As you may know Kath and I started hang gliding in March 1999 and
we were taught by Tove and Grant Heaney. We were very lucky indeed! It
completely consumed us both and it was not long after our training that we were
going cross country and entering competitions. A couple of years later I started
to help Tove out with her courses and decided to concentrate my efforts on
helping people to get that same buzz that I had been getting every time we went
flying. More so, I wanted people to learn the way that we learnt and that was by
having a reliable and enthusiastic instructor that was passionate about hang
gliding and also very skilled.
I learned a lot over the following years with Tove and Grant from ground towing,
aero towing, cross country flying, comp flying and instructing students, which
is something that you can not learn on your own. They both did this in good will
and it is invaluable to what I know today.
Fast forward a few more years, quit my job in the snowy mountains, a move to the
centre of the hang gliding universe of Australia (Canungra), A flight
instructors certificate (thanks to Tove and Ken Hill), a supportive income from
my beautiful partner Kath, we even threw a kid into the equation, little Taj
(the next world champ!!) And presto the birth of a little hang gliding school is
born.
The name of my business is Altitude Windsports and I am working under Ken Hills
facility, South East Queensland Hang gliding. Ken has had a school here for near
on twenty years and is an awesome ambassador for our sport. I am also lucky
enough to have young Jonny Durand, Jnr (current world number one) helping me out
from time to time, from first day student training flights right through to post
training skill advancement like cross country flying and advanced thermal and
flight planning techniques. Combined we have a very healthy hang gliding eco
system working here that gives the new student a very positive, informed outlook
and skill base that will hopefully ensure a good name for our sport within the
community.
I have had the school running for one year now and the interest has been
overwhelming. Just a few statistics to bore you with! Ran about seven hang
gliding courses, one ground tow course and one aero tow course. Approximately
thirty five new students did a full course or intro course. Of these around 20
have achieved their restricted licence.
Of this twenty student, approximately eighteen are actively flying most weekends
and have different levels of ability due to outside influences. Three or four
have their intermediate licence already and a couple have their ground tow and
aero tow endorsements.
Approx five students have had an cross country adventure already including Dirk
Barber's 100km flight in the flats this summer with Jonny, a standout indeed.
Two new female pilots have been licenced, one of them aero towing after only ten
hrs airtime. In fact most of the students we teach have had their first cross
country flight within 10 hrs of their first flight!
After reading so much negative press about the 'death' of hang gliding etc, I
felt the need to share some positives about the future of hang gliding. I am
only a small school with a small amount of infrastructure and have only been
operating for a short time to achieve the above results.
I put this down to having a positive approach, a passion for what I am involved
in and having some of the most experienced people in the game helping me out,
something you cannot place a value on. I am looking forward to this next year
and hope that we can double what we did this year. I would also like to pass on
my thanks to everyone involved in this awesome sport/past time whatever you like
to call it, we are the lucky bunch!!
Who said hang gliding was dying? They obviously have not been to Canungra
lately!!
Petra Krausova and Luca Donini will be crowned European Champions at this
evening's prize giving in Morzine, France. Although the comp endured bad weather
in the first week, five tasks were flown, and Luca 'dark horse' Donini won his
second FAI gold medal after willing the World Championships five years ago.
RESULTS
1 Luca Donini, Gradient Avax, ITA
2 Christian Maurer, Advance Omega Proto, CHE
3 Thomas Brauner, Mac Para Magus 2S Proto, CZE
4 Michael Witschi, Advance Omega Proto, CHE
5 Charles Cazaux, Gin Glider Boomerang 4, FRA
Individual - Women
1st: Petra Krausova CZE
2nd: Ewa Wisnierska GER
3rd: Caroline Brille FRA
Team - Overall
1st: Switzerland
2nd: Italy
3rd: Czech Republic
A new version of its single surface classic.
(Zapata)
I've talked Wills Wing into letting me borrow their new single
surface glider to make an attempt for a new single surface record here in
Zapata. We'll see if I can carry off this difficult task given that Bo Hagewood
went 178 miles last year here on Pete Lehmann's WW Falcon 195 (which was too big
for him).
Steve and Rob sent me a Wills Wing Falcon 170 assuring me that it could easily
handle my weight - 180 pounds. much better than the Falcon 170 or Falcon 2 170.
We'll see.
The new Falcon 3 breaks down into a package six feet long, but I don't know if
all that is worked out yet. It came on a truck to me short packed which is
twelve feet, six inches. I just popped in the outboard leading edges.
Looking at all the tubes it is semi-clear how it breaks down to the six foot
length for travel on the airplane. Steve Pearson of Wills Wing writes:
So there will be a few small changes to the hardware, sail and
packaging over the coming months to make the short-pack procedure less of a
hassle.
There is a nose cone, Mylar leading edges, and "flip tip" battens.
The dive stick sits under a transverse batten to hold up the sail. The one I get
to use came with the Slipstream control frame.
The glider looks clean and I look forward to flying it.
In the July issue of Hang Gliding and Paragliding Magazine
(Quest Air)
Billy Vaughn has a great new article on Steve Wendt's scooter tow
clinic in the July issue of the USHPA's Hang Gliding and Paragliding Magazine.
His article lays out all the steps needed to run a safe and conservative scooter
tow instruction business.
You might have noticed that there is a heat "wave" over middle America. It's hot
up there and keeping the winds light or east, northeast here in south Texas. The
winds were forecasted to be east here and sure enough they were between 118 and
132 degrees.
We had great cu's yesterday starting at noon and by mid afternoon filling the
skies over the state. It looked like today the sky would similarly be filled
(although the RUC model through Dr. Jack are constantly ambiguous about this
here, while the NAM model is always calling for cu's).
In spite of the wind forecast Manfred decided to take off at around 10:30 AM.
There were a few cu's twenty miles to the south and an occasional wispy cu near
the airport. Bo pulled him all the way to the top of our 1 km limit as far to
the east as he could go as he climbed.
I spoke with Manfred on the radio and after a long glide he was down to 1,600'
MSL (1,200' AGL) and found 150 fpm. He was climbing up through 2,500' when I
talked to him just before 11 AM.
I went out trying not to worry about the east wind after setting up my borrowed
WW Falcon 3. Bo took me to the right altitude at 11:30 directly to the east.
With the wind at 120 degrees and with the need to go downwind with a Falcon,
instead of trying to jump cloud streets (there were a few cu's, but certainly no
streets), there wasn't much chance I would be able to get around the Laredo
airspace 40 miles to the north.
Still I was in the air and having a good time, so I thought I would hang in
there and see what happened. It was beautiful out and I had a good view of both
the US and Mexico. Since I was heading toward Mexico it was good that I knew
where it was (the north/south river shown in the Google Maps and Google Earth
views if you click on the link above) is the Rio Grande and it is the border.
Since I started at 11:30 AM instead of 9:30 AM, I find plenty of lift and get
high enough to not worry about going down behind locked gates. With the wind I'm
pushed toward highway 83 (the road to Laredo) anyway so I'll be safe enough.
The cu's begin to form a bit better and I hear from Manfred that it is fifty
miles out after the first hour. Man, he is cooking, especially given the bad
wind direction. It's at most 40 degrees south of east. I get fifteen miles out
by 12:30, which is essentially the wind speed. I spend half my time circling and
the rest of the time going cross wind to try to stay away from Mexico.
Just before 1 PM Manfred is 100 miles out and on a course line of 155 degrees.
I'm on the same course line but need 170 degrees to get around Laredo. Manfred
it heading up west of our usual route given the strong east component to the
winds and headed toward Odessa.
At twenty miles out I find that I am air sick, the first time in a long time.
The lift has been smooth, so I don't quite no why I got airsick, but I glide for
nine miles up highway 83 and land in a field to its east at about 1:15, for a
thirty mile flight, which was quite pleasant except for the air sick part.
I'm thinking that I might have been able to get around the airspace to the east.
The lift was good, and I would have to head north northeast which I was doing
until I got sick and decided to follow the highway to land.
After we got packed up we heard from Bo, who was chasing Manfred, after hauling
him up, that Manfred was moving fast and needed some help getting around the
airspace. Later, around 4:45 we got a hold of Bo again, with Manfred almost 300
miles out reminding him of the parameters of the Midland/Odessa airspace
(Manfred had these on his Compeo), and that it had a 6,900' ceiling (Manfred was
at 10,000').
Manfred was leaving Bo behind (Bo was racing on Interstate 10 to Ozona) and
having a hard time getting Manfred on the radio.
Pete Lehmann was going to try for a world record 100 KM FAi triangle again
today. More on how Manfred and Pete did later today.
11:00Nina Planck: "Real Food" (Bloomsbury) & Michael Jacobson:
"Six Arguments for a Greener Diet" (CSPI)
Experts say the modern American diet is killing us. But they often disagree on
what to eat and why. We hear different views on why real foods and a greener
diet could save our health and environment. Guests
Nina Planck, author of "The Farmers' Market Cookbook" and creator of farmers'
markets in London, Washington, D.C., and New York City.
Michael Jacobson, co-founder and executive director of the Center for Science in
the Public Interest and author of "Restaurant Confidential," "Marketing
Madness," "What Are We Feeding Our Kids?" And "The Fast Food Guide."
Peter Lehmann didn't make it back from his second turnpoint on his 100 km FAI
triangle attempt today. At 6:17 PM David Glover was out retrieving him (his swap
for the flight lessons) and was two miles from him on the wrong side of a locked
gate, off a ranch road 15 miles south of Zapata. Looks like they'll have to walk
out two miles. It's 103 degrees here.
No word on Manfred. Bo is out of cell phone range at the moment.
Manfred was 390 miles, and high at 6:45 PM
(Zapata)
Bo can't keep up with him and just talks to him periodically on the cell phone.
Manfred keeps getting high (10,000'), the cu's look great up past Odessa. Bo
thinks that Manfred has the new Swift record (Robin Hamilton currently has it at
425 miles). Manfred should have another two and a half hours. Bo thinks
that he will be flying into New Mexico.
450 miles to Lovington, NM, just 17 miles north of Hobbs.
(Zapata)
He landed fifteen minutes ago. This is the approximate distance. This is the new
Class 2 record, beating Robin's 425 mile record set last year, and longer than
Manfred's 432 mile flex wing flight in 2001. This was a day without a tail wind
and Manfred did it with skill, good lift, cu's and a high cloud base. Very little
help from the winds.
Manfred has to leave in two days, so today was probably his last shot. If they
don't drive all night, Bo and he won't get back until tomorrow evening. I didn't
realize this morning how close he was to leaving, and that he had to go far on
this day that really didn't look that good given the wind. He really made the
most of his last chance.
It looks to me like Lovington is 480 miles from Zapata.
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The Oz Report, a near-daily, world wide hang gliding news ezine, with reports on competitions, pilot rankings, political issues, fly-ins, the latest technology, ultralight sailplanes, reader feedback and anything else from within the global HG community worthy of coverage. Hang gliding, paragliding, hang gliders, paragliders, aerotowing, hang glide, paraglide, platform towing, competitions, fly-ins. Hang gliding and paragliding news from around the world, by Davis Straub.
