Jan 30 & 31 - Speed

Ben Loxton came up to Benalla for the weekend.  Him and I flew together a number of times last year.  Nathan Johnson was also coming Saturday night on his motorcycle.  Nathan and I flew together at JoeyGlide and the Junior Worlds in Finland.  Ben brought the VMFG LS-3 to fly.  I flew Louise's ASW-19 again on Saturday.  Our task was Ardlethan-Ravensworth, a 750km triangle.  Ben and I started at 12:45pm, a bit of a late start.  It was a struggle until we got north across the Murray river.  Cu's started to pop but we were still going into a strong headwind.  We got to Ardlethan at 4:20pm averaging about 75km/h.  We did not think we would be able to do 500km before 8pm when we expected the day to end so we headed back towards the airfield.  I did not expect my return leg to be 164km/h.  I averaged an 8 knot climb rate and had perfectly lined up cumulus all the way.  I could have flown a bit more but I was interested to see how fast I could make it home and wanted to be back to have a beer with Nathan.  Perhaps the 750km task was possible but there will be other days.  My Speed-OLC was 132km/h and tops in all of Australia.  Ben did another 170km to make 700km.  Chris flight  Ben flight
On Sunday I flew the club Mossie.  We expected another late start and most of us were waiting at the line for someone to go up and try it out.  The picture above is all of the gliders waiting to go.  There was some high cloud over the club from a convergence.  It was a trough or perhaps a mild front.  At 1pm the club ASK-21 went up for a passenger ride and came down soon after.  Jonas and I were chatting and we decided we would give it a try anyways.  I was first to launch and soon found a 5kt thermal to 5000.  I headed west along the convergence line for a bit.  On the other side I started to see cu's popping and went for them.  I connected to a 7.5kt thermal to 8700ft and did not have much trouble afterward.  Although I was getting strong climbs it was not as spectacular as I expected.  Perhaps the end of my flight on Saturday jaded me.  I flew 450km in total.  OLC flight info