North Victoria Gliding WORLD champs

[bagmaker]

There is currently a WORLD gliding championships being held at Benalla, Victoria. Many of the coming tasks will be roughly to the north of the township so if your in the area LOOK UP! And by area I am talking roughly, tasks in the coming days will be many hundreds of kilometers
Todays task is a miserly 186km and average speeds are under 100km/h due to the recently passed cold front.
Go here http://www.livetrack24.com/tasks/3458 for an overveiw and click the top right hand "live tracking" -google earth is a good option.
If you scroll down in google earth and enable the "update full tracks" under "places" then you can see the route each competitor takes.

[SteveW]

For about 2 years (2014 2015) I carried a b-double load of glider fuel from Adelaide to Melbourne every Saturday night.

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[Chuck]

Guess that wouldn't weigh very much...



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[BruceS]

About the same as the backload of VW radiators?

[bagmaker]

Many of the new ones have little pop-up jets in the back (perhaps Steve carted kero??)

[SteveW]

A bugger to get it out of the trailers, though!

[bagmaker]

A bugger to get it out of the trailers, though!

you would'nt know it was there, they fold down into the fuselage when not in use. Need a looooooooong runway to self-launch but plenty of power to get home if you have been a bit "ambitious"

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[Lance]

Do you actually fly these BMer or are you just an interested spectator.
I've got glider flights, maybe instruction, on my bucket list.

[SteveW]

Will you explain it, Bruce, or will I?

[bagmaker]

Do you actually fly these BMer or are you just an interested spectator.
I've got glider flights, maybe instruction, on my bucket list.

I flew for 20 years or so Lance but haven't for the last 5. Times changed a lot over that period, notably, its a very difficult "sport" to get a feel for. Your first trial and instruction flights are in the vehicle equivelent of a 12 yard tip truck. Noisy, hard edged, no feel through the controls, slow. There is just no way to indicate to potential pilots what the gig is all about. Enthusiastic fellow club members are the key.
When you finally hit the little ones though (15 -18m wingspan, single seat) everything changes. Imagine someone dropped your favourite armchair in a bathtub, surrounded it in plexyglass and everything needed is at your fingertips. The aircraft soon responds to your thoughts -like any practiced machine- rather than you considering your input into it. Nothing to see 12000 ft in summer, nothing to see 200km/h on the speedo. Cruise about the hills and flats free as a bird. There is a cool drink in the bottle behind you and a catheter on the old fellow for when you have had too much.
I have only done a 300k declared FIA triangle (out of Benalla) but did a 5 hour stint once out of Tocumwal and some cross country stuff in QLD. Last flew out of Lake Keepit, shown here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-xOZ2luGZA, pretty!
Not a particularly expensive sport (comparitively) but one needs to keep at it annually to enjoy. Kids, work, not a good mix for gliding. Possibly a great mix for grey nomads, airfields have lots of parking and good people hanging about would probably be welcome.
If you are keen a day trip to Benalla for these world comps would be an eye opener, there are some very expensive bits of kit there. I would wait till shortly after easter when the conditions ease a bit and take a joy flight out of Benalla if you were keen, the club there has nice trainers and members.
Bruno Vassal in the USA does some lovely video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuptAQrwZZk

So now, for the moment, just an interested spectator.