Since the launch lines were so long, I could not get to the start gate in time for an early start. I took a later start time and tried to catch the leaders. Things went reasonably well until the day started to die and I ended up taking several weak climbs just to make it in. 65th for the day. Bummer. I am still have a right turn in my glider. As a result, the muscles on my right side are very sore this morning! I was in the air almost 5 hours yesterday.
The scenery north of Hay is unreal. It looks like you are flying over Mars. I heard that some of the Russian pilots were scared since they could not locate any ground features and feared they would never be found if they landed away from the road.
The flying was good yesterday, but rough. One pilot threw his parachute over the tow paddock and two other pilots crashed on launch when the winds turned 90 degrees to our tow direction. Lots of carnage but no serious injuries. I dove into a couple of dust devils yesterday that were just about at my control threshold. If you like rodeo air, come to Hay!
The USA was in second place yesterday, but I think we fell a couple of places yesterday. You can read more details in the Oz Report at http://www.ozreport.com/.
3 comments:
Hello Tom.
We are here man, very excited following your Australian adventures. It must be awesome to be there participating and such an event with the top pilots in the World.
Congratulations for your flights there so far and we are rooting for you here back home. Keep up the good work and we'll fly together in Florida this spring.
Good luck to you and good Vibes from Up Above...
Your Friend,
Marcelo Zanetti
Thanks! The flying is nice but the tow paddock is unpleasant. I guess the lift is so strong because the air is trying to get away from the ground!
Tom, keep up the good and safe flying.
Hope you have your fly net with you because you will wonder what is worse; dust or the flies that will appear when the wind dies down.
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