2012/02/04-08 Bright (AU) thermalling

Plan was to go to XC camp to Manilla but... Manilla was flooded. Ok, lets go to Bright!
Saturday,
First day of flying in Bright. Smooth and strong thermals, cloudbase at 2500m. Above certain altitude air thermals were huge and everywhere. I was afraid of over development so once I have seen dangerously growing cumulus I decided to land after 2h flight. In the evening we were prepared for next days in terms of our goals and flight directions. Chatting with pilots on camp gave us a lot of local knowledge which we were hoping to make use of soon.
Sunday,
Too windy. We were trying to practice groundhandling on local airport but it was way to windy. Instead of flying we went to swim in the river. Quite a lot of fun. In Bright they make local beer called 'X'. Different kinds of this one are available in the local brewery. Very very nice experience at the end of the day.
Monday,
I get one flight around one hour but it was very turbulent and bumpy. I didn't consider it as a fun. In the evening we have gone to Kieva valley and tried some other flying spot. Late evening thermals were still working, not strong enough to climb to me but significantly extending our flight times. Sinking was about 0.2 m/s. Rob made use of one of them and stayed in the air for about 20 min. My second flight was about 20 minutes of so partially according to the 'magic air' i.e. katabatic flow.
Tuesday,
The best day of flying. Early in the morning nice XC flight from Take off to Smoko back to take off to Harietville and then landing in Smoko. In the meantime one of the pilots thrown his reserve, I was witnessing from the air. A few times in wet and cold cloud were very refreshing and enjoyable. I learned a lot about thermalling without thermalling assistant because my GPS crashed a day before leaving from Sydney. Second flight late in the evening, about 4pm, over 1h and straight way from take off to Harrietville. That was fun, smooth thermalls, up to 3,5 m/s but 0.6 to 1m/s in general. Very calm and warm air made this flight simple and enjoyable. Hitchhiking works in Victoria pretty well. I hope to came back there in a future despite it is about 8h drive from Sydney.






2012_02_4567_Bright (Victoria AU) from lukastu on Vimeo.