SAFA Skysailor Magazine

8 SKY SAILOR March | April 2020 C live had this to say about Arnold Schwarzenegger: “He has a body like a condom full of walnuts.” Even though much of his life was spent in England, Clive made it his mission to let the world know that Australia was a blessed and wonderful place. Starting on a towing dolly each morning, four Kiwi hang glider pilots (Neville Marinko, Geoff Christophers, Tom Kelner and I) departed from Dalby Airfield, and during the next week got an indelible snapshot of rural Queensland which very much confirmed Clive’s thesis. During the 2018 Dalby Big Air hang gliding tow competition, Viv Clements, president of the Dalby HG club and Kiwi resident in the lucky country, discussed trying to break our open XC PBs during late spring/early summer from Dalby and hopefully get a few locals to do the same. Viv enlisted help from other Dalby club members (Trevor Purcell, Don Doggy Crammer, Smoky, That Blano, Bruce and Annie Crerar). Then, before you could say “fair suck of the pineapple doughnut” there were two Dragonfly tugs with pilots, accommodation, vehicles, drivers, trophies and a team dinner ready and waiting. Viv did the late night pick-up of four eager pilots from Brisbane airport in his Nissan ute, towing a gear trailer. We stayed that night at his house and after a brief early morning meeting with his wife Thuy, we headed off to Dalby. It was decided to fly around the Dalby area in a practice day sky that was skuzz filled (smoke & dust?). Interestingly at around 4pm someone flicked a switch and the skuzz cleared instantly to reveal great looking clouds. Bruce later mentioned that after towing me he was searching the hangar in vain for a box of matches to torch my Rev. It wasn’t clear whether or not I was meant to be hooked in whilst this cathartic ritual took place. I had been towing with tug wheels on the horizon intent, a throwback to early trike towing days. My speeding up to achieve this incorrect alignment meant we were going way too fast. Clear instruc- tion from Bruce meant that subsequent tows went well and the matches search was called off. Later Doggy took us back to Chez Crammer, our accom- modation for the next seven nights where we met the house owner Richard, Doggies brother and our retrieve driver. The next day saw the arrival of a couple of local- ish pilots, Pistol Pete Burkitt and Brent Marley. Pistol was in 2nd position on XContest after his recent 368km Dalby flight but another event participant, supposedly a mate, would push him to 3rd before week’s end. Skuzz again adorned the sky, and we prayed this was not a promise for our week to come. Viv set a turnpoint at Texas, around 200km downwind in the NW, to simplify retrieves. Despite the sky, it was plenty flyable and my memories of the day include a very low save in a dusty (apolo- gies Pistol), a low save over a digger working on a dam, and a 4,000ft thermal entry over a large feed lot with a very distinctive cattle shit aroma. Brent Marley did 127km, his first time over a hunge, on On 24 November 2019, the first morning of the Dalby XC Challenge, we woke to the sad news of writer Clive James’ passing, one of Australia’s finest cultural exports. by Steven Structural Failure I’ll Be Back… Chez Crammer Senior, note the fab drill bit ornament on the gate posts A threesome, Bruce, Dragonfly and Annie