Canungra Cup

The drive to Canungra.  Big sky.  I'm
used to driving on the left hand side.

I left Manilla and drove to Canungra in Queensland for the 8 day Canungra Cup competition in Queensland.  Canungra is a small town about 100km from the Gold Coast. When you get high enough you can see the coast and Nerang. The sea breeze comes in around noon each day.

The view from launch (facing west)
at the top of Mt. Tambourine

It's a beautiful area with mountain ranges (still not Canada Sized) and valleys, a good change from Manilla flatness. Lots more decision making to be done while XC flying.

At the camp ground in the sun.
Brekkie has been cereal/coffee.
Found out using powdered milk is
easier than dealing with keeping ice.

I arrived the night before the comp, and set up my tent and woke up to a task the next day. I hadn't even looked at a map until I got up to the hill.  Not a great idea for doing well in a comp.  The rest of this is just me talking to myself about the comp.

First task: everyone tried to get off early in case the sea breeze came in.  Cloud base was low and climbs were super light. I dirted early with a couple other pilots on my first valley transition from Mt. Tambourine to Misery Mt. as I flew through some excessive -4m/sec sink. I didn't even think to push in the direction of the expected valley wind while I was high up (and thus not in it) so I could hit the windward side of Misery Mt. more efficiently. You'd figure after enough valley flying that I'd be thinking of valley winds --- 'cept these don't really look like valleys from high up as there is no snow on the mountain tops!

Retrieves are organized here, so you just give a shout on the dedicated radio channel and the well placed retrieve drivers show up with a bus and cold beer/soda. Seriously!

Dirted, yet again.  Nice looking day!

Second task: Similar day, but this time I survived the first transition and ended up doing about 26 km. Flight Track. I hopped over a few valleys with some small gaggles, thermalled in light conditions, etc, etc.  Impatience led to me heading out on my own on a transition that was unlikely to work, and, well, it didn't work. I need to focus on being patient, and at this point just following the gaggle around (this requires me to thermal super efficiently so I can leave at the top of the gaggle to compensate for lack of glide performance).

Third task was canned due to the seabreeze coming in early and blowing over the back of launch before they had finished the allotted launch window.  This was good because I was playing with my instrument and was working on hitting start times perfectly and ended up heading out on my own (I figured a few people would follow, and I decided not to turn around) and Misery Mt. got me again.  Patience, again... without a gaggle it's very unlikely I can get anywhere.

Waiting for a launch briefing

The fourth task was fun gaggle flying in light lift and cloud base that was low near the coast and rising as we headed inland (less moisture in the air).  The last thermal I was in, the gaggle headed off in what I considered a death glide toward a ridge which was all in shade.  I stuck around and watched them hoping for inspiration.  Well, the thermal I was in ran out and I had no real brilliant ideas so I followed them, hoping to be able to choose a lifty line based on the people in front of me.  As it was there were no lifty lines.  I didn't clear the ridge line and ended up scratching up the ridge while watching someone who had dirted get mobbed by a herd of cows. Luckily he was trying to capture the moment with a camera and the flash scared off the cows!  His wing is grass colored and they were probably just hungry.  I topped the ridge and saw a possible landing zone on the other side, so hopped over the trees into the sunny side hoping for some lift.  A few bubbles but none of the real lift I expected so I landed in the flat green section which already had two other pilots in it (and a third landed after me).  We had a nice long walk out to the road, an essential part, for me, of the adventure of paragliding.  A pilot survived with no injuries after hitting the power lines (the poles were hidden in trees).

The fifth task I worked out what I thought was a good start strategy (it was an entry cylinder and I wanted to enter at a specific point), though the implementation was stymied by unfortunate cloud locations.  Stayed with a large gaggle and floated along until the rains started coming and people started taking their own directions.  I stuck around in a super light climb for quite some time watching the rain in the direction of the task.  When the clouds cleared out I topped up and headed by myself across a big blue hole to get away from another storm brewing behind me.  Well without any thermal indicators and some major sink I ended up dirting again.  Once again, I failed to wait for the rest of the gaggle to get up and decide to head out.  With enough people, finding thermals is easy.  One pilot injured himself while landing by hitting a fence and breaking an ankle and requiring an airlift, and another pilot ended up in the trees unhurt below launch.  I did not see the events and am just writing what I heard.

For the sixth task, I had decided not to launch and was waiting fully dressed up on launch watching most of the pilots boating around in the too easy lift below monster sized clouds which were closing up above launch (a sign things are going to go boom!). They cancelled the task as rain started falling all around.  I packed up my glider and down to the cafe where I am now.  One pilot injured himself while landing (stalled 10m up)--- too much brake, maybe bad landing location.

The seventh task was launching from Beechmont Mt., an east facing site where launch will sometimes get blown out if the seabreeze adds to the normal wind too much (and anyway, you can't escape launch if that happens as all the thermic activity is stopped).  Luckily 5 gliders can setup at once (and well, sometimes launch at once if people aren't paying attention!).  We launched into very light ridge lift and mixed light thermals.  80 people on a small ridge all desperate scratching.  Amazing how well it worked, but there were some stressful moments and an occasional emergency maneuver.  Eventually the task was cancelled due to rain on the course line.

The eighth task was from Beechmont Mt. again. I launched straight into a thermal and got up to cloudbase at 1200m (a typical day here, not too high) and wandered away from the crowds since the start gate was 40 minutes off and about 6km away. Found another thermal, and headed up to base. This time I didn't leave my thermal early enough and started getting some significant cloud suck. I tried a new maneuver: big-big ears and full speedbar (big ears, add some speed, pull the next set of lines significantly, full speed;  if you pull them both at the beginning you might stall the wing; I'm sure this is not too good for the wing as only a few lines are left supporting the pilot). This quickly got me out of the lift, and I headed toward a bunch of gliders at the edge of the start cylinder. Found nothing along the way and ended up scratching low on a set of finger ridges that stuck out into the Illinbah valley. The valley winds were strong enough to make the thermals coming off the tops of the ridges really rough and hard to use and I had a proto-frontal (ie a frontal that I barely stopped just as it was folding) about 50 meters off the deck. That was a clear signal to stop scratching for me, so I headed off the ridge I was on and landed in a nice paddock only about 6km from launch with another pilot.  While packing up I saw a pilot on a 2/3 glider surfing the finger ridges get a full frontal, cravat, and toss his reserve.  The reserve didn't open first try so he hauled it back in and tossed it again, and it opened and he landed under reserve between two fingers.  He didn't immediately move, and I heard no information on the radio so another fellow started bushwacking up the slope.  I quickly put on shorts and my radio anticipating quite a walk and started hacking up the hill.  Shorts was a very bad idea as there were plants with thorns 5 cm long, but no blood no adventure, so I'm still happy!  The pilot was OK, no injuries though his wing is a total loss due to the thorns.  Another pilot landed on a neighboring ridge to assist, which I think might have been a bad idea since he had evidence from the other pilot going down on reserve that the air was rough.

I ended up quite low in the competition ranking since I never made goal, but I feel I learned a lot.  They put on an open Q&A seminar during which I learned a lot about how comp pilots think.  Main issues are: hydration   and food, observation skills, and an occasional rest.  Do you land after 2 hours or so?  probably your concentration is flagging: wizard needs food badly!  You need to be looking all the time--- practice with a friend next time you are flying: shout out on radio what you see --- try to be the first person to see something useful: clouds growing, other pilots climbing, cloud cycle times, sun, shade, rain, birds, wind indicators, etc.