Saturday, January 9, 2010

Marta's day - first 3 records

It was a really hard day today. The thermals were hard to work with, each cloud was different and a pretty long part of the task was in the blue. The plan with speed and distance records didn’t quite work out. It looks like I made the distance over a declared triangle, a free triangle and a distance using up to 3 turn points in the 15 meter class. I uploaded the flight to the OLC so you can have a look if you wish. It was a struggle but I decided not to give up although I was pretty close to that couple of times. I’ve learned again never ever to give up. The first and second leg were slow but OK. The third one was good at the very beginning, I got the height of the day and it started to blue out. I was pretty sure I will land at Warren Airport which was my last turn point. I was already overhead and discovered a Cu building up to the north of the airport. I decided to check it out before I land and … it worked. It didn’t give me the final glide though since I was almost 70 km from home. I decided to go for it and called Ziggy 20 km out that I’m probably going to land next to the road going north out of Narromine. I already had the paddock picked and suddenly hit probably the last bubble of the day … it was already 6:30 pm … It gave me not only the final glide but also the required altitude to complete the task… I’m really tired. More tomorrow …

Nie bylo latwo dzis. Cezko bylo znalezc noszenia pod chmurami, kazda chmura pracowala inaczej i dosc duze czesc trasy byla na termice bezchmurnej, ktora byla zdecydowanie slabsza od chmurowej. Plan maximum pobica pieciu rekordow w jednym locie: predkosc po trojkacie 500km, odleglosc po trasie trojkata deklarowanego i dowolnego i odleglosc po trasie z 3 punktami zwrotnymi nie do konca sie udal. Predkosc wyszla dosc slaba ale 3 rekordy odleglosciowe sie udaly. Lot jest na OLC wiec mozna go obejrzec jesli ktos ma ochote. Po raz kolejny przekonalam sie, ze nigdy  nie nalezy sie poddawac. Bylam tego bliska kilka razy. Bylam przekonana ze wyladuje najpozniej w Warren, ktory byl moim ostatnim punktem zwrotnym. Bedac nad tym lotniskiem zauwazylam Cu budujacego sie na polnoc od tamtego lotniska i pomyslalam, ze obejrze go sobie z bliska zanim wyladuje. Okazalo sie, ze dzialal ale nie dal mi jeszcze dolotu do Narromine, do ktorego bylo 70 km. Na 20-tym kilometrze zawolalam Ziggy zeby mu powiedziedziec, ze laduje kolo drogi i w tym momencie trafilam chyba ostani babel dnia, ktory dal mi nie tylko dolot ale i wysokosc potrzebna do ukonczenia zadania. Jutro gramy dalej ;-)

saturday

Plan: 550 km triangle, start on leg ... for distance and speed.

Friday, January 8, 2010

they made it!



Congrats to Ziggy and Paul on their first 500 km!

spot

I think spot is a great thing to have. I'm sitting here in my cool "control centER" or in the ozzy way "control centRE" watching Ziggy's and Paul's progress on their task. Looks like they are doing all right and I can expect them here within the next 2-3 hours. Weather still looks great so coming back should not be an issue at all. If it's gonna stay this way I'll have to drive down to the store pretty quick and get someting to drink :-)

control center



flight progress

They are now reaching their 2nd turnpoint and have then 200km to go. Keep going!

I found something really interesting in one of Shinzo's australian registered gliders today. Have a quick look at the placards :-) I don't know about you but I haven't seen it before and got quite excited.



Ziggy's day



morning briefring


Since Ziggiy said he planted this flower in the middle of nowhere and is taking care of it just for me I decided to let him fly today. Weather is improving every single day and we will surely get a few really good days before we head back home. Today is the best day I've seen here. The trophs lost on activity and moved away, the mass dried out a bit, it got warmer and we have a beautiful sky covered with Cu's. Ziggy and Paul declared a 500 km triangle for their badges and went on course about 1.5 h ago. Let's hope they'll make it and we'll have a reason to celebrate this evening.


Ian, Zig & Colin in the shop

Ian and Colin were so nice and fixed the broken tail dolly for us. They did a great glass work on that and I'm pretty sure that it's gonna last till the day when nobody will know that XT ever existed. Thanks guys!

first bite

This was not the day again … wrong direction. It went well at the beginning but then I got lower and lower and couldn’t find any descent climb. I turned back when the speed got down to 75 kph. I went up north to check the conditions and they were way better than everybody expected. I thought about changing the task shortly before take off but gave up that idea convinced by the locals that it’s gonna be really good the way I picked first. There is no giving up though. Tomorrow is another day.

I got the first ant bite when we’ve been putting the glider away. I would never say it’s gonna be that painful. We cooled it with ice I got some pain killers and felt better after a while. It's good to have a doctor on duty ;-)
We cooked dinner together again. I have to revise my opinion about streaks. The one Ziggy cooked last night is now one of the best and I’m not bullshitting so no factor has to be applied. He’s cooking salmon tomorrow!While we were eating somebody got in and informed us about the storm with possible hail coming in. We took off really quickly and since it was too late to put it in the box we just secured all we could and watched the spectacle. It was just amazing. The whole horizon was lightning. I’ve never seen such a beautiful thunderstorm before. We went back to the kitchen and told all the others to go out on the field and watch it. What they did. They went out in two cars and parked on the runway. I was kind of pissed that Ziggy just made it to the tiedowns and didn’t want to go to the runways trying to explain to me that it was illegal and we get caught by the ranger. I knew no airplane is gonna come in that late. What for? To stay in the Peppercorn Motel? Suddenly the runway lights went on. At first I thought it was Ziggy bullshitting again but then figured out he didn’t have his radio with him so it was quite sure he didn’t turn the lights on. There was an airplane coming in on final … and two cars parked on the runway in the middle of the night. This plane was out for Dubbo, couldn’t make it due to thunderstorm and decided to wait in Narromine till it passes by. So there we see the two cars speeding down the runway both drivers DUI. They were concerned about the lights but thought it was Ziggy bullshitting again. After they turned on the radio though they heard the call in and decided to get the hell of the runway as soon as they could. Nobody has never seen Jenny jumping up so quickly before. Just to make it clear – there are like no airplanes landing in Narromine after dark so nobody was really prepared for that. “What was the chance for an aircraft coming in?” said Jenny-Lightknocker ;-)
… At any rate it was a fun evening … again


Jenny, Ziggy & Paul

Thursday, January 7, 2010

morning update



It looks like it could work out today ... plan is the same as yesterday - 200k triangle. This time I'm prepared for a few different options in all possible directions. First Cu's are popping already on the horizon. It is hard to figure which direction will be the best. We're on standby.
Some good news arrived this morning. My ICAO english proficiency test results are ready - Level 6 :-)

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

evening stories

I forgot to mention that Ziggy's bullshit factor that has to be applied on eveything he says has been changed. We all coocked dinner at the airport last night and Jenny decided to increase the after-dinner-talk-factor up to 40%. "trust me, I'm a doctor" doesn't really work at all in this particular case ... but we all love you doctor  Zig!

Ziggy said he's cooking tonight ...


new club member named Narro

not today, not now, tomorrow is gonna be another day



The day started with some troubles. The taildolly broke down on the way to the flight line and the 55 run into the car. It felt worse than it turned out to be. A piece of ducttape sorted out the problem and I was ready to go. The taildolly is being fixed just now. Jenny & Sarah and Paul declared the same task and went up first. Seeing the girls struggling over the airport I decided to wait a bit. It wasn't getting better so I decided to launch anyways and beeing heavy had some troubles getting away. I managed that though and waited for the predicted good weather. It wasn't really getting better ... cloudbase around 5500 ft and my average climb wasn't exceeding 3 kts ... oh well, since it wasn't improving at all I tried to start the task couple of times but couldn't find any climb after crossing the startline and kept coming back when the XC speed dropped below 100 kph. I've done it couple of times and then called it a day. Nobody went for that task ... it was definitely the wrong direction we picked today. Altough the rest was full with Cu's they didn't work well and were not high at all. Our task was in the single blue hole caused by the troph to the south of Narromine. Well, tomorrow is another day in the heat ;-)

morning in Narromine

just a short update... 200 km triangle is planned for today. Narromine - Peak Hill Silo - Albert Silo - Narromine. Keep your fingers crossed :-)

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

back in the 55


We managed to get everything up and going by the early afternoon and decided to go up despite the weather. It was crap … 5000 ft, 2.5 kts average lift … till the OD’s came closer and closer. Nobody went anywhere. We kinda hovered around the airport. Ziggy got me down after not even 2 hours, which was good cause I already checked all the equipment, that by the way was working just fine. He then went up for an hour and we called it a day. The wet stuff is predicted to move over during the night and we might have a pretty descent flyable window tomorrow. I’m planning for a short task… time for dinner and wine! Cheers!

first kangaroo, first snake, first flight

I was really surprised how well I managed the first night. I slept through and woke up at 6. We hit the road about 8. Just after we started I asked Ziggy if he’s really sure he can find the way to Narromine without navigation. He looked at me in the “wtf-kind-of-look” way and … after about 2 hours stopped to ask somebody for directions. We only made about 100 km more than planed – according to Ziggy. If you use the 20% “bullshit factor” defined by Jenny it’ll make about 120 km more. Anyways, we got here safe. Lake Keepit, where we picked up the glider, was my first meet and greet with kangaroos and … a black snake. We hooked up the glider and were about to leave the place when we noticed that snake on the dirt road. It looked pretty much dead to me and I wanted to jump out of the car and take pictures. Ziggy-hero stopped me and got out first to double check the condition of that poor guy. Finally he’s a doctor and should know better. The creature was dead indeed and I got a first snake lecture. Even Ziggy wouldn’t be able to save my life … if you see one of those just get the hell out of there.



We finally got to Narromine. I went up in a Twin Astir for a sort of site check out with Arnie. It looks like I didn’t mess up too much and I’m good to go. Conditions today were actually worse than they looked like. Around 5000 ft AGL and up to 6 kts lift is not really good enough for my plans. It’s supposed to improve though. Today was the first soarable day after a week with an amount of rainfall that is normal for 6 months. So it needs to dry up. If the temps are gonna stay this high … no problem in the next couple of days. BTW, got a bit of sunburn today. We rigged the gliders (two 55’s) in the evening and went for dinner with Paul, Jenny, Jeremy and their daughter Sarah.

Sunday, January 3, 2010

long trip

I love Frankfurt. Got there on time, starving to death, luckily found my favorite junk food place – the one with the big yellow M that stands for Marta. All of the sudden all were told to leave the place as quickly as they possibly can. It turned out that somebody left a piece of luggage unattended so they have to go through all the security procedures required for this case. The food corner was placed on a kind of gallery one level higher than the rest. They collected all people down there and told us to wait. I decided to grab my camera but as soon as I got it out and took 2 pics I was told not to do so. Anyways, they brought a kind of bomb resistant little electric cart just to figure out it’s not gonna make it up the stairs. So … they brought the “what was supposed to be a bomb” down to us. How cool is that? After a while they apparently figured out that since it didn’t explode yet it was not a bomb and opened the food corner to prevent people they just saved from explosion from starving to death. That’s how I survived. In general all bigger German airports are pretty much weather resistant. I was surprised by the number of de-ice vehicles an all the other winter equipment they have. We had an unusual amount of snowfall last couple of days and the airports are just clean. It was a mystery to me though why did we de-ice in Berlin. No rain, no snow no precipitation whatsoever – the wings were just clean and shiny. Probably that’s just a Lufthansa “safety-increasing-mandatory-and-try-not-to-comply-and-you-will-see-procedure”. Who knows? At least I know what I payed for ;-)
So there we were in Singapore. The turn over went really quick. We had to leave the plane, take all our stuff and re-board again after 40 minutes. My plan to take a quick shower and change clothes out there took s… The next leg to Sydney was pretty much straight forward. All flights till then on time. The last one, a 55 minutes flight to Tamworth, was delayed over an hour. The good thing though was, after they announced the delay, they offered vouchers for food and drinks so that nobody can sue them for dying of starvation. BTW, if you like flying with great service, lots and lots of food, great entertainment system and male flight attendants … go ahead and pick Quantas. I’m pretty much impressed.
On the last leg I finally realized that I’m in Australia and it’s about time to spot a kangaroo. I looked out the window during the whole descent to Tamworth but all I could see were horses and cows. They cheated on me…the Ozzies. Ziggy picked me up from the airport and promised we’ll see a kangaroo tomorrow on our way to Narromine.
The plan for tomorrow is to hook up the glider and hit the road to Narromine. We should do it pretty early in the morning to beat the heat. Well, it’s 9 pm in here and we’re running around short sleeved and just had one of the best steaks ever and some good Australian red wine. I could get used to that ;-)
P.S. I just let Ziggy read this text and that's what he said: "Whatever happens on the tour goes thru Ziggy before it's published. No bullshit." Oh well ...