Feb 16 - Black Swan

Yesterday I was biking around Lake Benalla and saw these Black Swans.  I had seen some last year but did not get a picture.  I later heard of the "Black Swan Theory" and have wanted some photos since.  Here is a quote from Wikipedia:

The term black swan was a Latin expression — its oldest reference is in the poet Juvenal expression that "a good person is as rare as a black swan" ("rara avis in terris nigroque simillima cygno", 6.165).  It was a common expression in 16th century London as a statement that describes impossibility, deriving from the old world presumption that 'all swans must be white', because all historical records of swans reported that they had white feathers. In that context, a black swan was something that was impossible, or near impossible and could not exist. After the discovery of black swans in Western Australia during the 18th century, the term metamorphosed to connote that a perceived impossibility may later be found to exist. Taleb notes that, writing in the 19th century, John Stuart Mill used the black swan logical fallacy as a new term to identify falsification, but only drawing on a London expression.

I also saw an interesting lizard but could not get my camera out before it slithered away.  One of the nice things about Benalla is the proximity of the town.  There is a nice walking/biking trail around the main lake, a golf course and bowls club, and the supermarkets are all within a 10 minute walk of the airport.

Black Swan

Down Time - Strep Throat

The past week has been a bit slow for me.  On Tuesday of last week I started getting a sore throat and went to the doctors on Wednesday.  The doctor diagnosed it as strep throat and put me on some penicillin.  My tonsils swelled even more the next day so much that I could not eat or drink and breathing was getting difficult.  I went to the hospital Thursday night where they took good care of me.  By Friday morning the swelling was down enough that I could eat but I had to stay in the hospital for a total of 5 nights.  I am out now but still not quite 100%.  I will be on anti-biotics for the next week.

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

Jan 24 - Yannick from Champlain visits

I have had a number of guests visit here in Benalla.  Selena and Angie from Edmonton are here for a few months.  A couple weeks ago Paul Fish was here from SOSA flying the LS-4 for a week.  Doug Bremner was passing through with his daughter last week and Timo the fellow I rented a glider from in Finland is currently flying an ASG-29 here.  Yannick Burgevin from Association de vol à voile Champlain contacted me the other day saying he would be in Melbourne and would very much like to do some flying.  He came up on Sunday and since the Duo Discus and ASK-21 were taken we had a flight in the IS-28 (Lark).  Unfortunately it was not a classic Australian day but we both enjoyed it none the less.  Yannick has a blog and an entry about the flight here Vol #125: Benalla.  For those like me that have trouble with french you can translate it with Google translate. 
OLC flight info

Jan 20 & 21 - Flying with Selena and Jonas

Selena has been asking me to fly with her and Wednesday looked like a good day.  We set out to fly The Rock-Conargo for a 500km FAI triangle.  It was blue the whole day.  Selena was flying very well in the Mosquito and I was having a tough time keeping up with her in the ASW-19.  We were not going very fast so decided to turn Tocumwal on the way back for 400km.  The run west was straight into a headwind between 10 and 15 knots.  The weather was weakening so we turned early and headed for home.  At the end of the flight over the airfield was some good looking lenticulars.  I managed to get into some wave but had to leave because I got too close to the Albury airspace.  Chris' flight Selena's flight

On Thursday we were expecting another good day.  The only temp trace we had was from the day before.  It suggested an 11 o'clock start to the day and good lift to 10,000ft.  When we took off at 11 we could barely get above 2500ft above ground.  I got very close to landing back at the field.  It was like that until almost 2pm when I met up with Jonas.  We got above 8000ft and started cruising towards Temora.  After we passed The Rock I noticed some high clouds moving in quickly.  I decided we would take the next thermal and then turn around.  It was perhaps a better idea to turn around right away.  When we got back to The Rock it was all under shadows.  There were still some spots of sun on the ground and we still got some very good climbs for a while.  Eventually the way back became completely consumed in high cloud cover.  The wind also picked up to 20 knots.  We found a few weak climbs but eventually knew we could not make it home.  I called Angie on my cellphone and asked her to organize a crew and I would call her when we landed.  We found a nice cut hay field and made safe landings.  There was some light rain and some wind gusts but nothing too drastic.  Our crews got there quickly and we stopped in Wangaratta for pizza on the way home.  Chris' flight Jonas' flight
Today the temp trace is giving a late start but showing 18,000ft.  The wind is very strong.  Some members took launches and scared themselves.  I got the glider ready and then saw a line of gliders heading back to their hangars.  I decided to do the laundry instead today.

Selena Blue, Chris Red

Jonas Blue, Chris Red