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.