Dalby Weekend 8th March 2008

On Saturday the 8th of March myself and few others thought we would give flying from Beechmont to Dalby a try, around 250kms. It was the day before the comp started and Michelle had said that she would drive for me (god bless her). Well, if we didn't dream we'd never get anywhere right.

I launched around 9am not long after Jonny Jnr. He was still on the ridge at Beechmont while I was climbing. I saw a glimpse of him over Hinchliffs and then he disappeared. It was quite windy and brave paraglider (Gavin) was in the air also. I managed to get to Hichcliffs ok, but took a while to get back up. Eventually Gavin found something good in front of launch. Yay, and under him I went. Then Rod S, Gavin and myself were all at cloudbase over Hinchies. Go Rod, I thought. Nope. Go Gavin I thought... not keen either. Ok then, I'll go. I headed West to Witheren, Gav headed more NW and Rod headed SW. I got nothing at Witheren really and continued on to near the Rifle range where at 1,800ft I found a 700ft PM up. Gavin thought, Yay, and came in under me. We had a great time thermalling directly opposite each other.

I then saw Rod near Beaudesert and headed over. I lost Gavin but could see someone really low under us. I thought he would just get up in what Rod and I were in, but I found our later it was Enda and he landed there. Rod and I headed off, Rod went more SW and I decided to do the safe thing and follow the road. Not sure where Rod ended up, but I ended up having a great landing 40km from Beechmont. Well, I gave it a bash.

Michelle picked me up after getting Enda and we then continued on to Dalby. There we found Jonny. Surprise (not). The guy is a freak. An inspiration to us all though. Warren also made it out there later in the day too. Well done guys.

On Sunday I did a couple of early morning tows to practice my landings. (Broke an upright recently). But it was really windy which meant my approach was not good (dropped way short), but landing was easy in the strong winds.

Everyone waited patiently for the winds to drop a bit before starting the comp. Except for some tug pilots who had a race to 1,000ft which looked quite spectacular in the strong winds. I launched just before the main field at around 1pm. It was a bit rough low, but not too bad once above 500ft. I got off tow into a 700ft up and got to 6000ft quite quickly. After that I had trouble finding good lift and I kept drifting away from the road to Chinchilla, which was the only road I knew and michelle (who kindly drove for me) had no good maps. So I knew I had to stay near it if I was to be found easily. I headed back to the road and lost height rapidly landing near the road 40km out from Dalby. Good, fun, flight though.

We went back to the hanger to drop something off to Leeroy and say goodbye to everyone. Lees towing students were a bit sad because with the strong wind they didn't get to do much towing, but I'm sure they had a good time and gained a lot good info from Lee and the other ledgend pilots out there.