SAFA Skysailor Magazine

28 SKY SAILOR November | December 2020 Greetings fellow pilots The season is starting to kick-off down here in Taswegia, after our usual hibernation period. That is not to say we don’t get to fly here in winter – we do, but the opportunities are a bit more restricted. In July, for instance, Tassie’s AIRS Manager Luke Denniss and I headed to Gaffs Hill in the Midlands. I’d flown there the week previously and it was very light – the longest sustained flight by the pilots present was maybe 20 minutes maximum. The forecast for that day matched what we experienced, so when I saw that the day Luke and I ventured up was very similar but a bit stronger (blowing out around 3pm), I was hopeful for a good flight. Gaffs is a site with a reputation for nastiness. It sits in a broad plain bordered by the Great Western and Eastern Tiers. Wind tends to funnel down there, and it can blow out quite quickly. The hill itself is pretty rocky and it can be quite unforgiving. We arrived, set our gear up, cleared some rocks from the launch slope and chewed the fat, waiting for the forecast to magically come good. Which it did not – variable 0-6kt. A couple of hours later we could see smoke on the floor of the plain start to show signs of movement, and then we noticed some puffs of cloud appearing over the hill in front. Promising. The wind made it to us, and it was on. Luke launched, made a pass, and said it felt good. I clipped in and started laying the wing out. As I was doing so, the wind strength kept increasing to the point that I had the wall pinned and was waiting to see if a lull would appear. No such thing occurred. After a few minutes I knew this was a non-flying day, for me anyway. I am not a fan of strong wind launches. In Turkey, if it was too windy, I would always take the walk or bus down the mountain. As I was working out my strategy for getting to the wing and stowing it, the right-hand wingtip inflated and brought the whole wing up, taking me on a sleigh-ride through the rock-field lining the west side of launch. I took a tumble and was dragged for another five metres. Luke landed and helped me gather the wing as I had pinged my right wrist – nothing serious, just a sprain. Apart from a few scrapes to the harness and two desheathed brake lines, all was okay. We called it quits and I drove us home. Examination of the data from the weather station on launch later showed us that the wind was gusting up 18-20kt at the time of the bingle. As Luke says in his review of my report (#1289), I was non-current and need to practice my strong-wind wing control as part of ground-handling sessions. I also found out a couple of weeks later that what I thought was a sprained wrist was actually a hairline fracture of the right radius. High winds also played a part in AIRS #1287 and #1254. In #1287 a pilot was flying the coast at Point Impossible (VIC) when a gust blew them into a car park, scratching a windscreen with their boot (no other damage or injury). In #1254 the pilot had travelled over an hour to fly at Spring Hill (ACT) and arrived to find strong conditions. The paraglider wing was pulled up and then brought down, but the pilot had been pulled closer to parked cars. A second attempt saw a collision with their own vehicle. The pilot identified several issues: “I came all this way! It’s been a long time since I’ve flown, and I really want to. There’s someone else up there, and they seem to be doing fine. My skills are a bit rusty – I felt that when I was ground-handling this morning. It’s very strong! It’s not so strong further down the hill, maybe I should have launched from there, but I’m all set up now. Maybe I could wait a while and see if the wind eases. I’ve got space, so I can try once and if it doesn’t work AIRS Safety wrap-up – October 2020 Waitpinga Cliffs, SA Photo: Kym Fielke Photo: Steve Beilby