Manilla

Today was the first "real" day of flying - inland XC; the flying I came to Australia to do. There were three hang gliders and half a dozen or so paragliders.

Mt Borah is the flying site at Manilla. It's a low bench, and has has launches in just about every direction. Here you see a picture of the west launch. The wind light from the southwest, so this was the launch of choice today.

I've been told that Manilla can be a heartbreaker. Mainly because there is not much vertical (around 1400ft) you don't have much time to scratch around and find a thermal before going down. Today the thermal cycles coming up the hill were strong, but well spaced. If you didn't have your launch timing just right, The bail out LZ was in your future!

By the time I was set up and ready to go the other two hang gliders were already on launch, and one paraglider was in the bail out. Helmut was first to launch, and we watched him make a valiant effort before sinking out - not a good sign. Another couple of paragliders launched and sunk out, then Peter launched his hang glider into a nicely building cycle. I moved up behind him and was going to go as soon as he cleared the launch area, but to my right another paraglider inflated his wing to go. I set my glider back down to wait for the other pilot, but then he put his wing back down. I waited for him to re-inflate, but now he was hesitating, watching conditions. Well, now it was getting late in the cycle, but I decided to go anyway. I soon regretted it. Peter had hooked the thermal and was already high above launch, and I was soon scratching in the low hills where Helmut had made his fruitless effort earlier. About ten minutes of that, and finally it turned on and I started to beam out. Peter came in above me and we were climbing nicely. Another pilot entered below, turning the opposite direction, and stupidly I allowed him to climb through me. Now I had to turn around, and in a heartbeat Peter was far above me again. We played hapscotch like that for another 15 minutes or so, until we were both high and went on course.

From that point on the flying was easy. Top of the climbs improved from around 5000ft when we launched to 6000, 7000, 8000, 9000, and finally 10,000 at the peak of the day. The going was a bit slow at first, since we wanted to stick together as we hadn't gotten our retieve details fully worked out. It was a good flight to test out the harness, and after 3 hours I was definitely ready to land. The harness was just a touch short, and was difficult to achieve and maintain a level to head down position. I made for a bit of discomfort. Then I ran out of water right around Bingara, and decided it was time to land. Once I got low, I realized it was still mid-day and everything was going off. In those thermaly condintions a landing was more likely to be a crash, so I reluctantly thermaled back up and continued on. My heart wasn't really in it, though, and I kept turning around, longingly looking at the town where I knew there would be a nice cool pub to have a beer and wait for my ride. I ended up landing another 10 miles down the road in decidedly nicer landing condition after flying 67 miles and 3hrs and 45 minutes. All in all a good first flight and a good test of the harness. I've made a few small adjustments, so I need another flight to check it out.

Now take a look at the picture of my landing spot. Can you see the wires? They are directly overhead, and the pole is behind me in this shot. The next pole is almost invisible 1/4 mile in the distance. I saw the pole when I was setting up, but I could not see the wires no matter how hard I looked. Fortunately I knew enough to assume they were there. If I hadn't scanned the perimeter of the field and seen the poles, I would have never known. Just one small but important way that things are different here, with possible large consequences!

There's a ink to google earth file of the flight here

See the flight on the HOLC here