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.
