Down Bar Bending

Yesterday started with one thought on my mind, Flying! About midnight the evening prior Josh called me from the Foo fighters concert where he was being paid to do security work (tough life!) to confirm I was going to Beechmont with him early next morning. Of course! I said, wouldn't miss it.

After picking me up we proceeded back to Josh's house to pick up his girlfriend Amy. She also worked the night before and was ready the moment we drove in. Luckily like myself, both Josh and Amy are morning people. Makes life so much easier.

Amy also brought a video camera so we were quite excited that we would finally get some footage of us flying that was longer than a 13 second launch on a still picture camera.

On arriving we found the wind blowing over the back which sucked big time, and with Jonny Jnr, Lee, Kenny, Jay, various other pilots and a handful of women hopeful for a tandem double we settled in to play the waiting game. Jonny found comfort in throwing his Zaggi off and flying it around, even though it was still blowing over the back. But somehow, just like he fly's hang gliders he seemed to work wonders. I guess being number 2 or 3 in the world helps. Josh pulled his newly built Taipan wing out and tossed it off, just to see it come crashing down. It really didn't fly very well and we all felt so sorry for him that we pulled it aside to see how we could make it fly better. We cut, stuck tape and shifted weight and finally got it to a flyable stage. Meanwhile I asked Jonny if he wanted to try mine out. He was so supprised how well it flew. The best he's ever flown. He now plans on ditching his and purchasing a new wing.

Now I was more than happy for jonny to fly my brand new zaggi, but after Josh came over and grabbed it saying he was going to fly it I began to get a little vervous. Especially considering the flying conditions were atrocious. He has flown it before, but when the wind was perfect. It didn't matter how concerned I appearded, it didn't bother young Joshy and he tossed it off over and over. I didn't want to appear like a barstard so I didn't say, "no Josh, leave it alone", and because of this politeness had to witness my beautiful little flying toy get nose dived into the ground on quite a number of occasions. What even made it worst is that Josh is one of these guys who seems to have an unlimited amount of energy and even the hot sun didn't stop him from trying to fly it for what seemed an eternity.

Having waited on launch for a couple of hours I decided to set up. I thought I may as well. Conditions would come good sometime, I'd like to be prepared. Luckily for me everyone else saw this and decided to do the same. Even Josh joined in making me think, hell I should have done this ages ago. I would have saved my zaggi from quite a few new scratches and bruises.

When conditions finally came good I once again found myself helping off most of the other guys, and once again I found myself last on the hill. After being a wire assist to a very new pilot Keith, who was about to have a fly under the careful watch of Lee as well as a bit of radio instructing I jumped in my bird and walked myself out to launch. It wasn't overly windy by that stage so I thought id risk it. I did well. After watching Keith have a bit of a dodgy launch it was my turn, and after a few deep breaths ran off in a launch that would make any instructor proud. I even have the footage to prove it, thanks to Amy:)

I immediately started ridge soaring the mountain. Conditions were still not great but even with the amount of north in the wind still made for an easy ridge soar day. Having Amy on the ground shooting tones of video of Both Josh and myself was awesome. Everytime I looked down she was peering up at me through the lens. I couldn't believe how long she filmed us for. I decided to take advantage of this and began to do a few closer flying maneuvers. I also did some really tight turns close to the ridge. I find I get a lot more out of flying this way anyway. Anyone can fly up and down a mountain ridge, and after a while i find it becomes boreing. Scratching to stay up and constantly moving, practicing your skills is where its at in my book. Although it does take it out of you, and in the end I flew straight out to the bomb out after only an hour.

Apparently on my way out Lee was getting ready to talk Keith into the bombout as well. In the middle of my approach he was heard to say just follow Ant, his flying and approach is looking really nice. Coming in on final was the only crap part and I found my self having my hardest landing yet. I actually ploughed in this time and about a second before I did thought to myself, this is going to hurt. After hitting the ground I immediately got to my feet and righted my glider to show anyone on the mountain who may have been watching that I was ok. After swearing my lungs off at the top of my voice I picked my glider up a walked it over to the edge of the field. I looked at one of my down bars to see a whopping great big bend in it. I couldn't believe it, I'd never bent a down bar before. I then thought to myself, shit if Josh sees this he'll never let me live it down so I frantically started kicking the shit out of it and violently forcing my weight on it in an attemp to bend it back.

Meanwhile back on the ridge only Amy and Lee had seen my fu#ked up landing and Amy immediately overheard Lee say to Keith his student, "ok, now do exactly what Anthony did, up until he landed that is". I watched Keith glide in to quite a nice landing, although he landed way to far up the paddock near some power lines. After Lee was finished telling him off I congratulated him on a nice landing (apart from his final resting place). I didn't realize it until he took his helmet off but he was as sick as a dog. He looked terrible and had to crawl out of his harness and wing almost on his hands and knees. Im so glad I don't get air sick. Unfortunately he forgot to take some air sickness pills and paid for it big time.

After bit of a chat I helped Keith over to where my glider was positioned. He fell straight to the ground. I then went back to trying to bend my tube back before anyone caught on. Especially Josh who by now was starting his own approach to the bombout. Perfect I thought to myself, you wouldn't even know it had been bent. I looked up to see Josh fly in and at the last minute loose airspeed and him too plough in. Shit that was hard I thought to mysely, and from about 60 meters away could see he too had bent his down tube. A lot worse than mine, it was like a dogs leg.

I slowly started walking towards him to see if he was ok. In this time I noticed he was on his feet doing his best to bend the tube back into shape as well. I knew that he was trying to cover up the evidence so I started running my guts out to catch him in the act. Instead of asking whether or not he was ok, I immediately said busted and dished it out big time. I couldn't help it, he would have done the same to me and has done so on so many occassions in the past.

Watching him trying to bend his bar back into shape was pitiful. He just didn't know how or have the experience to handle such a job, and after a few seconds I said, no no that's not how you do it, it goes more like this, and with a huge effort and a few massive pumps I started to force it back to a more straight appearance. I even supprised my self at my strength and stopped in time for Josh to finish. Unfortunately I couldn't help myself and came too. I told him not to feel so bad, that I had done exactly the same thing as he. I think that made him feel so much better and after helping with his gear walked him and his glider to where mine was parked.

Jay in the meantime had called me over the radio and said, " hey Ant! Just letting you know that ill be down in about 40 minutes to pick you up mate" . Poor guy, I probably shouldn't have been so hard on him after the day I was in the bomb out for almost 5 hours. I set his mind at ease by saying that's cool, I've got a retrieve organized. Amy had already started driving down to pick us up and by the time she had arrived we were all packed. We loaded the car just in time to watch Mark who is a student of Jays come in for a beautiful landing. Mark is a nice quiet guy and you can tell that he gets quite nervous at the thought of running of a mountain at about 1800 feet agl. But then again so did I at that stage of my flying career. I was just a little more loud and forth coming. As soon as he touched down he had the slightest ever fumble but still did extreemly well. Everyone including Josh, Keith, David (from the Solomon Islands), Amy, Jay and myself erupted with applause, whistles and words of congratulations. You should have seen his face, it was priceless. He was so proud and after we had all stopped congradulating him you could tell his confidence level was at a new high. That's exactly what you need in this kind of sport. Actually it's not a sport, its a way of life. Well done Mark

We helped Keith out by driving him back up the top where we met up with Lee. We had a quick chat, thanked him for every thing and were off. We had planned to drop into the bearded dragon for a drink on the way home but we were running out of time. Josh had to get back to Brissy for a meeting by six and it was already 5:25pm.

At about 10 that evening I found myself back over Joshes and Amy's house picking up my wallet and camera I had mitakenly left in their car. We ended up having a couple of drinks while waiting for josh to edit our days video footage with some real cool tunes. Josh couldnt help himself and put the sound track to top gun in the background to his launch (typical). It was worth the wait. It looked awesome. My greatest highlight was when Josh said to me, "stuff casually ridge soaring, you look great doing your scratchy turns and minor aerobatic displays. Im going to do that next time as well."

After thanking both him and Amy I went home where I woke today thinking how much id like to go for a fly. I knew Josh and Jay were in the air, but unfortunately I promised a mate id help him do some handyman work. As it turned out he didn't even call me. Oh well never mind I thought, I actually have some customers coming down from Caboolture to pick up some bridal garments anyway. Well at 12:30 I received a text from them saying that they had to reschedule. Your kiddin!

Special thanks to Amy! Awesome camera girl and driver extrodinaire.

All up 1 hour