Oz Report

Blue Sky Scooter Tow Clinic Success

You just can't keep a good idea down. (Quest Air)

Steve Wendt <blueskyhg> writes:

I just wanted to tell you that I just got back from Quest and the two Scooter Clinics that were scheduled there.

I ended up with fifteen participants and we did close to 250 tows with no incidents or bent tubing.  This time the participants ended up not being instructors, but pilots who would like to be, and saw this as a great avenue for success.  When I initially scheduled this, it was for instructors only, but few signed up.  More often it was other people wanting to learn, so I hope the USHPA gets some new instructors certified out of it.

So, since the initiative, last year at the clinics we did twenty students, this time fifteen, and I've had about twelve other small groups or individuals come to me just to learn about the scooter towing process.  So, close to fifty people with more to come soon.

I will be back in Florida with the Wills Wing sponsored clinics in April, so hopefully this will be an extra boost.  I've already had a few guys who were at the clinic contact me and want me to run an IP just for them at my place, as they are very interested in becoming new instructors, so that's positive.

I had given up on these clinics.  I knew that Steve didn't want to go to Florida twice as he is always concerned about his wonderful flight park back in Virginia and hates to leave it any more than he needs to.  I also knew that the USHPA had really put its foot in it when it declined to allow in foreign instructors and Wills Wing went on its own with Steve's clinic in April at the Florida Ridge and Wallaby Ranch.  It seemed to me that the April clinics would really take off (and they did) and these would end up tanking.

Well it was great to see that folks turned out for them.  The numbers that Steve is talking about are great and better than I had hoped for when I made my proposals to the USHPA to get Blue Sky scooter tow clinics.  Of course, the USHPA wants to see as many US instructors trained as possible and so they evaluated the proposal partly on how many instructors could be produced.

If you haven't signed up for the Wills Wing Blue Sky April Scooter Tow Clinics yet, contact Wills Wing or Steve Wendt.

Discuss Blue Sky at the Oz Report forum

Tear drop harness

Inflatable fairings (Mt Borah, Manilla)

http://paraglidingforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=10460



Bruce Goldsmith writes:

I have been working on inflatable fairings for years and we have some in production at Airwave already (Ram Race and Ram C harnesses).  I have also designed them for supine bikes, hang gliders and pushbikes.  About 3 months ago I started working with Luc Armant in Nice who had already made a very nice prototype last year himself which he flew at St Hilaire and there have been pictures in a few magazines.  I have been making and testing these fairings for a few weeks now and here are some of the better pictures of my testing the harness.  It is Luc also that gave the plans to Skyline.  It will be very interesting to see how these things go at the worlds.

Discuss Harness at the Oz Report forum

Canadian Hang Gliding Championships - June 3-9th 2007

Lumby (Lumby, B.C.)

Mark Dowsett <<mark>> writes:

The Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association of Canada has just sanctioned the Canadian Hang Gliding Nationals to be in Lumby, BC.

After a one year hiatus from the National Championships being hosted in Lumby, BC, the event is returning to the area.  Lumby was the host city of the Hang Gliding Nationals for five of the last seven years showing that it is a desirable area to host the competition which is the most prestigious event in this sport in Canada.

Hang glider pilots from coast-to-coast and from all over the US will flock to Lumby in search of the Canadian National Championships.  The winner is crowned after six daily rounds are flown where competitors will launch from the various mountainside launches and race around a series of pre-determined turn points and usually back into Lumby where the finish line is normally located.  The longest task to date at the Lumby Nationals has been over 110km in length and tasks often take up to three hours in duration and launches are used in Lumby, Vernon and as far away as Mara Lake - always taking the pilots back to Lumby as the goal.

The Lumby valley is ideal for this sort of racing as the dry climate and amount of heat that time of year bring great conditions where thermal updrafts safely take competitors to well over 12,000' above the ground.  There are many places in North America that these altitudes can be attained but the valleys in the area are very friendly offering abnormally light winds and numerous places to land should pilots not be able to make the designated goal.

Here's what Randy Rauck, president of the Lumby Air Force has to say: "Its great to see the Canadian Hang Gliding Championships back in Lumby, BC during Lumby Days.  The Lumby AirForce started hosting hang gliding competitions in 1976 and they have always been a great addition to the Lumby Days excitement.  With the new launch being created at the top of Coopers mountain, a longer, safer launch area for pilots to launch will be available this year.  Also more gliders will be able to be set up at once and it will be safer for spectators.  The target is 100 gliders set-up at a time so that more competition flying will be attracted to the community."

You will be able to follow daily reports of this event and many others at http://events.dowsett.ca and watch animated track logs of past competitions at http://events.dowsett.ca/results

Enquiries on the event can be made to Mark Dowsett, the event organizer at 604-630-8545 - mark

Register at: http://events.dowsett.ca/2007/cdnhgnats/reg

Schedule:

Sat June 2nd - registration and practice day
Sun June 3-8th - official competition rounds
Sat June 9th - possible extra round should we require it to meet sanctioning requirements

* * awards will be handed out on the traditional barn party the night of Sat the 9th at Randy Rauck's place

* * stay for the Lumby Air Races that are taking place that weekend (8th-10th) in conjunction with Lumby Days

Discuss Cdn Nats at the Oz Report forum

Another harness/parachute separation

Similar problem - strap looped to another strap without carabineer in between (Vionnaz, Switzerland)

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6622

Mathieu for the Delta-club Valais <<secretariat>> writes:

One of our friends died a few days ago after throwing his parachute.  His harness has a strap which cut the bridle when the parachute deployed.  Reto was flying at about 400 meters AGL.  He sped up and immediately started tumbling.  The glider broke immediately.  Reto threw his parachute but the seam of the bridle from the parachute had been cut by another strap from the harness.

After this accident occurred, a failure was noticed on a hang gliding harness from the French manufacturer Ellipse.  This model has been manufactured since 2001.  A strap in the harness will cut open the seam of the parachute bridle when it comes under sudden tension due to the opening shock of the parachute.  Pilots using such harnesses should contact the general dealer in Switzerland or the French manufacturer to have their harnesses modified.

Click on the above for a higher resolution photo.

Strap 1 seems to be the parachute bridle.  The problem is that it is looped around strap 2 without a carabineer in between the straps.  Also, it is free to slide around on strap two, which then cuts it.  This is exactly what happened to Andreas Orgler, when he threw his chute.  You are not supposed to connect strap to strap because one will cut the other.

More here: http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6669

General dealership Switzerland:

Aérocentre
CP 21
1964 Conthey
+41 79 449 33 11

Manufacturer in France:

Ellipse
Rte de Bonnevent
70150 Etuz / France
+33 381 57 60 22

Discuss Harnesses at the Oz Report forum

2007 Paragliding Worlds

(This topic is in: <-- Mar.5 Mar.2 Mar.1 Feb.26 )

They start with a bang and a whimper (Mt Borah, Manilla)

http://canadianparaglidingteam.blogspot.com/

At the opening ceremonies we started with a Parade of Nations down the main street of Manilla to the show grounds, and then an air show over the show grounds with a variety of aircraft, and then the official FAI speeches, and finally a fireworks show.  Estimated cost of the whole event was something like $400,000 (probably a large part of that was getting the fighter jets to come overhead and do aerial maneuvers for the crowd).

This morning there were some clouds already developing at 8am, so I was thinking it would get big and OD later on.

After the task was announced everyone got ready, but the sky was looking big and after a few minutes of everyone standing around in their gear (cooking in the heat), the safety committee decided to cancel the day due to the extremely big development around, and the 3 rain cells that were visible all around the mountain (and they weren’t just in one direction, but all around us, so it was pretty obvious the conditions were getting worse and worse).

Discuss Worlds at the Oz Report forum

Pictures for the 2007 Paragliding Worlds

High above Mt.  Borah (Mt Borah, Manilla)

http://www.azoom.ch/fotos/suchergebnisse.php?shooting_no=422

Discuss Worlds' pictures at the Oz Report forum

Bad weather for the worlds

How could it all go so wrong?  :-) (Mt Borah, Manilla)

http://canadianparaglidingteam.blogspot.com/

The World's Start

Or do they?  They were suppose to start yesterday and as of now Monday Afternoon we still have not had a task.  The weather has been epic since I arrived almost 2 weeks ago.  But yesterday things went bad weather wise.

We were really happy to be down as a few hours later one of the biggest thunderstorms I have ever seen dumped loads of rain on the town of Manilla.

The forecast I have to say is not great for the next few days as a tropical storm sits in the North of Australia pulling moisture from the south towards us.

We had a hell of a monsoon last night!  After the day’s task was cancelled the storm clouds moved in, and it was only a matter of time before the deluge arrived.  We got about 34 mm of rain in 3 hours; it was so wet that huge puddles were forming since the ground couldn’t absorb that much water so quickly...

The morning actually dawned cloudy (!) (the first cloudy-in-the-morning day since getting here) with super-high humidity, so there was no rush to get up the mountain...

OK, so the day has just been cancelled, due to impeding rain and embedded cu-nims in the surrounding area.  The overriding reason for this wet weather is a bunch of low-pressure systems forming way to the north of us, one of which is predicted to develop into a typhoon (hurricane) in the next few days or so.  These weather systems usually pass through northern Oz in Dec/Jan, but this year they are late.

Discuss Bad weather at the Oz Report forum

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