FOOTLAUNCH

FOOTLAUNCH^may

A Business Link Production

What with rising interest rates and a low dollar things are looking pretty desperate. Doreen has got all belligerent and decided to become sponsored in order to make this little job of hers lucrative enough to get out of bed for. Sorry, I’ve rushed this one a bit. (What’s new?)

Next club meeting; on Wed 9^th May at The Pheasant, Welland. Nick Collins is giving a talk about Weather and charts and all things meteorological. Why not bring along the other half for an evening of warm fronts and lapse rates… What fun! Do come along!

Thanks again to Simon for his genuine and original Oz reort – Ripper! More insights to follow I hope. Its all flippin OZ news this issue.

Safe flying, Richard

SAFETY MATTERS and other stuff

Tim? Where art thou Tim?

Comps and meetings

Club BBQ

Wed 13 Jun 20:00 - 23:00 (3 hrs)
(London)
Veeda Glenta, Blackmore Park Rd, Malvern, WR13 6NN (map)

BBQ at Ken & Jacky's. Bring your own meat and drink please.
More event details »

Lakes Charity Classic

Entries for the 2007 LCC are now open. Full details for the event, its organisation and an entry form can be found under the 'Lakes Charity Classic' link on the CSC website homepage (http://www.cumbriasoaringclub.co.uk)

The LCC has a long history of attracting pilots from all over the country who join together to have a good time in a fantastic part of the country and, at the same time, raise a good amount of money for charity. We hope that this year's event will be as successful as last year's.

Many thanks, Simon Raven CSC Contact / Secretary / Membership Sec.

Dear Doreen,

Do you have a problem? That’s what your local Business link Office is trained to sort out for you! Just remember – “In a bit of a stink? Call your Business Link!” Ask me anything – yes anything!

Dear Doreen,

When I go flying on a sunny day I’ve noticed a glow around my shadow as I pass yonder summit.

I think this is because I have been blessed by some greater being. Could you give me some advice on how to best use my supremacy to help humanity?

Yours truly, Obiwan McObie

Dear Obiwan

I believe you must be the new messiah. If you contact your local Business Link Office (Messiah section) they can let you have some leaflets and application forms for a grant.

I hope this helps, Doreen.

Dear Doreen,

I have a great idea for you fliers that came to me this Sunday whilst I was out walking! When you go flying you should hang three or four saplings from your harness. This way, should you come down a bit quick, you’ll probably harmlessly bounce back into the air and save the planet at the same time by utilising a renewable resource. What do you think?

Jackson Fatigue

Dear Jackson

I think your idea has legs (or at least the ability to save a few!) Contact your local Business Link Office (Great Ideas section) and they can let you have some leaflets and application forms for a development grant.

I hope this helps, Doreen.

Dear Doreen,

I’m concerned over the use of artificial fertilisers used in the production of the food that is used to feed the people that make my paragliders. Is there any way that I could make sure my paraglider is TOTALLY organic? They don’t have to be vegetarians but I would sleep more easily if I knew they were eating hand-reared happy chickens. What about Apco? Perhaps they could be made on a Kibbutz?

Yours, Sky Containsnuts

Dear Sky,

I think your best course of action would be to contact the overseas section at your local Business Link Office where they may be able to but you in touch with a settlement or community near a paraglider manufacturer who have your ideals. And, they can let you have some leaflets and application forms for some kind of grant or something.

I hope this helps, Doreen.

Dear Doreen,

I’ve got these horrible great red welts all over my body and my wife has left me for another woman and my hang glider’s divergent. I bet your bloody Business Link operatives can’t sort that one out!

Yours, Ben X

Dear Ben,

Oh yea of little faith! Business Link has just the answer to your problems... Pity you were so rude.

I hope this helps, Doreen.

News – mostly mad

EIGHT-year-old blue heeler Patch is one old dog that can be taught new tricks.

Perched high on a hang-glider above Rex Lookout near Cairns, the versatile cattle dog looks every bit the seasoned pro he is.

But Patch isn't just a hang-gliding hound. The 12-flight veteran is also an accomplished motorcyclist and surfer, not to mention an old hand at the job he was bred for – rounding up cattle.

Professional hang-gliding instructor Greg Newnham has owned Patch since he was five weeks old, but waited until he turned two before taking him on his maiden voyage.

"It's not where a dog should be, I think they're happier on the ground, but to come up with me and see what I do, I think that puts the whole world in a different perspective for him," Mr Newnham said.

More here

DARWIN: Only when Miles Hilton-Barber has an ice cold beer in his hand will he be convinced he's made it Down Under.

The first blind pilot to fly more than half way around the world touched down in Darwin yesterday, 46 days after setting off in a tiny hang glider-like plane from London.

"This has been a dream of my life," the 58-year-old motivational speaker from Derby said on the tarmac.

"I can hardly believe I am here in Oz. I will believe it when someone sticks a cold beer in my hand. I've been hinting at it but it hasn't happened yet."

The father of three, who began his epic 21,722km trip on March 7, has braved snow storms, freezing temperatures and torrential downpours.

"We've had a few dodgy flights ... over the Lebanese mountains at 13,000 feet (3960m) we got caught in a very bad, freaky snowstorm," he said.

"We had ice all over the plane and icicles on our suits."

At the other extreme, bad thermal weather in the desert over Saudi Arabia "suddenly catapulted us upwards, like getting in a lift and going up three floors in a second".

"When you've got one little seatbelt on that's quite scary."

When Hilton-Barber finishes his marathon adventure in Sydney later this week, he will have traversed more than 18 countries with one of his two co-pilots, who are responsible for speaking to control towers and keeping a close watch on things.

Hilton-Barber uses revolutionary speech-output from navigation instruments to steer a course for his customised microlight plane.

"It's a very primitive form of flying, but for a blind man it's wonderful because it is very sensual. You can smell the smells coming up from the ground and I can feel the temperature, the wind, the cold," he said.

Hilton-Barber left Kupang in Indonesia on Sunday but strong headwinds forced him to make an unexpected stop at Kununurra in Western Australia.

He touched down in Darwin shortly after 5.30pm yesterday after a seven-hour journey.

Asked if he was exhausted by the long flight, he replied: "No, (and Australia) it's a fair dinkum place."

Going blind 25 years ago has not stopped the avid adventurer, who said "attitude not altitude" was his only hindrance.

"The only thing holding any of you back here in Australia is five inches and that's the distance between your ears," he said.

More here

Canberra Calling

My inspiration for this month's thought from down under was (re) triggered by Adrian Thomas' World Championships report in the April Skywings. (Give me another couple of months and I will stop going on about it, I promise)

I spent a lot of time hanging around the Manilla take off watching as the World's best pilots got themselves into the air. While the majority did this with commendable expertise, there were significant numbers who seemed to have let the competition get in the way of their basic skills like how to take off, airmanship, common courtesy, and common sense.

I watched a number of folks launching into minimal wind and barely getting off the hill with a

pathetic run. I've heard the technique accurately described by Robin Brown (or it could have been Terry Stubbs) as mincing your way off the hill. I'm sure that neither of them would bestow a CP rating on any student habitually failing to leave the hill with a committed run and a decent amount of excess airspeed in hand. There are perhaps mitigating circumstances for the slightly built ladies carrying a lot of ballast, but some of the offenders were hefty blokes.

I'm not sure if this one is basic skill or common sense. Last month I mentioned the chap who found himself dangling from a tree seconds after take off because he had run off the edge with only half a wing inflated. I'm sure I remember every instructor I have been with telling their students to check their canopy before casting themselves into the void. Isn't it obvious?

Back on the ground, the attitude of some pilots to the unpaid volunteer assistants and marshals was a bit disappointing at times. I know these guys were under stress, but it's not that difficult to say thanks, or wave and smile if you don't have a common language in which to express some appreciation for the assistance you have just been given. Worse still I heard one pilot grumbling loudly that her glider had not been laid out in the manner to which she had become accustomed.

Unfortunately, things don't seem to get any better once in the air and headed towards cloudbase. Near misses and mid-air collisions were the order of the day in the big gaggles obviously a risk when there are very large numbers of aircraft in a small space, but aggravated by the occasional idiot who insisted on circling in the opposite direction, or aggressively shoving into a space that wasn't there.

One wonders what it takes to get a safety message into some heads. Every morning the meet director briefed about not cloud flying and no acro over the goal line, so what happens...you guessed it, dozens of gliders in the cloud, and at the start of the comp a collection of radical manoeuvres low over goal, including one that went wrong, putting the pilot out of the competition and into hospital with a fractured pelvis.

You doubtless saw the media coverage of the pilots who were participating in the competition in the week before the Worlds started. A monster cu-nim formed on the circuit and two people were sucked into it...Only one came out alive after a very lucky escape from hypoxia, hypothermia and lightning strikes. I find it impossible to understand how anyone could become so focused on collecting competition points that they failed to notice everyone else around them landing, even if they missed the huge grey thing with lightning coming out of the bottom.

Perhaps the above is just another confession from me that where flying is concerned, I'm not made of the right stuff to be a hot shot comp pilot. I'm sure there is a good measure of truth in that but, m'lud, if we apply the test of what would a reasonable man in the street think (or even more specifically, the man on Kettle Sings take off) I think I am not alone in being somewhat concerned about the craziness going on in top level competitions.

I hope this doesn't sound like I came away from Manilla thinking that the entire field was composed of rude, unskilled headbangers, that's definitely not the case. I wonder if there's any way the FAI could legislate to keep the annoying minority on the ground, in order to make a safer, more enjoyable experience for the remainder?

Simon Dillworth

I put this in again to fill in space again… sorry, in case people missed it. Again.

Low Air Time Malvern Members At Kettle Sings

At the committee it was raised how we often do not get to see new low airtime members. And consequently they do not get involved with the Club. A problem that arises because of the 15 hr minimum limit that applies to Kettle Sings. So just when they could do with some help, we leave them to their own devices at not a particularly easy site, Castle Morton.

So we have decided that on selected days, under certain conditions, they can fly from KS. Apart from a couple of reasons; spine back and houses underneath, a much better site. It has a much better take off, a reasonable top to bottom, and huge bottom landing.

How will the days be selected? Well this will pretty much be up to you. If you want to fly, even mid week, give me a call.

01684 572723

But I will also flag up days that I think will be good on the mail list.

If you need any more information, or are not sure about something, give me a call.

Conditions:

1 A Malvern club coach must be on site.

2 You must be a full member.

3 You should have some airtime achieved recently, say 5 or 6 hrs

4 You should have a working 2 meter radio.

5 A reasonably modern glider, good glide angle, with speed system.

6 And on the day you must report to the coach before flying.

See you there, Bryan.

Oiyitsmytubesobuggeroff

(Editor’s selections from Youtube – Send in your own favourites)

Maybe we could do something like this at the repack.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_lKXfTrZXU

They are a fun loving nation. Aspect ratio rules the day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyOSMllXn9s

When I were a lad… Aye… we supped some stuff!

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sswv4WUi0aY

Tell us some more granddad!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sADQ7ViG3rc

If only they’d not gone into electrical goods retailing.

Twenty six years ago and Comet was king

Go4IT

READ THIS AND DON’T anything of monetary value but get the promise of eternal glory in spades.

Entries to Tim Crow to be in within one month of the flight.

Rules

1.    UK flights only.
2.    No infringement of airspace.
3.    Must have Pilot rating or be under instruction from one on the day.
4.    Flights between 01/12/06 to 30/11/07.
5.    Co-ordinates for T/O and landing required plus distance from point to point in Km as a

check. Flights will be scored to nearest 100m.
6. Defined flights (BHPA rules, see below) Coordinates for turn points in addition. Bonus

       distance awarded provided 60% of flight outside ridge lift.
7.    Stone’s throw award for smallest flight submitted (or known about) provided
       distance 5km or greater.

Go4IT Flight Types

Open Distance (score = distance)
Open Distance flights do not have any turnpoints. Open distance flights will score the straight-line distance from the start point to the end point.

Dog-Leg (DL) score = distance
Dog-Leg flights are open distance flights with a single turnpoint. The turnpoint does not need to be declared beforehand. The turnpoint is permitted when pilots are forced to make a substantial change in direction.

Out and Return (OR) score = distance x 2 when the majority of the flight is out of ridge lift.
Out and Return flights commence at a start point, go round a single turnpoint, and return to the original start point. The coordinates of the start point and finish point are therefore identical. The start/finish point may be different to the actual launch/landing points but the flight distance is only measured from the start, to the turnpoint and back.

FAI Triangle (T) score = distance x 3 when the majority of the flight is out of ridge lift.
An FAI Triangle is one which satisfies the FAI’s 28% Rule (shortest side must be greater than, or equal to, 28% of the distance flown). To fly a triangle you must round three turnpoints, and return to the original start point. The coordinates of the start point and goal are therefore identical and for declared triangles and local records, must be one of the turnpoints. The start/goal point may be different to the actual launch/landing points.

Special Rule to encourage pilots to attempt triangle flights
Note that for non-declared triangles, using GPS verification, you can fly a loop and you will be scored the best triangle which can be fitted inside it. Your track log points must cross to complete the loop. This means you don’t have to start and finish at a turnpoint but may start midway along a leg. This is to encourage pilots to try triangle flights.

Flat Triangle (FT) score = distance x 2
A Flat Triangle is a triangular flight as above, except that it does not conform to the FAI 28% rule. Completed Flat Triangle flights score the distance multiplied by 2 when the majority of the flight is out of ridge lift.

Failed Triangle (score = distance)
A Failed Triangle is an attempt at a triangular flight in which the pilot fails to make it back to the start point. Failed Triangles score the total distance from the start, around up to two turnpoints and back towards the finish point.