HGFA Skysailor Magazine

18 SKY SAILOR September | October 2018 The sun is streaming into the clubhouse, it’s 8am on Good Friday and the room is alive with people, but there is a small group of 30 Funsters sitting down the front listening to a lecture on how to fly the area. This is the... Paragliding State Of Origin by James Thompson T he Paragliding State of Origin 2018 is my 15th and last as Comp Organiser, Launch Director, Safety Officer, Scorer, Motivator, general dogsbody and solver of impossible things – that’s not to say that I haven’t had help all through the years. Especially the advanced pilots who come to the comp have helped and introduced novice pilots to competition and XC flying. Without them, this comp would not be one of the largest in Australia and, I think, one of the largest of its type in the world. What has also helped is that Easter is at the end of the competition season and the advanced pilots come along specifically to help rather than just compete. Advanced pilots give their time freely, to communicate and to mentor their five pilot crews. They come for the fun of flying and helping their fellow pilots. There’s been so many people who have helped me through the years, but if I had to single out one person who has been consistently behind the scenes helping, it would have to be Brandon ‘Lofty’ O’Donnell, multiple Queensland team captain and motivator of the Queenslander Cane Toads. Over my time, I’ve tried many different things, but it’s been refined down to a very simple formula – make it fun, keep it simple and as safe as possible, add plenty of information and welcome novice pilots. The State of Origin began over 20 years ago, between the Canungra and the Northern Beaches clubs, to give lower airtime coastal pilots a chance to try inland flying. Manilla was picked as the location as one of the best Australian sites and mid- way between both clubs. The three-day comp over Easter at the end of the season offered ‘quieter’ air. Again, for simplicity the comp uses open direction, open distance (no GPS required), then the handicap is applied: Funsters (under 50 XC hours) multiply their km flown by 3, Sportster (50 to 150 XC hours) km x 2 and the over 150-hour XC Aces get one point per km. The Ace in each five-pilot crew acts as a mentor, information source and shepherd at the end of the day to help them score and debrief. We use the online Airscore and Geoff Wong writes a special scoring page, an electric ‘drop pin’ – just like when I first started, you put the ‘pin’ where you landed – and then the computer scores you. All good and ready for a debrief at the pub, at the HQ pilots bar or around the fire. You talk, feed, sleep, then repeat! A pilot can have multiple flights each day, but only scores the longest. We have Hike & Flys starting at 6am for the quiet air glide and sunset flights back to the HQ Clubhouse at Godfrey’s farm. The record is eight flights in one day, that was by an Ace pilot trying to get his crew away on course.