Volume 1, Number 2
11 AM, Tuesday, January 1st, 2002
Deniliquin, NSW
"Gordo, I have a feeling we're not in Wylie anymore."

More warm-ups

The next day (The real practise day) saw the WA crew a little jaded. The rest of the Victorians had arrived the night before and we'd met our driver Paul Rundell. After chasing our tails for an hour we settled back on the strip we had initially claimed and got set-up.

We started towing a little late at about 1500, and Phil got up and going early. Again on the way back to Deni. He called in occasionally to tell us all about it. Meanwhile a large dusty had been sighted and was heading towards our neighbours on the left. In a scene straight out of "Twister" it veered towards Bomber who was clipped in on the rope. He soon wasn't, but still got tossed forwards, with me on the nose wires, throwing him through the upright (VG side). Gordo also got turtled, and my glider was saved by an old mate, who just happened to be walking past. Half an hour later we'd fixed Bomber's glider and started towing again. Bomber got up and then myself at about 1630. The black haze of Gordo's world descended again, and Gordo didn't leave the paddock.

Phil had pretty much made Deni by the time Bomber and I were on course. The going was much the same as the previous day but a little more consistent. It was a blue day so we felt much more at home. After slugging it out into the 15mph breeze (A little more westerly) some high cloud had snuck into view and brought the day to a close at about 1830. Bomber managed a late climb and snuck into our Goal paddock with about 700' to spare. I was about 5Km short.

Friday night at 8:30pm was official briefing/opening/welcome and started at 9:30 at another Pub. Reasonably impressed with Tove's organisation, she's done a great job. The team spirit has stuck with everyone adopting a name, and Shannon, Nick and crew (Team Maggot) have also got a T-Shirt to rival our own "Chicks with racks" team shirt.

Day 1 - Shenanigans

Day 1 and the high cloud showed what it was hiding - wind. (We're feeling more at home every day). It blowed and blowed, and the day got canned. We got back to town quite early and were looking for some mischief.

Out came the water cannon. What followed was a spree of drive by shootings of cars (Any with gliders) and pilots. A notable was James Freeman (Owner of the dodgy Four Runner), whom we blasted from his own car. Looking to instigate further action we also played a lamish ambush on team Maggot. This was to prove costly.

Happy with having stamped our authority on Shenanigans, we retired to the camp ground. About 3 hours later Team Maggot, plus ring-ins, had us surrounded and a bloody battle resulted leaving pretty much everyone saturated. By then we had all retreated to the only hose in the vicinity, loosely clinging to this final outpost.

Day 2 - East then North

Team Maggot took an early lead in the team comp due to Shenanigans points for the ambush, and bonus points for the T-Shirt. Grant Heaney put in a late bid by pants-ing Bomber while he was standing on the bar doing the team scoring - nice work.

The Maggots again showed their form early in the morning by offering Bomber a lift in the Green VW van. They pinned his arms from behind and sprayed his head with fluoro yellow dye. It's still on his scalp 3 days later. We've found a worthy adversary.

We're using turn-points from a pre-defined list, as such they're just numbers. Using the Aircotec means I have to pester the lads for the coordinates when the task has been set. This task was about 35k to TP1 then 55k to Goal. I think it was meant to be crosswind to TP then downwind to goal, but it turned out the other way. All classes had the same goal, the floaters were straight line and the kingposts were via a TP on a shorter route. There were 9 in goal in open and none in the others.

I towed first and spent 15 minutes going from 1300' to 1100' in choppy stuff. Thinking I was early, and not in lift anyway I landed (Terribly). Finally towed at about 1530 and scratched away, not bothering about the start time, but managing to get it about right. Bomber and Gordo had left, Phil got stuck in the paddock for a few more tows. Gordo fell out of the lift and bombed about 10k from the paddock. Phil got away later and only managed a little further than Gordo.

I had a small gaggle of about 5 and did everything I could to stay with them. Turned out one of them was Bomber. Climbs were fairly broken, 100 to 300fpm, but when the good bubbles came through they were 500-600. You had to keep an eye on the other pilots so you didn't miss the shooters when they came through. In the light broken lift the better pilots tend to fly wide patterns and minimise sink rate, rather than crank up. They tighten on the shooters as they came through though. I find this difficult as you have to have a bigger mental image of the lift patterns. More on this later.

We were getting to about 4200 then heading off. Rohan later told us he was getting to 7000. Getting low half way to TP we found lift on the upwind edge of a forest which put us back in the hunt. A quick transition to another core near the TP got us round and by now we'd collected 2 other gaggles. (I didn't pay any attention to TP and only just scraped the cylinder, Bomber did the same but missed it by 60m). Remainder of the flight was working to stay upwind of the course - much easier when there are pilots around you.

The gaggle very quickly dwindled, and eventually Bomber and I landed 32k from Goal. I think Kari Castle was one of 2 or 3 I noticed slipping away from us. There were heaps of casualties early on this leg of those who had been low at the TP. Fairly happy with the result as we'd maintained course line until late in the day. There were a lot of guns between us and goal.

We noticed one guy flying a Laminar, with a really clean harness - looked great except that his head was about 50cm higher than his feet, even on glide. He might as well have been flying in Hang. But I'm sure he feels good knowing he's got new gear.

Bad news from the day was that Steve Moyes is in hospital with a broken leg. Apparently he was out of his harness and sitting in his A-Frame after landing out. A dusty got him and his leg was caught between an upright and a wire. We were speculating how the accident report would read -

Glider Damage - Nil

Injuries - Broken Tibia

Experience - The most.

There was some confusion on the retrieve with 2 cars talking and ours had lost the alternator. We eventually got picked up and were soon driving in the dark without lights, low on fuel, situation normal. We got back and handed our GPSs in. Zupy couldn't turn mine on so the next morning I was back and we prepared a procedure. The comp GPS software (PC) takes the Aircotec directly and the flight downloaded in about 30 seconds, as opposed to 10 minutes the old way - fantastic.

Day 2 - Pegging it

More wind, canned again. Except this time we set up. We discussed free flying but the lack of roads and general wind strength convinced us otherwise. I'm sure Bomber would have gone if I did - but I'm trying to act like and old & bold pilot, got a family after all. It was flyable. Rohan and James had set goal at James' LZ from the day before, where he'd left his 'phone. Rohan made it, and landed 20m from the phone. "This is Rohan at 4 grand, 20k's from phone...". James fell out of the paddock by 1km. Rohan even seemed comfortable with our challenge of flying back to Deni with a cross head wind of 25MPH. Impressive attitude (Smart arse).

It appears Gordo has found a new calling in life as a hair dresser. He took to (driver) Paul with the clippers, and Paul was soon sporting a Mo-Hawk. Not a shabby job either. Paul confided me that Gordo was brushing against him in a rather sensuous fashion. I've just eaten so won't elaborate. I should mention that Paul is an instructor with Dynamic flight.

Since it was New Years eve we eventually got to the HQ/Pub and began a campaign of pegging (sticking a peg on clothing/hair) anyone we could. Bomber only took a handful of Pegs, and I wasn't overly enthused about the idea. But the response was amazing. Team Maggot soon cottoned on and within half an hour there were peggings happening everywhere. It became a challenge to peg one of the guns/celebrities. Ron Richardson got done very early but never noticed, much to our delight. Vicki Cain (ne Moyes) was bugging us for extra pegs so she could get Gordon Rigg. We eventually got him through a combined effort of Vicki, Bomber and myself.

The best was a dual pegging of Lucas Bader and tug-pilot-Willy. Both wearing leather slouch hats. They were talking to each other, both in profile to us with Pegs hanging out the back of their hats. Each would occasionally look around, allowing the other to see their peg, but neither would say anything to the other. It was too much for us, standing in a group of 6 or 8, and we were in hysterics. Gordo tried to peg Gerolf but got caught.