HGFA Skysailor Magazine

SKY SAILOR 29 September | October 2018 C omps now are at the same places with little variety, but that wasn't always the case. By the mid-80s, gliders had reached their modern shape and performance was increasing. The Moyes Missile was popular. We were all keen to go XC, but where and how was more important than how far. Still a few years before towing became popular, pilots were looking up and down the ranges for new sites. The following year we flew at Cooplacurripa, inland of Taree, almost to Nowendoc. These sites were very picturesque, both with running streams and pretty much untouched. There was rudimentary sanitation and BYO everything else. The above photo shows the east face of Mt Seaview. Launch was around the corner on the north side.Whichbringsustothefirstissue,thehour-long, sometimes perilous, drive up to launch from camp at the base of the hill! After a break from flying, one of the biggest attraction I found our modern sites had, and the reason I started paragliding, was the 10-minute two-wheel drive access at Mt Borah. Nowadays, serious comps all use GAP scoring, with some tweaking. It’s a good system and was invented for a reason. In comparison, Round 1 at Mt Seaview saw the 60-odd pilots split into groups of eight – I can’t recall if there was some seeding element, probably, I only recall that there was one top level pilot in my group – Steve Blenkinsop. The Day 1 task (see satellite view: up the access track to launch) was to fly east to the Long Flat Pub, overfly the east edge of the building where an official lined us up with  with the wall and gave us the ‘okay’ when we’d flown far enough. We did carry cameras, but processing film was tedious, I much preferred this method. This was the first time I’d been high, above 7000ft, I’m not sure I’ve seen it since and may have been imagining it, but the ocean was clearly visible 40km away and I swear I saw the curvature of the earth. I was so new, I recall bombing out in a small clearing on Day 2, where the road turns a right angle to go up the hill – I used that for my spot landing on my Hang 3 rating. Back to Day 1, and I crossed over the obvious peaks to the red circle, or maybe it wasn’t so obvious since I spent an hour scratching on my own. After climbing out, it was a run down the ridge to Long Flat and back. I hadn’t learnt yet that if you’re slow, you run out of time to finish the task and instead of sticking to the Oxley Highway, I retraced my route. I sank down to ridge height and started to head for the highway, but was so far north, I didn’t think I’d even cross the river (apart from the 2km carry out which would be standard with a paraglider these days). I decided to cross back to the Kindee valley, but too late, and landed on top of the ridge. I radioed my driver, lifted the glider over the fence and relaunched for a glide down to the Kindee road. Scoring was done by placing a pin in a map, I’m not sure if the scorers knew whether I understood how contour maps worked, regardless, I won my group much to the disgruntlement of Steve B. who thought he’d been tracking all his serious rivals… For the record, Russell Duncan won the comp, it’s believed he bruised his ribs swimming in rapids during a non-flying day which lead to him leaving thermals early due to the discomfort, thus finishing first and inventing modern racing. The 1984 NSW HG Open at Mt Seaview As I drove past Mt Seaview, 60km inland from PortMacquarie, I fondly remembered an early hang gliding competition… by Stephen Noble Satellite image: Access track (brown), launch (red X), Long Flat Pub (red square), part way peak (red circle)