and I reach the 100 hour mark. And all of it is inland flying.

(I could have cheated but that's...well, cheating.)

As you can see May was pretty bad - lousy weather and little opportunity for most of us (and me in particular). At least this Sunday was reasonably good for wintertime:

Earlier in the day we were all at Beechmont, some of us went for a ridge soar in light conditions - I was a few minutes behind, helping somebody out a little bit - and then it shut down, instantly. Alistair and I waited at launch for some wind, but to no avail. Later Geoff did a running reverse into tailwind, and the rest of us packed up and drove over to Tamborine, where it didn't look much better. The wind actually went over the back a bit and we all started groaning. Still, some of us set up, Phil and Martin launched, climbing slowly but reasonably well.

Brian, parked in the prime launch spot, stuffed up^W^Waborted two launch attempts and I was set up to the side and slightly lower than usual. A bit of a puff coming up the face and I did a running reverse - running out of space quickly. So I belly-slid through some bushes, with the glider flying but not lifting me off the ground sufficiently. I briefly thought "either this thing starts lifting real soon or one of the bushes will snag me and that'll hurt, and watch that tree close in front...". Finally flying, I dodged the tree and started scratching. The crowd at launch loved the launch spectacle, I was told later (I certainly didn't).

After almost sinking out in nil wind (like the two guys launching just after me), I hit the one and only thermal of the day and got straight up to 1400m ASL (pretty much the legal ceiling in that spot) and left for Canungra. I didn't choose the right path, though, and ended landing about 800m short of my goal (which was Moriarty park). Still, a nice flight of 7.5km - and especially nice as only Martin and I had gotten away :-)

Let's keep the fingers crossed for the advanced license exam on Saturday and I might get to fly in .at in late August...