31 December 2016

Dec 31:  MS, 2W and XG flew a 300km task yesterday to get familiar with the local area.  20km circles were set around Corowa-Tucomwal-Bog.  4D worked out kinks in a new to him glider.

Jan 1: MS and 2W went through​ official scrutineering at 8 and 9 am respectively, XG is in line for a 11am slot.

Today was forecast to be better than yesterday but the cirrus layer is causing some concern.

2W crew - Marian Nowak is scheduled to arrive today.


First day flying for Dave

Today I had a short 2.5 hour shake-out flight  in 4D and put in two engine runs to learn the start up and shut down procedures.  Starts cause about 300 ft of altitude loss and shutdown about 50 ft. 

It was also a good opportunity to fine tune the LX9000 configuration and get it set up to my liking.

The instrument panel is missing two instruments to which we are accustomed to seeing, an altimeter and compass. The compass many of us have long learned to ignore but having no altimeter means relying upon the LX9000 display to provide altitude information.   For that I need to decide where best to place it.

The other thing to sort out is a pee system since 4D has no over board disposal tube.

I also found that the sun is exceptionally strong here so I 'll be wearing pants and 
long sleeves to protect bare skin as much as possible in flight. 

Happy New Year from what is already 2017 in Australia.

Dave

29 December 2016

December 30th, first "casualty" of the WGC...



The day started with overcast and the morning briefing was semi-optimistic with possible soaring after 2-3 PM for the “brave ones”.
The team worked on gliders checking, fitting and rechecking again. Just before noon we erected our gazebo with Maple Leaf on the top.
That was bad timing… 30 min later we got hit with extremely heavy downpour that flooded the entire airfield. The amount of water collected on the gazebo was way too much and the entire structure collapsed.

Hopefully it can be saved – with the very strong sun (sic!) the shade is a must for everybody.


By 11 we can see sun peaking  through the clouds.


 Everybody is busy, gazebo up


Rain started, taking shelter in the club house...


Few minutes later - can you see the gliders?


Maria under the roof AND umbrella. 

 Jarek

We are ready to fly

We planned to unpack the container at 8 am to avoid hot part of the day but there was light rain  so we  posponded unloading to 9 am. After 2.5 hours of work two gliders and trailer were out of the container and hour later all gliders were nicely parked at designated spot for Canadian Team.

 Pilots were very happy that their gliders arrived safely after such a long journey and now they  can concentrate on preparation of gliders for inspection and organize their  life at the airfield, so everything would go smoothly.

Jerzy XG

 

First couple of days...

Benalla, Dec 28 & 29 2016.

Sergei & myself reached airport after 2 days of wondering around the world and Australia.
First leg was YYZ to Sydney thru Vancouver. 22h. Then we played backpackers all day in Sydney walking around and taking port seeing tour before boarding train to Melbourne where we have car waiting for us. Sergei was at the wheel, my task was to repeat "keep left, keep left, keep... ". Annoying part - he used wipers when turning.. guess why?!

2,5h drive and we reached airport. Jerzy joined us couple of hours later.

Day 2 started with moving gliders out of the container.

After few hours of careful unpacking, we rigged all gliders without any problems.
XG was the first one! 


 All machines were parked in designated spots. Nice touch - all rows are equipped with water valves.



Work in progress, Sergei is trying to unwrap hose. It may take a while - he's electrical engineer, not a plumber!


 If you're curious about how the sky looks like - yes, this is BENALLA! we have rain most of the day yesterday and some heavy downpour today! 20-40 mm rainfall was expected. Still better then snow:-)


Luke's pride is ready!


Jarek (promoted to 15m class blogger by 2W & MS)

28 December 2016

We are in Benalla

Maria and myself arrived in Sydney before Christmas. As we had extra
time for travel to Benalla we took longer trip on Princes HWY along the
Tasman Sea and we crossed Australia Alps to Benalla. In addition to
seeing kangaroos we also saw two patches of snow crossing Alps at 1600m
MSL. I didn't expect to see snow in Australia during full summer.
We arrived in Benalla a couple of hours behind Jarek and Sergei. We
tried to work on unloading container,
but because we need two trailers to be able to keep fuselages upright
till Luke's trailer will be removed from container we decided to work
tomorrow when we have access to trailers and full team will be here
except two Marians.
As usual, any soaring contest is great for local farmers , rain is
expected for next day and half.
My glider inspection is scheduled for Jan 1 and I hope to be ready on time.
Jerzy

27 December 2016

What time is it in Australia

Some may have been wondering what is the time difference between Canada and Australia. 

Australia is UTC +11, so for everyone in Ontario (at UTC -5) we are 16 hours ahead of you.

Assuming a normal contest day includes launching around noon, that will be 8 PM the night before in Ontario and once we land and pack-up for the day around 6 PM it will be 2 AM in Ontario.

The best schedule for checking the scores and the blog from Canada, assuming that you are not a night owl, will be first thing in the morning, just as we are going to bed.
 
Dave

Assembling a Team

Luke and Joerg are now in flight across the Pacific and will land in Sydney in about 14 hours.  Virginia and I have been here for a couple of days and did a little bit of the tourist thing in Sydney for the last couple of days.  Today, we took the ferry across the harbour to Manly to pick up Luke's and my rental cars and tomorrow we drive over to the airport to meet Luke and Joerg and then we convoy the 680 km to Benalla.

11 December 2016

Going on a short trip

We'll soon be heading out on a short trip. 16,250 km from Toronto to Melbourne.




03 December 2016


The container with the three gliders arrived safely in Melbourne at the end of November. We received this photo from the shipping company. Everything looks like we packed it. It will go from Melbourne to Benalla after customs is done with it.

JS

22 October 2016

Short story of container shipping to Australia

In early September we received confirmation which gliders will
be shipped to Australia .
Luke took care of his trailer with glider preparation for
shipping and I with Sergei took care of building frame and
support fuselages in the container. I took home my glider and my
garage became a design studio of shipping frame. An access to the
glider was very important as I could test if particular design
will fit.
The task which looked as a couple of days project took more then
3 weeks with multiple trips to Home Depot, Canadian Tire,
Princess Auto and Sergei running to his steel struts supplier
constantly.
During the process of building frame we found a lot of problems
as we were restricted with height and width of the container,in
addition trailer had to fit together with wings in very limited
space and just 1/4" error could spell disaster.
The wing securing prototype was made, then tested, then
multiplied by 4 for each wing then suddenly we found out that
trailer will not fit or spacing is wrong and all had to be redone.
It took us 9 hours one day to make dry test with wing loading
where we had to make new adjustments and modifications.
Another 6 hours with 5 people when we did dry test with fitting
trailer and fuselages using SOSA's workshop with fake container
walls.
Early morning October 17 Sergei arrived with his Van, we loaded
all frames and supplies and XG in tow we drove to Polimex
warehouse in Brampton where our container was waiting for us.
Loading into a container took 2 days with 5 people some times 6.
Luckily all preparations confirmed that all fits perfectly and we
had just to make small adjustment to one of the wing support as
it was a little to close to the container wall. In addition we
installed wrong way front beam which we were able to correct in
no time.
Great Thank You to Kris Swietlicki who made pins for securing
wing spars and special axle for our tail dollies. Thank you all
who helped us with loading container, it was a challenge, but
executed without any problems as we finished 10 minutes before
Polimex Forwarding was closing doors.
Container is traveling to Vancouver by train and then by ship
BALAO, ETA Melbourne Australia Nov 28 then by truck to Benalla
where it will wait for our arrival by the end of December.

Jerzy XG

18 October 2016

Container packed and ready to go







The container is now packed and ready to ship to Australia.  The gliders should arrive in about 6 weeks and we'll be there in about 9 weeks.  Fortunately, our time enroute will not be as long as the container's !


https://scontent-ort2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/14702288_1690059991314576_30569923727447725_n.jpg?oh=26ba6e1528da66b63d54eb871602711e&oe=586017EF

13 October 2016

Getting Ready to Ship


2W ready to be de-rigged after a long day of cleaning the trailer inside and out to ensure that there is no dirt that might cause concern to Australian customs when the container arrives.  A new tire was installed and brand new trailer tires will be packed in the container so there is no dirt on them either.

Over the last month, we have been preparing the gliders, building the racks to secure the pieces in the container as well as cleaning and inspecting the gliders and parachutes to keep them legal to fly.



On Monday 17 October, we start to pack the gliders in the container and ship them off to Oz.




stay tuned for more news after the container loading ...