January, 2016
Started the day with a coffee and omelette with Mitch Preston. He used to be an avid sail plane pilot and expressed an interest in seeing me take off. The conditions were a bit light but the same direction as Thursday. On launch at Strezzie, Mitch and I discussed the feasibility of flight and it came on slightly stronger. I drove my car down to the park while Mitch looked after my gear. I hopped the fence and got the glider aloft. It seemed OK so I committed to the launch.First pass was a bit low and not too promising. Made a turn at the rocky outcrop and got better height. I flew to the fort at King Edward Park but would lose a bunch of height so stayed between where I was flying yesterday. Mitch had gone by this stage but then Liam turned up which was great as he hasn't seen his old man fly before.
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| Liam admires the bravery of his dad |
Got as high as the 3 poles at one stage but the trend was not encouraging and after about 25 minutes I was back at launch height. I contemplated a top landing but had left the car down at the park so headed down that way. This is where it got interesting. I had plenty of height coming over the car park so made the same approach that I always do: head towards the cricket field, turn back into wind, land nicely, bada bing, bada boom.
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| Liam watches on as Dad tries to look impressive |
As I crossed the line of houses I started to descend faster than I was expecting and was coming in pretty fast. I grabbed a handful of brake and started turning left into the wind when the glider dropped from about 3 metres! I landed on my left side rather heavily and my head hit the dirt which left me momentarily stunned. A sat up and let out a few expletives but was OK. A young bloke ran over to see if I was alright, which was nice of him. No equipment damage done but bruised my left shoulder and left hip and strained my neck muscles when bracing for the impact. Thank god for helmets and padded harnesses!
On reflection I think I was rushing the landing. I was still heading downwind when I should have been on final approach into the wind. Also, I think I was getting a little bit of rotor or leeside wind shadow from the houses which didn't help. Anyhow, a landing you walk away from is a good landing!
