HGFA Skysailor Magazine

SKY SAILOR 29 May | June 2018 it would be downright depressing parked, or worse, going backwards. Pete had had the forethought to fit his speedbar was even faster, delighting in hooning past me at every possible opportunity. He denies it, but I reckon more than once he used that speedbar to get in front of me to ‘accidently’ wake me. Leg 2, part 2 also saw our only mechanical issue when Brendan’s exhaust gasses decided they couldn’t be bothered going all the way to the end of the tube to get out, instead opting for the much shorter path out the crack in the first bend. He still made it to the LZ, even with greatly reduced power. It was a wonderful display of skill nursing that engine to goal at reduced altitude in the rougher air while the rest of us watched comfortably from 500ft above him, providing, defiantly dubious, possibly unhelpful, moral support. It was early afternoon at the end of leg 2, the overcast skies were clearing to become big developed cumulus clouds, so we took a break in the shade of a gum tree lined lane while Brendan headed into town to find someone with a welder. The afternoon passed very pleasantly, Brendan returned with a patched exhaust and ice creams and we were back into the air just as the big fluffy clouds were dissolving for the last leg of the day that saw us flying over the border into NSW. We camped near a lovely country pub for the night where the publican was nice enough to feed us at short notice. We flew 242km in five and a half hours at an average speed of 44km/h – not bad averaging trim speed when at times during the day we were down to 8km/h. As the eastern horizon saw its first flush of dawn on Day 2, we were already prepared, camp packed, wings laid out, fuel tanks full and engines warmed up. Milbrulong was only 72km away. It was a super still morning and we spent five minutes debating which way the wind was coming from, then set up in three different launch directions. Two of us were facing each other at different ends of the paddock. Pete was first to climb up and away out of the launch paddock, while Ben and I circled lower waiting for everyone to get into the air. Brendan had retired from the expedition due to mechanical difficulties and Andrew was on the ground helping our newest XC expedition member into the air due to the difficulty of the site and conditions, before he was going to get into the air himself. Then Pete came over the radio, he was at 300ft, trimmers out and going backwards. That meant a wind speed of over 55km/h which would make for a really interesting, possibly very