Day 2 - great Flying and a Long Wait

Today we got another special briefing, Brendan is here and we both wanted to undertake a task. at briefing we enquired about a good task and ended up with a 320km task into the mountains. "How good is this" I was thinking after getting a nice start with Brendan and heading north on the first leg. a couple of nice climbs, cruise along a ridgeline (nice scenery, lots of bubbles) and then a long glide into a valley with limited options particularly with airspace blocking the exit to the west. We both climbed away slowly from quite a low save and then tiptoed towards the north again, only to be forced around by limited options. Man there's some impressive terrain in this area, big rocky outcrops that didn't quite get into the detail in Condor! I managed to get 2 knots from against a ridge but Brendan was unable to reach my point and was forced into a paddock. On my own now I climbed to base and set off crossing easterly into the better valley (should have worked that out earlier ;-). I managed to make the first turn at the edge of a large lake and set off on the next leg toward the higher mountains and only the odd raggy cu with a rather large blue hole. After a struggle to get a decent climb and some time trying to get any climb I was resigned to a grassy paddock on steep slope, about 1000ft above the narrow valley floor - now that was different for an Aussie flatlander. What followed was a long wait, very pleasant, as Charlie was already on the road to pick up Brendan. Eventually I negotiated a local retrieve crew, more waiting and at about 7:30pm I walked down to the main road (3km). More waiting at the bus stop until about 9:15pm when Eduard and Thomas arrived. We then managed to drive up to the glider not without us getting out and pushing at one stage. Quick de-rig in the dark and 2 hours of driving later we got back at about 12:15am. What a day!

Prievidza Flying Day 1

We met Josef and the glider today. We had an enjoyable morning, coffee, a chat and then rigged JT (affectionately known as Jenny Tango). Everything went well. As well we got a special private briefing with met and airspace from the airfield manager admirably translated by Lucia. The airfield bar and restaurant is a great spot for meals and drinks and is very popular. Eventually after lunch with Josef and Jana we got organised enough to go flying. The weather was very promising with good cus and a light wind. I took off about 2:30pm for a 3 hour flight and had a ball. Off to morning briefing, more soon.......

Still on the way...

Hi all,

well, I'm almost half-way there! Just taking advantage of the free internet access at Singapore airport and a few spare hours while waiting for my connection to Frankfurt. On target so far for an arrival at Prievidza late on the 30th - can't wait!

Nitra - we are here !

Well, it's been a hectic few days but we have established ourselves at Nitra on our way to Prievidza. Brendan and Jana and not to mention the locals are going out of their way to accomodate us. Charlie is doing admirably at left hand driving with only one major incursion on the wrong side of the road. I have been to the hospital and obtained a Slovakian aviation medical as part of my quest for a license. Yesterday I got to fly in the DG1000 for my official flight test. This ended up being 1 1/2 hours cross country of 100km ! takeoff 4:30pm landing at 6pm. This was really exciting, the countryside is great, not too scary; mountains, castles, rivers, lush crops and forests.

See if you can spot the dingo flag on the caravan at http://www.pribinacup.sk/2009/webcam-2.html.

Tonight we move on to Prievidza and set up base. Hopefully, I'll get some time to expand on our adventure so far.

Magic Weekend

Here are a couple of shots of the eagle (sea-eagle?) that joined me in my first thermal off launch on Sunday. It stayed with me all the way up from 1400ft to 6000ft and just seemed to want to enjoy the winter weather as much as I did. Great company - it's what pair flying is all about!

The Team is on the way.

The adventure boys, Keith and Graham, have departed taking the "long cut" via Shanghai, Bejing, the Trans-Siberian Railway to Moscow and then to Vienna.
Mike and Charlie depart sometime after midnight, Friday 24th and Allen leaves on the following Monday. Brendan is already in Europe preparing the way for us followers and I'm not sure of Toby's travel details. He will definately be there with us.

There has been much preparation, team flying practise and team building in progress over quite a few months now for the expedition. All of which has now come to an end with much anticipation for the coming team effort in Prievidza.

Monday night saw the end of an extensive series of get-togethers with our resident "Trick Cyclist", Helen Wood. Brendan came in on most sessions via video link, whilst the rest of us fronted in person. Team dynamics, team building, inter-personal relationships, and motivation etc have played a major roll in our effort to get the team pilots over the line. Helen's effort has been invaluable and introduced us all to a new (to us at least) dimension in team preparation. Thanks must go to her for this.

From here on in it is all go for the comps.

What a Weekend !

Well, winter flying in Australia just couldn't get much better and as a final practise prior to our overseas trip Allan and I couldn't have asked for much more.
Both days provided great conditions, lovely cus at about 6000ft, good climbs and light winds. On saturday we tasked Kumbia - Cooyar in order to keep ourselves over some terrain. The day was that good we completed 2 laps ! In the afternoon a light easterly effected the area around Cooyar and we had a struggle to get to glide. I was a bit impatient and paid the price finding absolutely nothing on the way home and landed 24km short. Allan dribbled over the line to save the day.

Sunday was just as good, the task was an AAT centred on Maryvale and return, again to take us over terrain. The country down along the range is awesome, with the recent rains keeping things green and the clear skies making the scenery even better. Plenty of eagles around too. We achieved 105kmh and stayed together well; landing with big smiles and then spent the afternoon packing stuff for our trip abroad.

Scratching around in the treetops

On Sunday, Mike and I set a task from DDSC across the Bunyas to Cooyar, then to Dalby. It turned out weak and blue, but we scraped around with several low saves - the pair flying is coming on really well. During the flight we saw some high eagles and some low ones - the low ones were eating road-kill and the high ones were sitting in the trees watching!

Weekend Training

Winter weather is making for good practise at being low and taking weak climbs. On Saturday Allan and Mike took 2 1/2 hours to fly to Dalby and back, a strong South Wester adding to the challenge. Some good practise at thermal exits as well as some discussion around tactics and comms when low.
The Dingo flag was flown for the first time.
Sunday was going to be hopeless so the morning was spent tinkering with PDAs and comparing Team Code functions. In the end it looks like Winpilot has the best option.