I've got a new toy, and I love it. It's an Advance Epsilon 6/28.

Some other pics taken last Friday and Sunday:

Yesterday started rainy and windy but got quite nice later on.
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Last Saturday I finally managed to meet up with Ben and Mel (and Thomas) to visit one of the Byron Bay / Northern Rivers PG sites.
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Geeks are suckers, perfectionists like me even more so. But even I learn: I've had enough of doing the web and registration backend work and hosting for the Canungra Cup, they can look for another idiot who does the work for nothing. Come the 31.10. and I will flush the site down the drain, and GOOD RIDDANCE! Well, SEP.

In other club-related news, they've decided to ban RC planes at Beechmont, for "safety reasons". Damn but this sucks!

It's not an eagle but a hawk, but it serves as Eagle Airlines for some nasty blackbirds.

Photos by Alan Stankevitz, whose webshite sucks (flash-infested eye cancer) but whose photos rock!

(via the OZ report)

...in addition to flying yourself. I have a new toy, for the days when it's not nice (enough) to fly myself. But like all the toys that I like, it requires loads of tinkering and a little bit of skill. It's a radio-controlled glider.
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This weekend was crap. Yesterday blown out, today early morning downpours, clouds, wind, some drizzle later on; in the late arvo it cleared but I don't think the wind speed was low enough to fly and it was too late anyway.

So what does one do when it's unflyable? Well, from next week onwards I will have a radio-controlled glider -- again, almost 20 years after the first one. No more unflyable days!

But what I did yesterday amongst other things, was to fix up my radio setup -- nicely, I think.
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I haven't had any decent flying since February or so. The stats are fairly ugly. Last week we had the Canungra Cup in the area; I had taken the week off and was hoping for at least some XC flying with the retrieves arranged.

The Friday before the comp I got sick, something flu-ish with fever and general crookedness. Saturday, Sunday and partially Monday the others flew and I sweated feverish and slept. Tuesday and Wednesday I was on the hill but didn't like the conditions much, thus didn't fly. Thursday I did fly, but only a sleddie; it was a bit rough out there and I didn't fight much against being dumped in the bombout. Friday and Saturday I didn't even drive up to Canungra, because I didn't want to fly anymore: no motivation, only general depression. Didn't go to the presentation dinner either, as I had no wish to see any of the (mostly happy) 69 other pilots at all.

Taken altogether, this sucks plenty. I have no idea how I'll get back into the saddle.

In other not-yet-news, I ordered the steerable reserve from Switzerland two weeks ago; eagerly awaiting the delivery...

...I've been flying again, yesterday arvo. Finally!
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If you've got a good answer to that, let me know. Mine currently is a little bit weird, being: "life? not very much. less likelihood of major injuries: quite a bit"
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It does get a bit cold at nights now (+5°C last few days on the coast, with frost inlands) but the days are still nice at up to 22°C and, predominantly, sunny. That's the kind of winter I like nowadays.

Some flying pics; last weekend we were rushing from site to site and mostly parawaiting as in the first pic. This weekend wasn't lots better but a bit: Saturday was blown out, Sunday was very south but still good enough for Beechmont. I got an hour of airtime and took some pics of Marty and Phil.

I've also got two short movie clips (taken with the digital camera, so they suck) of Rob at Killarney two weeks ago and one of Phil launching at Beechmont today.

This weekend was one of those DNF ones, with loads of annoyance thrown in.
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Last Sunday (12.3. - the 19th still counts as this Sunday) I was pretty lucky and very close to ending up in the hospital or worse. The dangerous phases of any flying are the beginning and the end, because if there's trouble you've got little to no time to deal with it. Botched launches and landings are what kills you, with the likelihood of terminal problems flying high a lot lower (e.g. thunderstorms, freezing, oxygen-deprivation).
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...as it is nice outside right now (32°C, water temp about 23°), but a bit too windy from the NW.
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Yesterday one of my friends crashed badly and will spend quite some time in hospital getting some crushed vertebrae repaired. Three weeks ago another local pilot crashed at the same site; he's had a number of surgeries fixing a broken pelvis, arm and so on. A few days earlier, a hotshot pilot crashed a few hundred kilometers north of here; he will also spend a long time hospitalised.

And despite that, we keep flying. Even the ones in hospital come back more often than not.

If you look at this impassionately, you can only conclude that we're all suicidal idiots: we know it's dangerous, we see friends getting hurt and still we can't keep from doing it.

Why? I don't really know. I think it is a mixture of addiction and avoidance. The addiction pulls us back into the air, while avoiding to dwell on the dangers allows us to not freeze up shit-scared when flying (which is a good thing as freezing up will surely compound most minor incidents).

It must be a bit similar to how other people in dangerous occupations cope. I've read that fighter pilots among others have this ego thing down pat: while knowing a lot of dangerous stuff happens, one just doesn't believe that it'll be him having a problem. It feels similar with free flyers, motorbike riders etc.

Thanks to the wonders of modern medicine, Paul is back home and walking - after one operation on his spine and only 6 days in hospital and. A speedy full recovery is what I wish him!

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You'd better, if you want to pass the HGFA exam for an advanced rating (paragliding or hanggliding). I found this quite amusing.
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and I reach the 100 hour mark. And all of it is inland flying.
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Yes, I had a good day: I did 23.1km from Beechmont to Beaudesert.
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I just couldn't resist plotting things. That's total airtime and airtime per week (x 10 in order to see something).

I'm sure the residents of Bambling Rd near Canungra didn't exactly expect humans rain down on them but weirder things have happened.

Ivan, one of the club's more experienced pilots had a close call yesterday. He was flying his Boomerang as usual, just a bit away from Tamborine launch when everything went pear-shaped quickly and he had to throw his reserve parachute. Which did open, and did slow him down and kept him from going *splat*.

I was in the air at that time, too, didn't see the events prior to the reserve opening but kept Ivan in sight after Mark had gone on the radio letting people know of the trouble.

Luckily Ivan didn't hit any powerlines, the main road or any of the houses close by as he touched down, nor did he end up in the trees - which might have been better: he hit the ground hard enough to injure his ankles somewhat.

I didn't much feel like flying yesterday anyway, so I landed shortly after he had given us an "I'm okay" on the radio. Some others did continue onwards and had nice flights; I just launched for another short flight later in the arvo.

Hours tally: 82.6hrs.

I started paragliding in late December 2001, and at first didn't really get a lot of airtime unfortunately.
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...is what I've had this weekend.
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Today I left work early and headed up to the hills, in hope of getting some flying. The weather was beautiful, but nil clouds.
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That's my current flying tally after 2.5 years.
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The weekend of 12./13.6. we spent at Killarney, camping, freezing a bit in the cold evenings, and as usual flying.
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Last weekend was extended because of the ANZAC day public holiday, and the flying was quite good.

Friday we wasted sitting on the wrong hill, hoping for the right kind of wind. Just another case of parawaiting, like in the pic below.

But Saturday and Sunday were quite good for ridge-soaring Tambo, not exactly a common occurrence. A frightening site, low saves guaranteed with "landing" in trees always possible to likely. Had four nice flights, could have toplanded but didn't know we were allowed to again. Anyway, it was quite good - despite sinking out on Sunday when others went over the back or to Canungra. Me airborne in front of Tambo, one of the very few relaxed moments at that site: Mark said once about the difference between rock climbing and paragliding:

In rock climbing you spend most of your time in a very safe situation feeling shit-scared whilst in paragliding you spend most of your time in a very dangerous situation feeling quite safe.

And that's so true. We're insane/addicted enough to take to the air in our oversized shopping bags with a couple of strings attached like this: and then we regularly bunch up parts of our wings while flying to reduce lift. As long as things are bunched up symmetrically on both sides results are benign. However, for my upcoming intermediate license practical I'll have to show that I can deal with asymmetric collapses, too, so I played around a bit with inducing such collapses (you reef in hard on the front riser lines on one side, that half of the wing goes slack and floppy like a real shopping bag and you brace for the more-or-less violent turn and loss of lift). Interesting.

One of the hangies nicknamed "T-Bone" because of his initials has recently switched to paragliders - which immediately got him rechristened "TeaBag", as that's what the other hangies think of what he is flying now :-)

The weather on Monday wasn't too flash so I slept in, but the addiction got the better of me and I drove up the hill, and It was Good. Two nice arvo ridge soaring flights, both with good face landings at the end.

Other People had more interesting landings, as per the picture below: look for the glider in the middle of the road. Its pilot had misjudged his final, bounced off a car's hood (bumping it) and landed on the road. Another reason why only fools park in this particular spot.

After that a few pilots had...interesting launches, too, but I myself had a perfect record for the day.

The Easter weekend Andrew ran the Easter Bunnies WE comp at Killarney, 160k west from here. And I got to second place!
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(The picture above shows Phil Hystek, my instructor and mentor.)

After years and years of longing I've finally found the time to do a paragliding course in the beginning of 2002. It took me about four weeks (one full week and some weekends) to achieve the first licence for it. Since then I've spent most of the flyable weekends (which means almost all) on the hills around here, either flying, parawaiting or lugging the pack up the hills again.

Currently I'm also running the net presence of the local club, the Canungra Hang Gliding Club (which despite its name also caters to paraglider pilots).

So far I'm still alive and I'm really enjoying this challenging sport.