Airborn #222 May 2022

Issue 222; May, June, July 2022

Hike & Fly Wanaka & Dubai Forbes Flatlands Gust fronts

7.50 Including GST

$

9 771170 992006

HANG GLIDING & PARAGLIDING

M

any pilots visit flying sites outside their own region. To ensure that you don’t jeopardise arrangements between land owners and local flyers you must ALWAYS check with local pilots BEFORE flying.

That way you won’t upset land owners or pilots, you will be shown all the best sites and will be welcome back. We don’t publish site names and locations

NORTHLAND H.G.P.C. C/- Mike Fergussen Whangarei Email: mferg066@gmail.com www.facebook.com/ NorthlandHangGlidingandParaglidingClub/ Pres; Mike Ferguson (acting)..........021 995 682 Airspace: Shane Gross.................. 09 436 0268 HGSO; Bernie Massey.................021 244 4405 PGSO; Wolfgang Harder..............021 112 3597 Auckland HGPC PO Box 47813 Ponsonby, Auckland 1144 Email: info@cloudbase.org.nz www.cloudbase.org.nz Pres: Nick Read.............022 264 6425 Sec: Stefan Sebregts........027 225 2255 Treas: Malcolm Dawson.......021 052 1568 HGSO: John Burton...........027 420 4094 PGSO: Jeremy Watts..........021 611 089 PPG: Glen Ogilvie...........021 684 146 Sean Oliver HG instruction..027 670 8301 Skywings Paragliding........027 498 2345 Wings and Waves Paragliding.09 446 0020

C/- Ian Manton PO Box 131, Matamata 3440 Email: ian@imatec.co.nz Pres: Aaron Darby..........................021 407 357 Sec/Treas: Ian Manton ................027 546 2832 PGSO: Peter Jones......................027 273 8375 HGSO: Rick Hawkeswood.............07 868 6250 Airsp: Neil Howe.............................07 304 9631 HAWKES BAY H.G.P.C. Inc. 22 Mangarau Crescent, Havelock North 4130 Email: hbhgpc@gmail.com www.soarhawkesbay.co.nz Pres, Ken Beach ..........................021 191 6388 Sec; Jonathan McIlvenny.............021 133 7019 PGSO: Shane Davies ..................027 870 6000 HGSO: Ross MacKay...................027 285 4195 Sites; Bex Rae ..............................021 605 204 Airsp: Shaun Gilbert.....................022 477 8804

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BAY OF PLENTY H.G.P.C. C/- Neville Goodwin, 304b Papamoa Beach Road, Papamoa Beach, Papamoa, 3118 Email: bophangparaclub@gmail.com www.facebook.com/BOPHangGlidingParagliding Pres: Kevin Wylie..........................027 321 1107 Sec: Neville Goodwin.......................... 027 465 3637 PGSO: Mark McIntyre........................021 337 595 HGSO: James Low.......................021 102 5004 Airsp: Rhys Akers.........................021 177 7563 Sites: Dave Shaw...........................07 575 9560 Kiwi Air.........................................021 1046 208 Mount Paragliding........................027 249 2702 WELLINGTON H.G.P.C. PO Box 9824 Marion Square Wellington 6141 www.whgpc.nz Email: info@whgpc.org.nz Pres: Matthew Williams................027 552 5205 Sec/Treas: Grant Firth................... 021 422 698 HGSO: Grant Tatham...................027 636 3491 PGSO: Irwin Imhoff........................ 22 087 2173 Airsp: Ian Miller ............................022 176 8205 Comms; Warren Fitzgerald..........027 511 1599 MARLBOROUGH H.G.P.C. C/- Cody Pickles 1188 Waihopai Valley Road, RD 6, Blenheim Email: codypicklesj@gmail.com Pres: Daniel Francis .....................027 823 7292 Sec: Cody Pickles ........................027491 2730 Treas: Lindsay Smith....................027 850 6368 PGSO: Julie Bousquet.................027 340 0718 HGSO: John Urlich..03 5771024, 027 302 5629 Overall Site Manager; Mark Davies.021 0273 3977 Airsp: Daniel Francis.....................027 823 7292

KEY Pres; .............................................. President

Sec; ............................ Secretary/Treasurer PGSO; ............. Paragliding Safety Officer HGSO; .......... Hang Gliding Safety Officer CFI;...........................Chief Flying Instructor Airsp;.................................Airspace Officer

TASMAN H.G.P.C. C/- Frog Twissell 186A Nile Street, Nelson 7010 Email: thgpgclub@gmail.com 021 272 3236 Pres; Peter Allison ...........................021 350 066 Sec; Frog Twissell.........................021 228 2121 Treas; Brian Erasmus ...................021 384 4464 PGSO; Saxby Thorndyke.............027 606 8669 HGSO; Mark Patton.......................021 619 279 Airsp; Claus Petry.........................021 250 4836 Sites; Kevin Rooke.........................021 762 769 Nelson Paragliding.........................03 544 1182 Hang Gliding NZ.............................021 762 769 CANTERBURY H.G.P.C. Inc. C/- Paul Conaghan 34 Mounter Ave Christchurch 8051 Email: exec@chgpc.org.nz www.chgpc.org.nz Pres: Colin Hogg..........................021 249 9599 Sec/Treas; Paul Conaghan ..........022 414 7377 PGSO; Stuart Mackintosh..........020 4021 3344 HGSO; Warren Simonsen.............021 183 2126 Sites PG; Ondrej Wieden............020 4158 8152 Sites HG; Adriel Kind....................027 964 5397 Website; Stephen O’Shaughnessy.03 326 7373 Airsp; Jean Brossard....................021 143 9993 Canty HG School; Bill Degen.......021 247 2676 Chch Para.....................................022 045 7254 Cloudbase Paragliding.................027 532 4874 Nimbus Paragliding......................027 432 4874 ParaPro.........................................0800 548 323 AORANGI H.G.C. C/- Tom Knewstubb PO Box 5976 Dunedin Pres, Airsp; Kevin McManus........021 134 0463 Sec, HGSO; Tom Knewstubb (wk) 027 289 6103 PGSO: Lisa Bradley......................021 156 3256 SOUTHERN H.G.P.C. C/_ Tim Brown, 142 Dalefield Rd, RD1, Queenstown 9371 Email: admin@southernclub.co.nz www.southernclub.co.nz Pres; Tim Brown...........................021 182 4243 Pres; Nina Harrap........................027 844 3904 Sec: Nico San...............................021 052 7250 Treas: Kat Cerna.........................021 0291 0851 PGSO: Benjamin Kellet................021 232 7217 HGSO: Pete Helliwell .................021 0284 5170 Sites: ...................................... see Nico or Nina IT/Web: Daniel Diaz Rizo....................................

Airsp: ..................................... see Nico or Nina Wanaka; Doug Patterson ..................................

Jesse Dhue...................................022 310 2931 Craig Smith...................................027 343 3537 Louis Tapper.......................................................

Coronet Peak Tandem PG & HG..0800 467 325 G Force Tandem Paragliding..........03 441 8581 Infinity Paragliding School..............021 981 855 Skytrek Hang Gliding & Paragliding.0800 759 873 Paraventures Paragliding...............021 809 275

Photos; James Gibson ©

Treas: Nick Webster .....................027 494 9032

TARANAKI FREE FLYERS C/- John Morgan New Plymouth Pres, Airsp, Sec/Treas, PGSO; John Morgan ...................................................... 021 726 183 HGSO; Dave Austin....................021 0283 6797

Ben Kellett and Aaron Ford climbing out on Mt Roy

WAIKATO H.G.P.C. Inc.

because flying sites have been lost by visiting flyers who have upset land owners. To assist travelling pilots, people wishing to learn to fly or to contact hang gliding and paragliding clubs, here is a list of people who can help you.

Those on the list or wishing to be listed, should contact their Club Secretaries who should keep Airborn and the NZHGPA website updated of changes of contact details.

ISSN 1170-9928

printed on recycled paper

Magazine of the NEW Zealand Hang Gliding & Paragliding Assn. Inc.

N.Z.H.G.P.A. INC., C/- PO Box 131, Matamata 3440, New Zealand www.nzhgpa.org.nz

Administrator

Published every three months for hang gliding and paragliding enthusiasts in New Zealand and abroad ● Subscription is by membership of NZHGPA (a legal requirement for all hang glider and paraglider pilots in NZ) ● For non

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Airborn Magazine

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aero@xtra.co.nz

Ian Manton, C/- PO Box 131, Matamata 3440, 027 202-1806, admin@nzhgpa.org.nz

Executive Committee President

Duncan Macnab, 027 624 6434, president@nzhgpa.org.nz

Vice President

Ian Manton, 027 546 2832, vice-president@nzhgpa.org.nz

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

Duncan Macnab, 027 624 6434, president@nzhgpa.org.nz Ian Manton, 027 546 2832, ian@imatecsolutions.co.nz Carlos Palmer, 027 487 7654, ths_master@hotmail.com Kyla MacDonald 021 056 2320, kylamacdonald@gmail.com Blake Round, 027 367 7679, blake.round@gmail.com Kevin McManus 021 134 0463, kamdfc@gmail.com Erica Caro, eerieka@gmail.com Pete Helliwel, 021 0284-5170, pete.helliwell@sky.com

Operations TEAM Chief Executive Officer

Nick Taber, 021 420 742, ceo@nzhgpa.org.nz

Operations Manager

Carlos Palmer, 027 487 7654, operations@nzhgpa.org.nz

Training Manager

Blake Round, 027 367 7679, training@nzhgpa.org.nz

Internal Auditor

Sven Ericksen, 021 116 4558, audit@nzhgpa.org.nz

National Safety Officer

Nina Harrap, 027 844 3904, safety@nzhgpa.org.nz

National Airspace Officer

Rhys Akers, 021 177 7563, airspace@nzhgpa.org.nz

Communications Team

Ryan Larraman 022 658 3001, comms@nzhgpa.org.nz Lorraine Johns, Warren Simonson, Bill Degen

Paragliding Competition Committee

Timothy Brown (Chair), 03 442 5319, 021 182 4243, NZHGPAPCC@googlegroups.com Dave Washer, Nina Harrap

Hang Gliding Competition Committee

Dennis Thorpe (Chair) 021 112 1622, Hgcc@nzhgpa.org.nz Matt Barlow, Tom Mulder

In This Issue...

Wanaka Hike & Fly........................................................................4 The Risk of Dying While Doing What We Love..........................9 Dubai Hike & Fly.........................................................................10 Gust Fronts.................................................................................14 Forbes Flatlands Tow Meet.......................................................12 Executive Reports......................................................................20 Cross Country Championship Tables.............................. 22 & 24 Safety Checks.............................................................................25 Classified Advertisements.........................................................26 Pilot’s Pix.....................................................................................27 FRONT COVER: Richard Simson flying at the Thames Coast

Next issue deadline: 30 June 2022 A

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Getting down low with New Champions Lorraine Johns at the Wanaka Hike & Fly

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ereinNewZealand, we cannot claim to have a convincing track record for scheduled hiking, let alone flying.

W h e n r a c e d i re c t o r K i n g a Masztalerz told me she would be running the second edition of the Wanaka Hike and Fly on 11 to 13 February 2022, rain or shine, I wondered what the chances would be of needing a reserve repack after trudging through three days of downpours. Nobody had much to say about the forecast for days two and three of the competition.

However, on the eve of the race,

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our weather guru Louis informed a roomful of eager pilots that the forecast for day one was one on which “records could be broken”.

The resulting standard for the podium was demanding, with third place getter Bradley Franks flying just short of a 100 kilometre triangle on day one, and a single point separating the winner, Ben Kellett, and runner up, Aaron Ford. Having worn wounds into my feet from walking, I was keen to talk to our champions to find out the usual things, like where they flew, whether it was fun or terrifying or something else entirely, what all their race secrets are, and just how tech savvy a champion pilot must be.

Ben is the first person to have told

me that they got into hiking because they got into flying. It’s not unheard of for trampers to convert when they realise that it’s not just wishful thinking to imagine they don’t have to walk down. However, for Ben, cross-country flying was what lured him into adventuring by foot. Ben had no grand plan when he took up paragliding – just a bit of spare cash and a need for a new hobby. After an intro day on the training hill, Ben was promised a flight off Coronet Peak if he came back the next day.

The addiction was instantaneous, “F*** yeah, I guess I’ll see you guys tomorrow”.

Brad also came to paragliding in a spontaneous way – a 30th birthday

present while travelling around South America presented another opportunity for adventure. At first, he mostly flew new sites, travelling to fill his logbook with hours. It wasn’t until he moved back to New Zealand (to Queenstown), where for the first time he lived in a place with a flying community, that things really took off. Like Brad, Aaron comes from a climbing background. When asked about his motivation for taking up flying, Aaron doesn’t hesitate, “I could climb peaks and not have to walk down”. He found himself one day watching a speed flying video of people flying through a gap in cliffs, leading him to google “learn to paraglide” mid-video. By the time

w Zealand’s Hike and Fly Left; Sanae above Mt Roy, Lake Wanaka in the background Right; Kinga and Alex setting up the start line Photos; James Gibson ©

everyone was through that gap he was on his way to joining their ranks.

Neither Ben, Brad, nor Aaron set out to become xc addicts, with Ben and Brad attracted to the adrenalin of acro and Aaron focused on getting back down hills as quickly as possible. For Ben it was a hike and fly with Aaron from Sugarloaf up to Pluto Peak and Mount Earnslaw/ Pikirakatahi that “lit the fire”. As Ben says, it was a defining “Holy S***, what just happened? That was spectacular!” kind of moment.

Ben was among the first to get away on day one, quickly taking advantage of the cloud street leading from Wanaka to Queenstown.

“The first day looked good to go anywhere, but the best and easiest place to fly when it’s that good is in the Shotover, as the thermals are great and you can fly higher without breaking airspace.”

Ben had entered a 200 kilometre task into his instrument and the idea was to just keep going and do as much of it as possible over the three days. Ben and Aaron kept company for much of the day, a memorable moment coming early on when flying together for the first time over Mount Aurum. As Aaron observes, Mount Aurum is in intimidating and

Left; The Race start Photo; James Gibson ©

spectacular surrounds where the mountains are bigger, the valleys deeper and gnarlier, the airspace is low, and “there is a fine line between breaking airspace and being flushed into one of the many gorges.”

Bypassing a stable-looking Coronet Peak, Ben and Aaron flew to Glenorchy with Brad close behind.

Some of the race turnpoints required “feet on ground” and another great moment for Ben was surprising some tired trampers on this stiflingly hot day, when spiralling down to land next to the hut on Mount McIntosh.

He recounts that he spent twenty minutes trying to get down to snap some selfies, then couldn’t get a climb back up until he pushed over to Mount Larkins where it was “going off like a fish milkshake” at 7.5m/s.

Aaron and Ben parted ways at this point, with Aaron continuing on to Cascade Saddle while Ben flew back via Moke Lake to Coronet Peak.

“I haven’t flown that line before and it is right on a line between controlled airspace to the south and airspace to 9,500 feet on the north, so it felt very naughty”.

Ben landed in shade at six that evening to claim the Roses Saddle feet on ground turnpoint, assuming there would be no way to get out from there, other than a glide out the Motatapu. However, to his surprise, the air was still working.

“I thought no way will I get a climb here, but I went up again! It wasn’t super strong; just nice, wide, and smooth lift at 1m/s right up to seven thousand feet. I knew that with every climb I had from there, the walk back to Wanaka would become shorter.”

Gentle climb after climb took Ben all the way to Middle Peak meaning that no walking at all was necessary to make Wanaka, and he went on final glide to the Mount Barker turnpoint after a mega six-hour flying day.

“I didn’t feel at all tired, so I boosted it to the bottom of the Mount Maude track ready to get the waypoint the next day.”

In the meantime, Aaron was blasting his way through Mount Aspiring National Park carrying out his “crazy, far-fetched” flight plan

through terrain so incredible that it completely distracted him from tagging some of the turnpoints.

“The day didn’t seem good at first.

Normally there are a lot of birds soaring, but it was stable and there was wind on the lake. It was an awesome moment when I realised that it was working and we would get to fly. It was amazing to chase after Ben, flying above the clouds and through gaps in them.”

Like Ben and Brad, Aaron was after a great line rather than worrying about making it back to the finish.

On his list were several personal paragliding firsts including Mount Aurum and Lochnegar. However, it was perhaps his flight through the rocky moonscape of Reef Saddle and the Centaur Peaks with a cloudbase of 10,500 feet that left the greatest impression.

“To me flying through there is just

world-class paragliding; definitely epic.” Aaron’s dramatic line from Glenorchy to Cascade Saddle, on to the Buchanans, then over to Hawea earned him the “Best Flight” award.

Aaron describes the route through Cascade Saddle as complex, with massive peaks, rocky spines resulting from glacial recession, and big gorges all culminating in a pressing need not to land.

Aaron thought that finishing by crossing Lake Wanaka “would be an awesome move” but figured it would be too windy with the forecast northerly. However, “the lake was glassy with a light southerly and no sign of the northerly - it was a beautiful glide across the lake following a line of convergence.”

Aaron finished his day’s point tally by top landing on the feet on ground Mount Maude turnpoint, only to encounter a tail wind when

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ATHLETES: Aaron Ford, Ben Kellet, Bradley Franks, Chris Wright, Damian Chapparo, Darren Hassett, Dave Butson, David Cleary, Doug Patterson, George Fraser, Jesse Dhue, Jessica Schofield, Leo Jesus, Mark McInityre, Sam Lees, Sanae Noguchi, Thomas Wright, Ulises Cabrera, Lorraine Johns.

RACE COMMITTEE: Kinga Masztalerz (Race Director), James Gibson (Photographer), Tobias Joechle-Rings (Safety Officer), Doug Patterson (Technical Officer), Alexis Perez (Race Assistant), Louis Tapper (Weather Guru), Ross Desmond (Scoring and IT), Lorraine Johns (Race Secretary)

relaunching. After six attempts he made it off the hill and glided to the opposite side of Lake Hawea.

Meanwhile Brad was busy finishing his “dream flight” to Mt Aurum and back up the Richardsons. Brad says

he started by bouncing round the course collecting turnpoints, but by the end of the day became more focused on closing the 100 kilometre triangle that was in reach. Although he studied the turn points at length

before the race, he didn’t have time to download them - he ended up getting them from Ben just before the race started, in alphabetical order, resulting in a jumble of lines across the screen of his instrument.

“I had to keep changing between flight and map mode and going into the Wanaka Hike and Fly webpage to load Google Maps and work out which points required feet on ground and which didn’t, all while trying to manage pretty active air.” He adds he had been too busy leading up to the race to get everything sorted, so just rolled with it, using a pen in flight for his touch screen.

Ultimately, it was the lure of four points for tagging Mt Aurum that enticed him on glide over the Shotover. Like Ben and Aaron, flying over Aurum for the first time was one of Brad’s most special moments, “the stakes there are high, but it is stunning”. As additional wow moments, Brad cites thermalling with a sailplane to 10,500 feet in open airspace “in the middle of nowhere”, then flying over Vancouver, due to the stunning visual of the clean consolidated sheer shist, worn away to one lingering layer.

“I thought that the sailplane pilot must be thinking ‘what’s this nutter doing so far from home’.”

Brad eventually bumped back into Aaron. Together they forged their way over to the Shark’s Tooth through significant wind in some places and along beautiful lines of convergence in others, before parting ways as Aaron continued

Above; Ben thermalling up with Mt Aspiring in the background Left; Day 2 - Chris and Ben hiking towards Breast Hill Photos; James Gibson ©

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his ambitious line north while Brad followed the convergence home with a 15 kilometre final glide.

Ben, Aaron, and Brad all agree that it was a day of “big air” with Brad adding that “it was definitely hold on to your pants at some stages”.

For all three, the biggest problem, however, was simply not breaking airspace. Ben recalls watching Aaron glide down the Harris with big ears and speed bar on.

“It was some of the strongest conditions I’ve flown in. Lake Luna was white capping but when I looked down at Lake Wakatipu, it was still.

Lochnagar was also white capping.

The mountains were pulling all this air in, showing how much power they have to make something like Lochnagar white cap!”

Brad had to fly away from Soho as the huge cloud on it “looked like an airspace breaker” and by the time he got to Roses Saddle “I was going up so fast I didn’t know what to do – I had to fly away before breaking airspace”. He adds that while it was a big day, he didn’t get any collapses and “the air was very uniform - if it was going up it was going up fast, with big areas of sink – it knew what it was doing”.

Brad finished his day in style, receiving a sportsperson award for landing at his car at Roy’s Peak (as he had no support crew in attendance to pick him up elsewhere) then driving to Lake Hawea to pick up Ben. As the first day closed, Brad was back at the starting line near Roys Peak, Ben was below Mt Maude, and Aaron was at the base of the Pakituhi Hut track, with all three planning to walk to the hut the next day to claim the night turnpoint and enjoy the party. Joining them there were the race committee and a couple of additional competitors.

Ben spent day two nabbing the Mount Maude, Grandview Mountain, and Breast Peak (that one without realising) turnpoints on foot with Chris Wright. Aaron simply popped up to the hut via the Breast Hill turnpoint not realising the race with Ben was so close (both seemingly having had unbeatable flights the day before).

Brad told me that he had been following me from Wanaka, but I hadn’t looked at High Cloud to see where everyone was because I was trying not to use my phone in case I accidentally stopped my tracklog (which, of course, I did anyway). If you want to track on Flyskyhy you have to be able to run at 10.8 km/ hr (3m/s) for 10 seconds to get it started, which doesn’t always feel possible …

Racing started again at 6:30am on day three. I had been awake early

dreading getting Flyskyhy started in the rain with stiff morning legs and severe blisters. I thought I might be the first one to leave but I didn’t count on Ben getting out of his minimalist sleeping bag and walking straight out the door (he explained later that he is “not a breakfast dude”). I ate breaky while our race photographer James generously started my tracking for me.

I felt like a diva when I wandered outside to discover Brad and Aaron sprinting through the mist to get their own tracking started. We discovered later that Ben didn’t realise Flyskyhy could track on the ground and the hardest part of his race ended up being a scramble at the finish to convert his topomap log to an approved aviation file format.

Aaron was the only one to fly down from the hut on the last day, taking off from the Grandview turnpoint in a lull to avoid gusts in excess of thirty kilometres.

“It was pretty exciting in the air – one of my more exciting moments.

My wife Sally was on the ground to report conditions, I could see the lake, and I knew what the wind was doing. I knew it was coming and it wasn’t far away, but I had all the information I needed and was pretty stoked to be in the air.”

There is no doubt that Ben, Aaron, and Brad flew through extremely demanding conditions with great aptitude and strength of mind, and I wanted to know more about how they manage to stay calm and fly such a skilful race under such pressure.

Both Ben and Brad credit their background in acro, which they describe as advanced glider control, for their comfort in thermic turbulence. Ben is thankful he started with acro before coming to cross country.

“It would be exhausting to fly in the mountains if I didn’t have a solid background in acro. I’m comfortable flying in pretty turbulent conditions.

I don’t think about it too much and that allows me to focus on other things, such as my next move and

Above; Winners Podium L-R; Lorraine, Jess, Brad, Ben, Aaron Photo; James Gibson ©

looking for the best place to find a climb.” He also reflects that next year he will get a “way nicer pair of socks” to replace the old pair of budget socks he was using.

For Brad, his background in acro means that “it doesn’t matter where the wing is; you’re never scared of what it’s going to do next because you already know. As Brad says, stalling is something he does a lot so it helps when “a stall is not something you think about – it’s as normal as taking off.” When asked what he might change for next year

he concedes, when pressed, that he will “perhaps sort the tech”.

Aaron’s top tip to future competitors is to be prepared and stay focused.

“A big part of it is being able to use your instrument to see where the turnpoints are and the radius of the cylinders. Plan ahead, watch the sky, and don’t give up. Keep flying until it stops and you land!” He also had three pairs of shoes for the race and much better socks than Ben. All three plan to return next year for the third edition and we can’t wait to see how they go.

RESULTS First overall: Ben Kellet Second overall: Aaron Ford (also Best Flight award) Third overall: Bradley Franks First woman: Lorraine Johns (also Mad Hiker award) Second woman: Jessica Schofield (also Best Adventure award) Sportsperson awards: Sanae Noguchi, George Fraser, Bradley Franks Best Content award: Damien Chaparro

Above; Lorraine and Kinga at the finish

Photo; James Gibson ©

Right; Chris and Bradley in the Finishing Chute Photo; Photo; James Gibson ©

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Wanaka Hike and Fly

I

f you’re keen on having an adventure and pushing yourself, do it! The hardest thing for me was decisions when you can fly (or walk) to so many points. Especially with the weather not looking great after day 1.

Day 1: the likely epic weather day. Very nervous. It started by heading up Roys Peak which was a slog in the hot sun. I was one of the last people to take off. One of the perks of starting later was seeing other pilots get the same banging

thermal so I knew exactly where to go and went straight up to the clouds! Once the height plateaued I headed straight to the Motatapu valley to get the turnpoints on the west facing valley side.

Mistake. The line I flew was not on.

Jessica Schofield reports

Above; watching the sun go down at the camp for the night (Day 1) Photo; Jessica Schofield I got flushed down too quickly into stronger winds. I slope landed easy part way up one range over from Middle Peak. Now what to do? Do I walk up to the top to launch and continue in the valley? Do I go one valley over? Will I have to walk out? I get to the top of the hill and it’s a bit too windy to take off but on the edge.

I take a break for a bit. It seems to be calming off a bit so I decide it’s worth setting up. I’m more confident with the wind strength now and bring up the wing in a reverse to take off.

The take-off was easy, now to get out of the valley. I head towards Glendhu Bay. I pass a brown field and get lots of vario beeps. I turn. I gradually go up in the 1.5 m/s climb.

Great. Now where to go? I set a turn point in XC Track to Rocky Mountain in the air, a new skill I am learning.

The glide to the Rocky Mountain turnpoint is easy. Some more beeps and another climb, I’m at the next hill over the recent fire. I’m not gaining any elevation overall but I’m gliding and topping up.

I’m high enough to cross the Matukituki River. Should I? I decide why not, hoping to have enough height to clear the station and land on the slopes of the Buchanans where there’s three relatively close together turnpoints.

Left; Flight through the clearing clouds off the ridgeline below Mt Alta Photo; Jessica Schofield

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But I couldn’t quite make it and land on the edge of the station. Now I’m committed. What else is there to do apart from get those turnpoints?

I pack up and walk along the station edge. Shall I go up tonight and get Buchanans Peak then camp somewhere up on the ridge line?

But my shelter would be ideal with trees to attach it to. The nearest trees are near the doc track near a turnpoint below Mt Alta. I’ll go there as it doesn’t seem too long of a walk.

It was a long walk. Once I get up enough on the hill to get the turnpoint but still in the bush line I find a flatish area sheltered under the trees. Finally I can set camp and cook food! The trip to get water turned into quite a down slope expedition.

Then into the emergency shelter, a triangle piece of plastic with a string under the top tied between two trees.

Now sleep. I’m convinced the shelter will break but it holds up impressively and doesn’t even tear. Sleeping in a pack liner has turn out to be a bad idea. It’s not breathable and I end up sleeping soaked with condensation.

Day 2: Finally morning. After packing up and a warm breakfast it’s time to walk in the foggy outdoors soup. Since it’s early in the day I’m feeling positive about the fog and confident there will be a window later where it will clear thanks to my inReach contacts giving a weather update.

I am very much taking the elevation head-on with my route choice.

Multiple hours of slogging directly uphill in the fog, constantly checking topomaps to see how much elevation I’ve gained (usually about 10m) and stopping about every 10 steps for snow berries (and to catch my breath).

I reach a scree area, which is exciting because it means I must be close to the top however it’s also getting more difficult to traverse. This is where I wish the fog was gone so I could see a better route which I’m sure there was because my route was terrible.

I finally reach the ridge line and climb along to get the turn point.

Finally!! Who knew the XC Track sound could be so rewarding. I begin to head along the ridge line towards the next turnpoint. Where I’m heading there’s still cloud sitting on the ridge. The wind feels good right here and there’s a good gap in the cloud.

Should I just take off now and not worry about the last turnpoint? Don’t really feel like a dodgy walk along the ridge line in low vis conditions.

Maybe I can even get the Buchanan turnpoint in flight! I set up to take off, soon I’m up and away.

Too easy. I try to get close to the ridge to get the turnpoint but there’s so much cloud sitting over Buchanan Peak I can’t seem to get it and don’t want to fly closer. I wasted time on a barely there thermal and then after a bit of glide I’ve landed in the station again.

Now time to pack up and walk out.

But as I plan what I could do for the rest of the race I start to realise the easiest turnpoint for me to get next is the one on Buchanan Peak which I missed!

Once I’ve packed I head straight up the hill from where I landed. Hopefully I can fly off again! My heart sinks more and more as I get higher and feel the wind becoming stronger and

the cloud coming in. The foggy soup is back. All this slog for what? To not be able to fly? Can I even walk down? Of course I can, but I can’t go the way I came up as it’s far too steep. How am I going to get down?

Maybe the ridge line, so I follow it down. Seems like other people have walked here or maybe an angry tahr.

It’s good but is taking me away from the direction I want to go.

I can see on topomaps there’s a 4WD track lower I can try to link up with. I’m below the cloud layer and can even see now! I’m relieved. I now turn my attention to my next aim, getting out of the station before the 9:30pm cut off.

It’s a challenge. I walk/run down the rest of the mountain and keep walking fast once I get to the bottom.

Don’t worry about the blisters or the heavy gear. I walk and walk. Finally I make it out of the station to past the bridge. Now I can get picked up for the night! Amazing!! Hot chips and a nice shower. All I have to do the next day is walk back from there to Wanaka. What a dawdle. I wish I had a paramotor.

Day 3: I start walking early at 7:30am. Not sure how long the walk from the Matukituki Bridge to Wanaka will take. It’s pretty interesting the different things you pick up in the landscape when you’re going slower and are not in a car. I make much better progress than anticipated and get to Wanaka before mid day. Guess I can get the Mt Iron and Mt Barker turnpoints in town before I finish then. Yay. More walking. The road walking wasn’t great but was much more tolerable than anticipated. Anything but elevation was nice. It’s quite cold too, not good flying weather with stronger winds.

Finally I make it to the end and there’s other finishers there cheering!

I don’t know whether to be buzzing or relieved. What a crazy few days!

Hopefully next year I’ll get to fly over Alta and Buchanan Peaks instead.

Left; Jess with Tom at the finish line

The Risk of Dying While Doing What We Love A

n American sailplane pilot has attempted to quantify the risks attendant in high-risk sports including gliding, hang gliding and paragliding.

The difficulty here is the dearth of reliable data and the lack of a common denominator to aid comparisons.

Clemens Ceipek suggests that the most useful common datapoint is the risk of dying per hour of participating in a particular activity.

For many recreational occupations there is no available US data and several European sources were used. Ceipek benchmarked certain activities against travelling on commercial airlines – one of the safest things you can do outside the home. He says the chance of dying within your next 1,000 hours of airline flying is 0.01%. Driving, cycling, skiing and marathon running aren’t nearly as safe, but they are still quite safe.

By this method of comparison, flying sailplanes is one of the more dangerous activities. In Germany and France the sport has a fatality rate of 1 in 50,000 participation hours; the risk of dying within the next 1,000 hours of participation is thus 2% – twice as risky as riding motorcycles and about 200 times as dangerous as commercial flying.

Flying powered aircraft is a bit safer than gliding; hang gliding and paragliding are slightly more dangerous. Climbing in the Teton range in Wyoming, USA, is much more dangerous, and BASE jumping is shown to be 480,000 times more dangerous than commercial aviation!

Another way to look at these risks is to compare them to the normal risk of dying of any cause at different life stages. An 18-year-old has a much lower risk of dying within their next 1,000 life-hours than a 90-year-old. The odds that an 18-year-old American male will die within their next 1,000 life-hours is about 0.01% – the same odds as airline flying; a 90-year-old male has a 1.9% chance. The slope of the curve remains fairly flat until the age of 50 and really steepens at around 75.

Superimposing the above activities onto the death-probability-within-1000 hours chart reveals that commercial flying, driving, skiing, cycling and marathon running are all on the relatively flat part of the curve (see graphic). As you move along the curve the risk level increases much more steeply.

Scuba diving is about as dangerous as being 80; motorcycling corresponds to the normal risk of being 85. GA, gliding, hang gliding and paragliding, and downhill mountain biking, come next, each about as risky as the normal lives of people aged 88 to 95. Further up the slope, skydiving is about as dangerous as the normal life of a

107-year-old, and climbing in the Tetons is about as dangerous as being 119.

Ceipek believes we should be aware of these risk levels and take precautions to reduce them. Most fatal accidents in sports result, at least in part, from human error and thus could be avoided. Risk-mitigation strategies exist for all activities; deploying them deliberately and consistently can help you stay alive.

This research is the first serious attempt to measure the relative risks of the sports we engage in. According to Ceipek’s data our chosen pursuits of hang gliding and paragliding are, respectively, 250 times (based on UK data) and 286 times (German data) more dangerous, per hour of participation, than airline flying; both are around twice as safe as skydiving. He offers no data for paramotoring; on recent form UK paramotoring might be closer to skydiving than gliding.

You can pick many holes in Ceipek’s methodology and his uneven sources (his participation-hours data will be very weak in many cases), but his research has added a little statistical weight to a hitherto vague field of study. One day we’ll have reliable global data to make much more accurate assessments; right now his research is the best we’ve got.

The bottom line is awareness, and taking actions and precautions in the light of that awareness. The article is at https:// chessintheair.com/the-risk-of-dyingdoing-what-we-love. It’s worth studying.

-BHPA SkyWings

Photo; James Gibson ©

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9

Dubai Hike & Fly T

he inaugural UAE hike and fly championship was held in late November, 2021. Just as I type this a notification pops up that a stranger has shared a post from this event nearly four months ago.

My most popular YouTube video ever was taken the same day.

For myself and all of the other athletes I spoke to during our crazy and fun adventure in Dubai this was something really different and unusual, a once in a lifetime experience in the paragliding world.

Now I’m at a gliding competition, which while it remains a dangerous sport, is taken from a completely different angle. With a lot of professional aviation experience and the same attitude to layered safety protocol, and rules specifying everything from the scoring handicap of your particular sailplane to the FAI

10 A i r b o r n

approval of the logger you must use to validate your flights, in UAE we all stood on the edge of a 70 storey building on a half finished construction platform, looking at each other and wondering, “what if”, “why not”?

As pilots after a few ad hoc conversations we’d rewritten the rules on how the task would be run, and our organiser (who had been dreaming about this for months) reluctantly agreed that the part which was completely unfamiliar to all of us and most definitely life threatening, would at least have the competition pressure removed. Some observers questioned the legitimacy or ethics of pressuring athletes to do these publicity stunts for commercial reasons, but the truth is that there were no conditions or ultimatums set for us, it was completely optional to fly and every pilot just wanted to be part of this adventure.

So the first task was absolutely spectacular and in the next few days it felt like we had the whole world watching - people incredulously watched us flying from the top of

a skyscraper over the beaches and city scape of Dubai. The next task over two thousand metre desert mountains right next to the coast was my favourite. And the final destination was the dunes, a site with a low rocky ridge rising out of the red sand which was perfect for soaring. Unique among paragliding competitions was an all inclusive hotel and transfer package with two buffet meals a day, which, aside from the adrenaline filled moments, made it a stress free and social experience along with the worlds best pilots.

The event was not associated with Red Bull or any commercial sponsor, in fact the organiser was a free flying expat from Brazil who was motivated to develop air sports in his adopted country. Through skydiving he had links to the Sheikh’s son, who has been supportive of similar events, such as the World Air Games in

Nick Neynens reports from the United Arab Emirates 2015 where sailplanes flew in Dubai.

Something, of course, that is hard to imagine ever getting approvals to do anywhere else, was in fact supported right from the top. Our expenses were provided and every day we were sent between our comfortable hotel and the destination for the next day’s adventure. We all felt very lucky to be a part of it.

Generally the format was that we had four tasks, with a rest day in between each. In fact the rest day was used to reconnoitre the site.

First and foremost on everyone’s mind of course was the skyscraper launch. No-one really knew if it was possible. Even the day before the launch wasn’t finished and we were all imagining what it might be like. The next morning the smooth expanse of the launch was an improvement, but it was still much too small for me to be comfortable considering a forward nil wind launch. We had a fresh offshore breeze, contouring around the oval shape of the building and putting us in the cross lee - there was in fact a higher level upwind of us. But in a few hours the wind began to abate and became light and variable, and we had our window.

I was one of the first to try, and my closest attempt was thwarted by a stray tripod getting caught in my lines. I stood on the platform watching the canopy of my wing drape itself out of view over the edge of the building. Puffs of wind were sideways but slightly outwards from the building, and in fact there were leeside thermals right in front, coming up off the beach. After a few failed attempts I opted to move aside and let the others have a go. In the next hour or so most managed to get off, although I found the scariest part was watching. It is not so bad when you have control.

Meanwhile though the winds were increasing again, and several athletes shunned the official launch and climbed a ladder onto the top deck, where they could pull the wing up into wind. I tried this next, and three times I could not bring myself to jump over the edge. You had to take two steps up onto the handrail, which with the increase in height took the tension out of your lines and without the reassuring tug of the wing overhead I could not take the leap of faith. By now I was the last one. I descended down the ladder when we noticed another leeside thermal blocking the wind.

A few more attempts on the main launch and finally I was off. It was a terrible thing to watch - a few days later I got hold of the phone video someone had taken. You could see the left wing was actually stalled the entire time I was running towards the edge, but I could not let it turn to the right or I would have ended up in the rooftop infinity pool. I was the last one off so my fellow athletes observed from the beach below, a

mile or two away, and said it looked like I was running down the side of the building. Yes, the wing wasn’t flying properly until I was already in the air, but as long as I was clear of the building I didn’t care, I could handle the wing, that’s easy.

The advantage of the official launch over the rooftop is that being in the lee I got a thermal that took me over the top. Not as much airtime up there as Chrigel or Steve Bramfitt who had the best flight of the day, but some well earned moments that I’ll never forget. Because of the oval shape, the windward side of the building had diverging air and was sinky but after that I was able to play in some light thermals coming from the beach below, in the lee of the other skyscrapers. Finally I rose into the offshore winds and was pushed out over the water and decided that was enough and it was time to land.

You might think that was enough

excitement for the day (I didn’t even mention the stair climb or the beach run, which should also help to burn off any excess energy) but in fact most athletes were keen to go up again after the task for another flight! By now the sea breeze was blowing - straight up! It meant that the rooftop itself was completely in the rotor, and made for some interesting launching. I was 95% confident that I could manage it - but wasn’t quite sure that was enough, given the consequences. I also noted I was a little tired (I’d missed

a nights sleep during my flight into Dubai) and hungry, not to mention social behaviour influences from my peers - although these guys are perhaps a different breed, or maybe I’m getting old.

So instead I immortalised the moment with a compilation of palm sweat inducing videos. A gliding friend, watching, had commented that even seeing the images on the screen from Australia had made him physically ill. I must confess that I also had butterflies in the stomach from the spectacle. In the end there

Right; Steve Bramfitt takes off on the mountain task Below; Inspecting the skyscraper launch the day before it was ready

Left; Tommy Friedrich relaxing on the mountain reconnaissance day Below; Boring soaring seabreeze the afternoon of the skyscraper task

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11

was no accidents but we just didn’t know what would happen. Steve and Gui are both base jumpers and while they didn’t think conditions were that great, they both agreed they’d be much more comfortable with a base rig than a paraglider!

The next task was much more wholesome. Late November is a great time for hiking in the Arab Emirates - it’s hotter than anything the European athletes have experienced, but cool for this part of the world. The northern province of Ras al Khaimah is a gateway to the Hajar mountains which lie between the Persian Gulf and Oman.

Flying conditions were actually very pleasant, gentle well formed thermals giving us views of dry jagged peaks stretching off into the distance. At least they were on the practice day - on the day of the task a north wind put us into the lee, and conditions were very scratchy.

Starting mid-mountain we climbed to the launches near the top of Jebel Jais and flew, having to land again to sign our names at the start, before ascending to the next turn point above us.

The winners actually packed up and hiked, I flew my way up but it was so slow that Spike (from Poland

whose guest house I stayed at in the Dolomites) attempted to fly, gave up, slope landed in the same place a second time, walked up, and finally overtook me. I believe he did have rather a sore head from the exertion, however - worse than any day in the X-Alps, he said.

At the finish the organisers facilitated a carnival atmosphere, we filled out bellies courtesy of the Arabian hospitality, and we had prize giving with the local Sheikh giving the nod of approval for a new paragliding site, our transgressions at venturing too close to the Omani border the day before seemingly forgiven.

The Dune task. Stopping by the road to have a closer look at the camels, our ridge seemed to tower in the distance. It was an optical illusion - when we arrived it had shrunk somehow. But it was still the perfect place to gather the desert breeze and offer world class soaring.

You could play waggas in the sand, thermal up to a thousand metres, or glide along the ridge. Of course the environment is inhospitable to your wing with the red gritty sand but my Gin Puma has had a good life, with a long summer full of adventures.

Left; A carnival atmosphere after the mountain task

12 A i r b o r n

Above; Playing with the Gin Puma, dune reconnaissance day

Below; Waggas while watching the sunset

Above; Nick Neynens flies gentle thermals in Ras al Khaimah, UAE So a brilliant site for learning, tandems, or playing, but perhaps not the best for a cross country task.

I used more speed bar in the task than probably the entire lifetime of the wing so far. At one stage I even gained the lead, but then failed to spot the sign board and veered off course slightly. A couple of wingovers to lose the extra height I didn’t actually need and a dozen wings overtook me.

Then with wings bunched up we raced up a quarry track and tried to launch in the rubble. A rather frustrating experience, but at least it wasn’t a new wing. Racing on the ridges low to the ground took its toll and Steve fell out of the sky, Eduardo face planted into the rocks, and Aaron wrapped his Lamborghini sponsored wing around the only (spiky) tree around. Unfortunately there was some confusion and lack of situational awareness and it took a while for Steve to get to hospital, where he was joined by Eduardo.

Thank goodness for the hot shower and buffet back at the hotel. Next we had a rest day where some went to The World Expo, or the kite beach, or the Burj Khalifa. Instead I’d been invited to go sailing with some South African expats I met

during my first hike and fly race (x-berg) back in 2014. We went “around the world” - the artificial sand islands - and viewed the skyline, one building in particular (Address Beach Resort) now being especially familiar.

There is quite the expat community in Dubai and Linda asked where else in the world can you feel so safe in the city as a woman. There was some controversy about the lack of representation in the athlete lineup, although we did expect Yael to join us, but she changed her plans after the Argentina Worlds. Oh, the hectic rock star lifestyle of the paragliding elite...

While after the X-Alps I’m considering my “retirement”, events like this are certainly a perk of the modest opportunities available to aspiring semi-professionals, and pretenders like me. There was a great sense of community amongst the pilots, genuine enthusiasm from the organisers, and real pioneering feel to the experience.

Supportive hosts make everything a pleasure and our exchanges with locals, expats, and visitors were all a positive part of the experience. One to remember.

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Gust Fronts L ate in the afternoon of 22 March 2022 a thunderstorm front swept down the lower North Island, which was recorded by the MetService rain radar, the WHGPC’s Holfuy weather station at Paekakariki, and in several dramatic photographs.

Prior to the storm hitting, the wind conditions were light, and if coming from the opposite direction would have been very pleasant for flying.

Within a 15 minute window between 7:15pm and 7:30pm the wind gusts rose from the mid 20s (km/h) to 79 km/h before then dropping back to the mid 20s.

These images give a very dramatic representation as to why you should not be in the air when there is a thunderstorm around, as the gust fronts can be very strong.

Fronts like this can move in very rapidly and can be preceded by very turbulent air and very strong lifting air so it pays to land well before they

Above; Gust front over Kapiti Island at about 7:00pm Photo: Fiona Gunter-Firth

get close. Once on the ground pack up quickly - the rain associated with the front can be drenching.

Thunderstorm clouds near Linton, south of Palmerston North, at about 5pm. Photo: Sven Ericksen MetService rain radar

Paekakariki weather station on 22 March 2022 Right; Andy Maloney flying at Paekakariki in calmer conditions, with Kapiti Island in the distance.

Photo: Sven Ericksen

Below; Thunderstorm clouds near Linton.

14 A i r b o r n

By Sven Ericksen

Photo: Sven Ericksen

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Forbes Flatlands 2022

W

e were determined not to cancel the Forbes Flatlands this year and it paid off in spades! Forbes was another great success with super flying conditions albeit with a much smaller flying group.

We had 13 pilots in the Open Class and 6 in the Sport Class with a pilot in each class joining the comp half way through.

We finished the comp with a total 21 pilots and were able to fly 8 of the 9 days including the practice day.

The Open Class flew over 1000 kms with some gaining over 39 airtime hours! The Sport Class had some challenging tasks flying over 400 kms.

We welcomed new pilots to competition and saw Richard McLeod flying daily PB’s and winning the Emma Martin Encouragement award.

All in all we had a great comp, it was so much fun to be back sharing the air with these great pilots.

With the smaller flying group we opted to hold the headquarters at the Forbes Aero Club and lots of pilots camped and used the clubs facilities.

Vicki Cain reports

We kept everyone up to date with daily social media posts utilising a different pilot writing up our day report.

As always a very special thank you to all the special people putting this event together.

Bill and Molly Moyes – Owning the 3 Dragonflys and the paddock!

Tug Pilots: Steve McCarthy, John Blaino Blain and Marco Carelli – Maintaining the paddock and the Dragonflys.

Officials: Wesley Hill, Greg Cain, Rob Van Der Klooster.

Volunteers: Alan Bond, Andrew Barnes, Louie Cain.

Master of Ceremonies: Jonny Durand.

Task Committee: Attila Bertok, Jonny Durand, Scott Barrett and Trent Brown.

Weather: Steve Blenkinsop.

Safety Committee: Craig Taylor, Guy Hubbard, Steve Docherty.

Top Photo; Launching on Day 7 Above; Michael Karmazin on task, day 4 Left; Ready to launch

Every year we have a land owner hamper to foster land owner relations.

This year’s winners were a lovely family from a farm in Peak Hill, nominated by Richard Hughes.

Attila was able to deliver the hamper passing through Peak Hill on his way home.

With news that our International borders will reopen in a few weeks we look forward to a bigger and better Forbes 2023!

How good is Forbes!!!!

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Task 1

This was a 126km triangle starting from BMIA (Bill Moyes International airport), first heading north for 50km before tagging the turn point “Mines” an outstanding visual reference point of bright white limestones mines.

Heading east for a much shorter leg of ~20km arriving at the rural town of Alectown stopping just short of the Goobang National Park, a final leg of 55km following the A39 bypassing the local airspace around Parkes, from here it’s a

straight race south back to BMIA! Some competitors took the first start at 13:00 local time while others waited for the day to develop and risking a 30 minute delay attempting to catch the early birds before goal!

Provisional scores show Jon Durand to have taken a decisive win over Scott Barrett flying his Moyes Litespeed RX3.5 Pro. The sports class are yet to score today after a 50km race to goal, heading NW of BMIA to the small town of trundle, there’s great landing opportunities all the way and an easy retrieve for any land outs or first cross countries!

Task 2!

With the cobwebs blown away we set a slightly more challenging 145km crosswind task to Tallim (Tallimba town) with a first turnpoint to the west at “ootha”.

Winds in the paddock were a fairly consistent 10/15kmh E - ESE with cu’s showing a promising looking sky ahead.

Soon enough all competitors were in the air and seeing cloud base of around 7000ft (2100m) making the first turnpoint in good time with a reasonable tailwind, the task became more challenging as the pilots had to turn 90° heading SSW, on the plus side increasing cu’s to show the way but having to glide east of course line so as not to drift away from the optimised course line when thermalling.

We have a large radius around goal (17km) because we are not sure how the local area has been affected by the local floods, this gives competitors better options for landing fields but makes final glide a little trickier!

Scott Barrett takes the win on day 2 followed

by Trent Brown around 5 minutes behind and Attila Bertok in 3rd place.

Day 3, Task 3!

We are well underway for the last task of the year!

Task 3 sees a triangle task starting off from BMIA. We had a classic looking Forbes day, Cu’s forming from the early AM, slight breeze and beautiful temperatures!

The first leg of the task heads the competitors NNW to “Billa” a 400m radius turnpoint 74km away, arriving at the most northern point it’s time to hang a U-turn and head 35km SW for “Skulls” another 400m radii before heading east and into the slight head wind arriving at the goal “Bogan”.

Guy Hubbard reports the conditions today to be quite technical and punishing when low but great clouds and approximately 15/20% cloud cover, cloud base topping out around mid day of 8500ft!

Attila turns on the heat flying his Litespeed RX5 Pro taking today’s win by over 20 minutes followed by Scott Barrett and Jonny Durand rounding out the podium for the day!

The scores are compressing for the top spot and it’s all to play for on the final days!

Day 4!

We are officially into the new year and we start things off with amazing conditions and a primo Forbes triangle task!

Today’s task starts at BMIA with a 5km exit cylinder, 1st turnpoint sends the competitors south west for 54km to “Caraga” with a 3km entry cylinder, next up is a 61km leg heading east to brush past the northern end of the

Right; Blue sky on Task 6

Coninbla National Park with another 3km entry Radii, the final leg is an into wind push back to BMIA for another 50km.

With back to back 1000 point scores Attila takes another decisive win on his Moyes Litespeed RX5 pro, second was Jonnie Durand followed closely by Scott Barrett.

Attila’s round up of the day: After a slow start unable to catch the forming gaggle in the start cylinder I was forced to take the start in a sub optimal position some 5-600m lower than the rest. Leaving the start we had very good clouds and it was very easy making it to the first turnpoint at Caraga. Linking clouds and flying fast, after the poor start I started to feel better about the task, heading to the second turnpoint I had great clouds again for about 3/4 of the 2nd leg, until I reached the turnpoint I was flying alone, unaware of where my competitors were.

Leaving the first turnpoint I manage to get a visual on some other pilots coming up from low, at this point I realised I had at least a 6km lead and at least a full climb ahead, a nice place to be.

Reaching the second turnpoint I was having to fight cloud suck, another good feeling! The clouds had started to disappear and by the time I had taken the turnpoint it was blue all the way home.

There were some slight caps in the inversion layer and the big climbs left some small whisps to navigate the way home. On the last leg I was a little slower than the previous 100km and actually flew back down course line to take my final climb, I left at around 8-1 as the climbs were good and plentiful, it was seemingly a perfect final glide until a monster 1000fpm climb threw me into orbit and ruined my goal line arrival style points!

Never the less a beautiful day in Forbes and another perfect score.

Above; Wedgetail Eagle attack damage

Day 5!

It’s groundhog day! Today was a tough one!

The forecast had a few possibilities of rain with some fairly solid lines of showers predicted, this left the task committee a pretty hard job! They smashed it and got a perfect task between two lines of showers.

Today we start once again at BMIA and head NNE to our first turnpoint at “Alec” a small town on the A39 highway running reciprocal to the Goobang National Park, with a radii of 1km.

Once tagging this turn point some 50km away from Forbes it’s time to run north following the range for just over 100km before arriving at goal with a radii of 2.5km at the town of Trangie (turnpoint “Trang”).

Our amazing ground crew got everyone off the deck within 30 minutes today with no-one needing a reflight! Great work in temperatures exceeding 37°C. Jonnie Durand gives us today’s wrap up!

“Conditions were a little tricky around launch and 10 minutes to the start nearly everyone

Right; NZ’s Jonas Lobitz

Right; A thermic sky on the last day

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was together and all did our own things with no one ending up with the perfect start.

First leg was good if you stayed high, I managed to pull away from most pilots after hitting some strong climbs. Once rounding Alectown we faced a 101kms cross tailwind leg to Trangie, the sky blued up on course line and I was forced to go more upwind, The lift became broken and I was never able to reach cloudbase again.

Atilla had a similar story to me whilst the day winner Trent claimed to have a good run getting 700fpm climbs and even a 1000fpm climb on the second leg. Both of them flew over me and Trent will beat Atilla by a couple of minutes with me 10 minutes behind Atilla.

Around 8 pilots in goal with Scott landing out. It was not the day to be low and trying to push and catch up.”

While Attila extends his lead the leader board takes a change for 2nd and 3rd places with pretty much all spots up for grabs!

Day 6 task 6!

Today has been the hottest day of the competition so far and the temperatures in the paddock exceeded 40°C! With the increase in temperatures we had no clouds for today’s task, a dogleg heading north to Trangie with a goal at Gilgandra for a total distance just over 200km!

With many pilots landing out today they’re all late returning home so no wrap up today!

Maybe one in the morning, it looks like Attila and Jonas were the only 2 to make goal today after a whole gaggle landed within 5/10km of goal as the slower conditions and SE wind drifted them off course line. Attila will extend his lead but the mid field battle is hotting up!

Notable mention to Scotty Ireland for making goal in the Sports Class, unfortunately the two eagles that tried to help him along the way left their mark on his glider.

Day 6, 3 Jan 2022

Today’s forecast was similar to yesterday with 20-30km/h winds from the south west, 6-700fpm climbs up to 9000ft with scattered cu’s and patchy lift in some areas. However, there wasn’t the approaching trough line from the west that we had to navigate yesterday.

The task committee called a 192km dogleg task to Gilgandra, to the North East of Forbes

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with a 20km turn point radius at Trangie to keep the field away from the Naromine and Dubbo airspace.

Launch at Bill Moyes International opened at 1pm. The lift was blue and patchy in the start gate and the thermal cores were moving around a lot. Essentially the entire field took the first start at 2pm just as clouds were starting to develop down the course line. Jonny Durand led the pack for the majority of the first leg, Trent Brown, Scott Barrett, Jonas Lobitz were closely on his heels.

The cu’s were lining up well on the way to the first turn point with tight and punchy cores up to 7-800fpm topping out over 8000ft as we sped down the course line with the strong tail wind. However, the clouds became more sparse about 30kms from the first turn point, we hit the blue and things slowed down with pilots having to stop in 3-400fpm climbs.

Most of the field including Atilla Bertok, Trent Brown, Scott Barrett, Craig Taylor, Steve Docherty, Jonas Lobitz amongst others converged just after the first turnpoint in the blue before climbing out under a developing cloud about 50kms from goal. From this position we were confident we’d make goal needing perhaps only one last climb before going out on final.

Trent Brown led the charge from cloud base as we dove out over the forest towards Gilgandra.

There was a large patch of overdevelopment and a building to our east, making its way towards course line. Our glide numbers started falling as the overdevelopment encroached.

The lift significantly weakened, and the wind switched round to the east, so the pilots now had a solid cross wind to battle.

Attila Bertok took a slightly different line further to the west and managed to avoid the worst of the sink crossing the finish line in first place while the rest of the field struggled low in weak 50-100fpm lift in the strong cross wind.

Jonas Lobitz was a little higher and hit a light climb 8kms out from goal which was just enough to make it into the 2km goal cylinder.

The rest of the pilots landed several kms short.

Above; Dragonfly pilot and Forbes local, Marco Carelli, with the Cains

Day 7, Task 7 “The Rogallo”!

The penultimate task! Today we have a great write up from Craig Taylor one of the lead pilots in today’s task:

Above; Ready for action Below; Day 1 in the paddock

Day 7 saw us flying our 7th consecutive task with light winds and blue skies. A closed quadrilateral course back to BMIA of 137km in the shape of a Rogallo wing was thought up by the clearly getting rather bored task committee.

Strong climbs to 10,000 feet were promised, however it quickly became clear straight off the rope that the oppressive inversion would instead make the day a slow and tedious one.

With the field packed together like sardines under a 4000ft ceiling, and the flock jostling for position, the first start gate came and went with no takers, with the field moving off somewhat lethargically on the second at 2:30pm. Trent charged out ahead and found the climbs for much of the first leg, with the inversion slowly lifting to 5000ft.

After rounding Ktwo the first TP, Scott managed to find a boomer to 7 grand, quickly joined by the lead gaggle, whilst the rest continued to struggle under the inversion for much of leg 2. Those patient enough to hang in the 100-ups and doddle along course were finally and rather suddenly rewarded at the second turn with clouds, and the promised strong climbs to 10 grand.

Jonny picked a 9-up and skied out, with Atilla, Blenkie, Jonas and myself making up the lead gaggle. Finally we could pull in the bar, and the race was on! That feeling however was quickly dispensed as the third leg took us straight across a big blue hole and we were back to crappy lift and long, toe pointing glides.

Atilla, knowing that he’s got the trophy already all but bagged, became a passenger and let the rest of us do the hard work. Scott rejoined, and together we made a low save 12 kms out from the final turn point, providing the gaggle with some much needed beeps.

It was getting late however, and this would be one of our last climbs, topping out at a truly inadequate 4000ft. It was becoming apparent

that reaching goal was becoming out of reach.

We struggled on, turning in pretty much anything that wasn’t sinking, and gained a few more kilometres. I snagged a little bubble just big enough for one, and managed to top out at 5 grand 6 kms from the final turn.

Then the glide to the deck was on, landing well after 7pm for a long day in the saddle.

Atilla won the day 10km short, me second, followed by Jonas, Blinkie, Scott, Jonny, Noma, and several others closely behind. It was a long hard day indeed. Today was a mammoth effort for everyone involved with some pilots flying for over 30 hours in the last 7 days Unfortunately today Steve Docherty managed to meet up with the resident angry eagle and took some battle scars in flight! And that’s a wrap! Forbes 22 is done!

With the final day canned due to predicted overdevelopment and the safety committee pulling the pin, it was time for an air conditioned presentation at the Forbes Aero Club!

Results

Open class:1st; Attila Bertok - Moyes Litespeed RX5 Pro - 6710 points, 2nd; Jon Durand - Moyes Litespeed RX3.5 Pro - 5945 points, 3rd; Scott Barrett - Aeros Combat 5620 points.

Results are at: http://xc.highcloud.net/ comp_overall.html?comPk=333 Sports class: 1st; Richard Hughes - Moyes Gecko 155 - 4290 points. 2nd; Peter Garrone Moyes Gecko 155 - 3583 points. 3rd; Richard Mcleod - Wills Wing Sport 2 - 2306 points.

Sports class results are at: http://xc.highcloud. net/comp_overall.html?comPk=334 The Emma Martin Award: Richard McLeod An incredible week of flying here in Forbes and we would like to thank everyone for making it possible, we cannot wait to come back next year, and to welcome international pilots too!

Above; Jonny, Atilla and Scott Right; The land owner hamper was delivered by Attila passing through Peak Hill on his way home!

Easier and safe learning but with XC performance. EN A certification.

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Executive Repor ts CEO Update - Accident & Incident Summaries January-March 2022

I

t has become customary this past year to report in each quarterly issue of Airborn the number of reported incidents or accidents for the past three month period.

Of interest there was a major jump in reporting to 31 occurrences over the busiest flying period, the summer. We often think of Spring as being the next high occurrence season, however, be careful out there, as the next three months May, June, July is surprisingly the second highest quarter for accidents.

May/June/July = 18 July/ August/Sept = 13 Oct/Nov/Dec = 12 Jan/Feb/March = 31 Total Occurrences = 74 (1st April 2021 to 31st May 2022 xc flying season) By the time the next copy of Airborn is published, the second NZHGPA Annual Pilot Safety Summary Report will have been produced, alongside an independent Safety Task Force review, with an aim to improve the safety and wellbeing of you the pilot and the greater flying community.

Focus on IMSAFE – Are you mentally and physically fit to Fly? Last issue of Airborn’s Executive Report focused on approaching the hill with a simple message; I hope to fly, as opposed to I am going to fly. Flying is addictive, so addictive that we can forget ourselves, or rather to check ourselves before heading out to the hill.

Ask yourself; Am I mentally and physically fit to fly?

The acronym IMSAFE is a simple yet great tool in the pilots toolbox for checking your wellbeing and safety before flight.

I continue to be impressed with the high standard of occurrence reporting and honesty by our pilots. Thank you for sharing your unfortunate experiences over this summer’s flying where stress, dehydration, not eating and or illness were contributing factors to an accident or near miss.

Check out the following great pilot advice.

January 2022, Paraglider, After Landing, Near Miss (had considered relaunching), Dehydration, Experience: 1149 hours It is often reported that incidents are a culmination of intersecting decisions. Whilst this was a non injury, not strictly even a flying incident, it was an example of the need for preparedness for unplanned events. Intending to fly south from Muriwai if suitable to Bethells and return, I had plenty of water in the car, but took none in my harness as wasn’t planning on landing anywhere until return to Muriwai. Launched out of Maukatia Bay, soared onto southern cliffs to gain height, climbed up to 650ft above sea level and set off on glide over Collins Bay approx 300 metres out to sea from cliffs. Soon became aware of a second glider close to me on my landward side, wasn’t concerned as thought he was passing. However, he maintained station and we continued gliding south side by side at now about 500ft asl over Pillow Bay and across Powell Bay. However, by then I was wanting to angle in on a more easterly course over Bartrum Bay so as to come in high on the shoulder of the bowl on the northern side of Tirikohua Point. But with the glider still on my left instead of changing plan, u-turning out to sea and returning to the cliffs, I accelerated forward of the other glider. This put me well ahead, but losing height so crossed balance of Bartrum Bay arriving too low to access the bowl. Instead soared the low cliffs of the point to maintain sufficient height to pass around the end of the point. Picked up more lift here but was uncertain of climbing out to continue so elected to easily and safely land on the Te Henga walkway about 200m beyond the tip of the point. Immediately on landing became aware of the immense heat, (temperature was forecast 28/29C), and very slight breeze, so no shade or cooling. Packed up and started walking north along the walkway thinking I would climb up further along to relaunch to return to Muriwai. With no shade and cooling felt like 30C+. Paused occasionally crawling under couple of low scrub bushes trying to get shelter. By time had covered 800m was suffering badly, found by some walkers who were doctors and tried to assist using their water, but heat exhaustion and vomiting set in with them deciding medical help was required. Ended up being winched out by Westpac helicopter and spending evening in A&E being rehydrated and restoring potassium levels.

Pilot Advice: Take water with you even if no intention of needing it. Don’t hesitate to change plan along the way rather than being focused purely on the planned outcome.

February 2022, Paraglider, Launch, Near Miss, Fatigue Dehydration Stress, Experience: 250 hours I had slope-landed on the back of the forestry ridge after a long XC flight, to assist a very recent PG2 pilot I’d been flying with who’d gotten too low and been forced to land there.

We hiked for 90 minutes through thick bracken, acacia and dead trees to find a suitable launch spot. When we did it was a small launch with trees below and to the right of it but with the sun getting low we decided it would work. There was some wind coming up the face which seemed straight on but turned out to be somewhat cross. I ensured the other pilot launched safely, his wing came up crooked but he got away with it. I then laid out my own wing and did a reverse launch. The wind was more cross than it had been and my wing came up very crookedly. I moved with it to the left and down the launch until I knew I was at the edge where it wasn’t possible to continue on foot due to obstacles. I was still facing backwards and had a choice whether to attempt to launch twisted or to abort the launch and try again. Due to a number of factors including deteriorating conditions, time pressure, intense fatigue and stress I chose to continue the launch. I could feel the wing

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would hold me if I fell backwards, so did so intentionally and began to fly away. I twisted round immediately to see that this sudden loading of the wing had caused me to swing to the right, towards the trees. I flew straight into a number of them - GoPro footage shows the treetops about a foot above my head - but kicked my way through while braking the glider almost to stall point to ensure it didn’t overshoot me. I came out the other side and continued the flight as normal, albeit quite shaken, and landed safely as planned.

I was very tired from a long hot day of flying and hiking out with my glider, still dehydrated from the flight, hadn’t eaten properly since 9am, and was in pain from bad scratches on my legs from the acacia and bracken we’d hiked through to find the launch.

Pilot Advice; Recognise when you’re not in a frame of mind to be making good decisions.

It was immediately after this incident occurred that I suddenly recognised I was behaving recklessly due to a number of IMSAFE factors and an intense desire to get home. I should have checked in with myself on launch and been more aware of my frame of mind. Had I done this, I would have aborted the launch and tried again.

March 2021, Paraglider, Speedwing, Landing Accident, Serious ACC Injuries, Fatigue, Experience: 300 hours When setting up for landing a boat had arrived in the planned landing area. While adjusting my approach for this new hazard I failed to open my trimmers on the wing (I almost always initiate landing with open trimmers, as this allows wider control of decent rate and glide ratio and provides increased energy for final flare), this lead to me not descending as quickly as I had anticipated in my initial landing approach. Because of this I arrived over my designated landing area too high. Instead of changing plans and moving my landing area, I decided to start another turn to loose height. I was too aggressive with my inputs, which put the wing into a dive I did not have height to recover from.

Pilot Comments: The week previous I had been off work due to fatigue. The day prior to accident I was off work sick following my COVID booster vaccination. I knew I was still somewhat fatigued the day of accident, with this in mind I had opted to leave my small wing at home and fly my largest speed wing to mitigate risk.

Made a low turn in landing approach. Retrospectively, fatigue was a key factor that led to poor decision making.

Pilot Advice; Take fatigue seriously. It seriously affected my split-second decision making.

CAA Recommends; Not to fly within 24 hours of a Covid vaccination injection.

All entries can be viewed on the NZHGPA Website at: www.nzhgpa.org.nz/safety

I’m safe to fly

i llness Free of illness and symptoms

M e d i c at i o n Safe medication only

S tress Managing stress well at home and work

A lcohol Free of alcohol and drugs and their effects

F at i g u e Rested and sleeping well

E at i n g Fed, watered, and ready to go

Revised October 2012

Selected Accident & Incident Summaries

Safety Notice - Paramotor Pilots

CAA Statement

Further to the tragic paramotoring accident last September 2021 on the West Coast, the CAA have released the findings of the investigation. The CAA raised a Safety Action (22A430) for the New Zealand Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association, to remind paramotor pilots to be aware of the minimum height requirements of CAR 91.311, and to ensure you remain at a safe height during flight, and that you understand the risks in flying paramotors at low levels unnecessarily.

- Nick Taber, CEO CAA Requirements 91.311 - Minimum heights for VFR flights (a) A pilot-in-command of an aircraft must not operate the aircraft under VFR— (1) over any congested area of a city, town, or settlement, or over any open air assembly of persons at a height of less than 1000 feet above the surface or any obstacle that is within a horizontal radius of 600 metres from the point immediately below the aircraft; or (2) over any other area— (i) at a height of less than 500 feet above the surface; or (ii) at a height of less than 500 feet above any obstacle, person, vehicle, vessel, or structure that is within a horizontal radius of 150 metres from the point immediately below the aircraft; and

Occurrence 20/5937: Fatal accident final report, Paramotor Accident, Poerua River, West Coast, 12 November 2020 Published date: 11 March 2022 The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has released its report into the cause of a fatal paramotor accident at Poerua River, West Coast on 12 November 2020.

The safety investigation report details the findings of CAA’s investigation into the accident at Poerua River which caused the death of a paramotor pilot on 12 November 2020.

The pilot launched from the mouth of the Poerua River for the return flight to his initial launch site - about five kilometres up the river.

The pilot was seen flying at a low level up the river. He never made it to his arranged rendezvous. The pilot died from injuries sustained during the accident, and there were no witnesses to the final moments of the flight.

The safety investigation found that the accident likely occurred as a result of an unrecovered asymmetrical wing collapse during low-level flight from which there was insufficient height to recover. A more detailed description of the accident can be found in the report below.

A CAA Safety Action (22A430) has been raised for the New Zealand Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association (NZHGPA) to remind paramotor pilots to be aware of the minimum height requirements of CAR 91.311, and to ensure they remain at a safe height during flight, and that they understand the risks in flying paramotors at low levels unnecessarily.

NZHGPA Chief Executive Nick Taber said the hang gliding and paragliding flying community was deeply saddened by this event, and their thoughts are with the pilot’s family at this time.

“We thank the CAA for thoroughly investigating this accident. It is important that as pilots we find meaning and learn from such tragic events to prevent it happening to others, which in this case highlights the importance of flying at a safe height,” Mr Taber said.

“In an ongoing programme of safety initiatives, the NZHGPA has recently created a National Safety Officer role, to proactively collate safety information, disseminate information, and better educate Regional Club Safety Officers on how best to keep local pilots safe.”

“The CEO welcome letter to newly qualified pilots now includes an important safety message, ‘in your first year I highly recommend you do not go out flying on your own’, which was promoted in part by this accident.”

The CAA and NZHGPA will continue to work closely together to help keep hang glider and paraglider pilots safe when they take to New Zealand’s skies.

A copy of the CAA safety investigation report is available on our website. www.aviation.govt.nz/ assets/publications/fatal-accident-reports/21SAI-182-Fatal-accident-Final-report.pdf

How to report an accident or incident

(3) for any operation, at a height less than that required to execute an emergency landing in the event of engine failure without hazard to persons or property on the surface. (b) Paragraph (a) does not apply to a pilotin-command of an aircraft— (1) conducting a take-off or landing; or (2) conducting a balked landing or discontinued approach; or (3) taxiing. (c) Paragraph (a) (2) does not apply to a pilotin-command of an aircraft if the bona fide purpose of the flight requires the aircraft to be flown at a height lower than that prescribed in paragraph (a) (2), but only if— (1) the flight is performed without hazard to persons or property on the surface; and (2) only persons performing an essential function associated with the flight are carried on the aircraft; and (3) the aircraft is not flown at a height lower than that required for the purpose of the flight; and (4) the horizontal distance that the aircraft is flown from any obstacle, person, vessel, vehicle, or structure is not less than that necessary for the purpose of the flight, except that in the case of an aeroplane, the aeroplane remains outside a horizontal radius of 150 metres from any person, vessel, vehicle, or structure that is not associated with the operation.

What to report?

You must report as soon as practical anything that is defined as an “Accident”

by CAA rules. That is anything that caused significant damage or serious injuries while the aircraft is being used. Club safety officers and other pilots can help out here by reporting even basic information about an accident for pilots that are unable to do it themselves.

We also want reports for incidents or accidents that aren’t so serious. The biggest benefit comes from the reporting of the smaller incidents and near misses. How small? Well, if good luck is all that saved you from an accident then it’s probably worth reporting.

Your personal details will be kept confidential.

How? To make a report go to the NZHGPA website and click on ”Safety”. www.nzhgpa.org. nz/safety Then the button to hit for starting your report looks like this;

Your description of what happened is the most important part and makes up the majority of the reports we publish but other details are used to help with statistics that show trends so please complete as much as you can. Please include the location so we can send the report to the local safety officer and the club president for any follow up they need to do. Don’t worry, our policy is that we do not use the reports to lay blame or for any disciplinary action. They are for safety and learning.

Finally if you want to see other reports then click on this button;

Bluebridge Ferries continues to support NZHGPA members with fantastic discounted ferry prices and very generous booking terms from 1st November 2021 to 31 October 2022 • Flexible Booking - Fares are changeable and 100% refundable year-round, right up until 1 hour prior to sailing without any fees or penalties.

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How to Book Simply use promo code SAIL2GLIDE when you book at www.bluebridge.co.nz.Or quote the promo code when you call 0800 844 844. or Use the direct booking link; http://book. bluebridge.co.nz/BookingDetails?promo= SAIL2GLIDE then simply pop in the sailing day and click next.

The system will pre-populate the discount and display your negotiated pricing.

Please note: You must present proof of your NZHGPA membership when you check-in.

If not presented, the standard fare will be charged.

Check out other great NZHGPA membership benefits at: https://member.nzhgpa.org.nz/ membership-benefits

Background

A CAA safety investigation seeks to provide the Director of Civil Aviation with the information required to assess which, if any, risk-based intervention tools may be required to attain CAA safety objectives.

The purpose of a CAA safety investigation is to determine the circumstances and identify contributory factors of an accident or incident with the purpose of minimising or reducing the risk to an acceptable level of a similar occurrence arising in the future.

The safety investigation does not seek to ascribe responsibility to any person but to establish the contributory factors of the accident or incident based on the balance of probability.

NZHGPA Communications Team I welcome Warren, Lorrain, Bill alongside existing Comms Team founder Ryan.

As we build the team, more will follow on a comms strategy by the team. The main aim is to protect and promote the sport of free flight and to foster a stronger/sense of belonging to the NZ flying community. The near term focus is on building up to the coming years NZHGPA 50th Anniversary celebrations on the 26 Oct 2023.

Contact Details: Comms Team Email: comms@nzhgpa.org.nz Ryan Larraman PG - ryan@realitymechanic. co.nz tel: 022 658 3001 Warren Simonsen HG - warrens.clares@gmail. com tel: 021 1832126 Lorrain Johns PG - lorraine.johns@gmail.com tel: 027 313 0073 Bill Degen HG - aero@xtra.co.nz tel: 021 2472676 Some amazing work to date has been done by all three with; Ryan - launching NZHGPA Instagram 1st Dec 2021, his talented photography and amazing video works, check out: Instagram: www.instagram.com/nzhgpa/ Video Is Paragliding for you: www. realitymechanic.co.nz/#/is-paraglidingfor-me/ Warren - has been entrusted with a box of 50 years old hang gliding footage on cinnie film and recently transferred to digital. Here is a teaser video that he is working on, interviews with many old and bold founder pilots, some still in the association today, to follow pure gold and will be very relevant to the 50th celebrations: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1v qFQlnOLBHvq3MVfQxtEC7rnAXD1KpY5/ view?usp=drive_web Lorraine - Shoulder tapped after I noticed her media skills writing a media brief for Wanaka Hike and Fly news article here on Scoop: www.scoop.co.nz/stories/CU2201/ S00047/paragliding-association-welcomesthe-return-of-the-wanaka-hike-and-flyadventure-race.htm Bill - Legendary Airborn - chatting around more educational content and a special 50th edition Airborn for release into pilots letterboxes for the actual Birthday on 26 October 2023 www.nzhgpa.org.nz/airborn-magazine We now have a very exciting artistic and articulate skill set in the NZHGPA Comms Team - Thank You all for volunteering.

Let’s fly, - Nick

Less represented communities within the free-flying community Sven Ericksen, the Internal Auditor, is undertaking a review of how the Association is meeting the needs of its members from less represented communities. If you have any thoughts on this or feel that we could be doing better please send an email to audit@ nzhgpa.org.nz

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NNZ Z PPaarraaggll ii dd iing n g X C oo nt n teest st C Cr ro osss s - -CCoouunntt rr yy C h a m pi p i oons n shhips ips April 1st - March 31st. Sponsored by Wings & Waves

April 1st 2021 to March 31st 2022 Top scores as shown on XContest at 31/3/2022 Pilot, flight date/time Site Distance Points Total 21. Doug Patterson [dougpatterson] 323.64 p.

1 31.01.22 12:01 Doug Patterson Treble Cone 67.08 km 134.16 p.

2 23.11.21 13:09 Doug Patterson Treble Cone 54.55 km 109.10 p.

3 29.11.21 13:05 Doug Patterson Treble Cone 40.19 km 80.38 p.

22. Nicolas Sand [Nicosan] 311.34 p.

1 14.01.22 11:36 Nicolas Sand Treble Cone 82.64 km 165.28 p.

2 16.02.22 13:47 Nicolas Sand Coronet Peak 80.51 km 80.51 p.

3 24.01.22 13:34 Nicolas Sand Coronet Peak 65.56 km 65.55 p.

23. Mark Macdonald [Brick] 308.10 p.

1 05.01.22 12:42 Mark Macdonald Kaimai 74.52 km 111.78 p.

2 19.11.21 13:04 Mark Macdonald Kaimai 83.65 km 104.56 p.

3 26.11.21 12:20 Mark Macdonald Kaimai 61.17 km 91.76 p.

24. Ondrej Wieden [OndraW] 305.88 p.

1 08.11.21 11:20 Ondrej Wieden Long Spur 68.04 km 136.08 p.

2 11.02.22 12:16 Ondrej Wieden Long Spur 45.97 km 91.94 p.

3 31.01.22 12:10 Ondrej Wieden Long Spur 38.93 km 77.86 p.

25. Nick Taber [MACPARANZ] 304.64 p.

1 04.01.22 11:38 Nick Taber Mt Robert 90.81 km 113.51 p.

2 09.03.22 12:28 Nick Taber Inwoods 80.66 km 100.83 p.

3 17.02.22 13:09 Nick Taber Parachute...

72.24 km 90.30 p.

26. Laetitia Bottollier Curtet [letbot] ♀ 301.73 p.

1 05.01.22 13:57 Laetitia Bottollier Cu... Pakituhi 58.59 km 117.18 p.

2 30.11.21 12:09 Laetitia Bottollier Cu... Mt Maude 71.70 km 107.55 p.

3 14.03.22 12:43 Laetitia Bottollier Cu... ?

51.33 km 77.00 p.

27. Timothy Shoultz [timbob] 298.44 p.

1 20.02.22 13:12 Timothy Shoultz Coronet Peak 72.91 km 145.82 p.

2 31.01.22 12:28 Timothy Shoultz Lindis Pass 78.05 km 78.05 p.

3 14.01.22 12:03 Timothy Shoultz Coronet Peak 74.57 km 74.57 p.

28. Tim Percival [redwing] 296.88 p.

1 09.03.22 12:19 Tim Percival Inwoods 83.98 km 104.98 p.

2 02.01.22 13:08 Tim Percival Mt Murchison 81.39 km 101.74 p.

3 17.02.22 12:59 Tim Percival Parachute...

72.13 km 90.16 p.

29. Barry Sayer [Bazza] 280.08 p.

1 19.03.22 12:10 Barry Sayer Te Mata Peak 84.92 km 106.15 p.

2 01.03.22 13:26 Barry Sayer Te Mata 75.38 km 94.23 p.

3 03.03.22 14:29 Barry Sayer Te Mata Peak 63.76 km 79.70 p.

30. Blake Round [BlakeRound] 273.99 p.

1 24.02.22 12:28 Blake Round Coronet Peak 67.41 km 134.82 p.

2 30.11.21 14:21 Blake Round Coronet Peak 65.51 km 81.89 p.

3 16.02.22 12:17 Blake Round Coronet Peak 45.82 km 57.28 p.

31. david watson [davidwatson] 267.53 p.

1 24.02.22 11:59 david watson Coronet Peak 78.39 km 156.78 p.

2 30.11.21 12:05 david watson Coronet Peak 55.82 km 69.78 p.

3 13.03.22 12:07 david watson Roys Peak 40.97 km 40.97 p.

32. Shaun Gilbert [q2qxc] 263.40 p.

1 17.02.22 12:14 Shaun Gilbert Te Mata Peak 111.70 km 139.63 p.

2 04.01.22 11:27 Shaun Gilbert Te Mata Peak 58.22 km 72.78 p.

3 03.01.22 10:57 Shaun Gilbert Te Mata Peak 40.79 km 50.99 p.

33. Aaron Chesterman [azzasurfs] 254.60 p.

1 21.01.22 10:30 Aaron Chesterman Burma Road 45.80 km 91.60 p.

2 23.01.22 10:52 Aaron Chesterman Burma Road 82.12 km 82.12 p.

3 15.01.22 12:07 Aaron Chesterman Burma Road 40.44 km 80.88 p.

34. Sanae Noguchi [Sanae]♀ 243.62 p.

1 31.01.22 12:24 Sanae Noguchi Treble Cone 63.57 km 127.14 p.

2 06.11.21 12:19 Sanae Noguchi Glenorchy 60.33 km 60.33 p.

3 24.02.22 12:44 Sanae Noguchi Coronet Peak 56.15 km 56.15 p.

35. Tim Brown [timbrown] 222.80 p.

1 24.02.22 13:11 Tim Brown Coronet Peak 57.57 km 115.14 p.

2 14.01.22 12:55 Tim Brown Coronet Peak 55.37 km 69.21 p.

3 29.12.21 15:37 Tim Brown Long Gully 38.45 km 38.45 p.

36. Joshua Short [hsoj45] 218.43 p.

1 05.01.22 13:44 Joshua Short ?

68.40 km 85.50 p.

2 04.03.22 12:58 Joshua Short ?

68.14 km 68.14 p.

3 29.12.21 14:53 Joshua Short Long Gully 64.79 km 64.79 p.

37. Greg Allum [Gregnz] 215.75 p.

1 15.01.22 11:59 Greg Allum Treble Cone 84.47 km 84.46 p.

2 14.01.22 11:51 Greg Allum Coronet Peak 69.86 km 69.86 p.

3 29.01.22 14:05 Greg Allum Takaka Hill 61.43 km 61.43 p.

38. Ross Gallagher [Redwings] 209.83 p.

1 20.11.21 12:18 Ross Gallagher Paeroas 62.47 km 78.09 p.

2 29.01.22 13:41 Ross Gallagher Kaimai 36.89 km 73.78 p.

3 09.11.21 14:00 Ross Gallagher Kaimai 46.37 km 57.96 p.

39. Irwin Imhoff [Ir-sports] 194.04 p.

1 16.01.22 11:54 Irwin Imhoff Long Spur 38.77 km 77.54 p.

2 22.01.22 13:53 Irwin Imhoff Kourarau 39.91 km 59.87 p.

3 03.01.22 13:20 Irwin Imhoff Long Spur 37.74 km 56.63 p.

40. Mal Haskins [Mal.haskins] 192.59 p.

1 17.03.22 12:50 Mal Haskins Treble Cone 52.02 km 78.03 p.

2 29.12.21 15:05 Mal Haskins Long Gully 59.42 km 59.42 p.

3 28.12.21 12:18 Mal Haskins Treble Cone 55.14 km 55.14 p.

The web site for scoring and uploading your track logs is XContest at: www.xcontest.org/newzealand/ranking-xc-championship/

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Photo: Ross Gray

Pilot, flight date/time Site Distance Points Total 1. Louis Tapper [yakernz] 796.49 p.

1 31.01.22 12:25 Louis Tapper Long Gully 193.23 km 289.85 p.

2 05.11.21 11:37 Louis Tapper Treble Cone 142.21 km 284.42 p.

3 24.12.21 13:24 Louis Tapper Grandview 111.11 km 222.22 p.

2. Ben Kellett [benjamin.kellett] 677.65 p.

1 30.11.21 10:44 Ben Kellett Mt Prospect 144.19 km 288.38 p.

2 14.01.22 10:37 Ben Kellett Dingle Sa...

133.75 km 200.63 p.

3 25.02.22 12:15 Ben Kellett Coronet Peak 94.32 km 188.64 p.

3. Glen Stevens [Glen_Stevens] 585.24 p.

1 24.12.21 12:12 Glen Stevens Coronet Peak 170.51 km 213.14 p.

2 11.02.22 13:04 Glen Stevens Dingle Sa...

97.57 km 195.14 p.

3 30.11.21 10:53 Glen Stevens Mt Prospect 117.97 km 176.96 p.

4. Tomas Balik [Balda] 577.97 p.

1 15.01.22 12:16 Tomas Balik Coronet Peak 114.18 km 228.36 p.

2 31.01.22 12:02 Tomas Balik ?

101.05 km 202.10 p.

3 16.02.22 14:15 Tomas Balik ?

118.01 km 147.51 p.

5. Thomas Rold [Thomasrold] 496.83 p.

1 15.01.22 12:10 Thomas Rold Coronet Peak 106.18 km 212.36 p.

2 31.01.22 12:06 Thomas Rold Coronet Peak 74.90 km 149.80 p.

3 25.02.22 13:14 Thomas Rold Coronet Peak 89.78 km 134.67 p.

6. Jan Zimmermann [xcimax] 473.38 p.

1 14.01.22 12:00 Jan Zimmermann Coronet Peak 108.50 km 217.00 p.

2 16.02.22 14:13 Jan Zimmermann Long Gully 117.76 km 147.20 p.

3 06.11.21 12:52 Jan Zimmermann Coronet Peak 109.19 km 109.18 p.

7. Warrick Boustred [Waz24] 459.55 p.

1 14.01.22 11:40 Warrick Boustred Treble Cone 100.23 km 200.46 p.

2 20.02.22 13:29 Warrick Boustred Coronet Peak 65.07 km 130.14 p.

3 31.01.22 12:17 Warrick Boustred ?

103.16 km 128.95 p.

8. Aaron Ford [AaronF] 455.27 p.

1 24.02.22 12:43 Aaron Ford Coronet Peak 94.64 km 189.28 p.

2 11.02.22 12:10 Aaron Ford Roys Peak 134.65 km 134.65 p.

3 28.01.22 13:46 Aaron Ford Coronet Peak 65.67 km 131.34 p.

9. Bradley Franks [BradleyFranks] 393.95 p.

1 24.02.22 12:34 Bradley Franks Coronet Peak 87.42 km 174.84 p.

2 14.01.22 12:07 Bradley Franks Breast Hill 112.70 km 140.88 p.

3 10.01.22 14:56 Bradley Franks Coronet Peak 52.15 km 78.23 p.

10. stew karstens [nelpara] 389.03 p.

1 17.02.22 10:44 stew karstens Barnicoat 127.16 km 158.95 p.

2 14.01.22 10:05 stew karstens Barnicoat 135.35 km 135.35 p.

3 02.01.22 12:47 stew karstens Mt Murchison 75.78 km 94.73 p.

11. Peter Groves [PeteGroves] 384.00 p.

1 15.01.22 10:59 Peter Groves Sealy Tarns 123.65 km 154.56 p.

2 30.11.21 12:04 Peter Groves Mt Maude 88.66 km 132.99 p.

3 06.11.21 12:10 Peter Groves Mt Siberia 77.16 km 96.45 p.

12. Chris Connolly [Infinity] 370.32 p.

1 14.01.22 11:46 Chris Connolly Coronet Peak 174.53 km 218.16 p.

2 31.01.22 13:47 Chris Connolly Otago 63.59 km 127.18 p.

3 08.02.22 13:50 Chris Connolly Mt Tarndale 19.98 km 24.98 p.

13. Dan Pugsley [Danpugs] 369.95 p.

1 15.01.22 12:03 Dan Pugsley ?

116.68 km 145.85 p.

2 14.01.22 12:11 Dan Pugsley ?

109.89 km 137.36 p.

3 06.11.21 12:47 Dan Pugsley Coronet Peak 86.74 km 86.74 p.

14. Leo Chelle [Leochelle] 357.55 p.

1 15.01.22 11:52 Leo Chelle ?

130.60 km 163.25 p.

2 14.01.22 12:17 Leo Chelle ?

109.72 km 137.15 p.

3 24.01.22 13:25 Leo Chelle Coronet Peak 38.10 km 57.15 p.

15. Jesse Dhue [Jesse-Dhue] 354.32 p.

1 15.01.22 11:55 Jesse Dhue Sebastopo...

130.58 km 163.23 p.

2 14.01.22 12:00 Jesse Dhue Breast hill 109.82 km 137.28 p.

3 13.01.22 14:18 Jesse Dhue Coronet Peak 43.05 km 53.81 p.

16. Petr Poboril [Peca] 350.35 p.

1 02.01.22 13:04 Petr Poboril Mt Murchison 98.27 km 122.84 p.

2 30.11.21 13:06 Petr Poboril Coronet Peak 120.96 km 120.96 p.

3 03.01.22 13:08 Petr Poboril Shale peak 85.24 km 106.55 p.

17. Kinga Masztalerz [kinga]♀ 343.74 p.

1 14.01.22 12:11 Kinga Masztalerz Speed Peak 141.94 km 177.43 p.

2 29.12.21 15:38 Kinga Masztalerz Long Gully 59.51 km 89.27 p.

3 18.01.22 12:49 Kinga Masztalerz ?

77.04 km 77.04 p.

18. Clemence Cadario [ClemC]♀ 338.15 p.

1 30.11.21 12:41 Clemence Cadario Kinloch 107.20 km 134.00 p.

2 14.01.22 12:09 Clemence Cadario Coronet Peak 72.95 km 109.43 p.

3 24.02.22 12:36 Clemence Cadario Coronet Peak 94.72 km 94.72 p.

19. Mark Hardman [mhardman] 333.85 p.

1 18.01.22 11:37 Mark Hardman Treble Cone 100.42 km 125.53 p.

2 24.12.21 12:05 Mark Hardman Treble Cone 109.38 km 109.38 p.

3 29.12.21 13:24 Mark Hardman Pakituhi 65.96 km 98.94 p.

20. Matt Jeffery [matt_jeffery] 330.36 p.

1 14.01.22 11:36 Matt Jeffery Treble Cone 100.10 km 200.20 p.

2 23.11.21 12:20 Matt Jeffery Roys Peak 71.31 km 71.31 p.

3 05.01.22 11:50 Matt Jeffery ?

39.23 km 58.85 p.

Paragliding Competition Committee Write Up B eautiful Autumn days here in Queenstown but not much ‘ummph’ in the sun. I watch as pilots now appear to do ‘sleddies’ from Coronet Peak.

The 30th of March is the end of the 20212022 flying season, and although Covid has created a bit of turmoil, it’s been a pretty good season for XC and competitions. Although the NZ PG Open was cancelled in Australia, there were several XC comps, another fantastic Hike & Fly, which had an epic first day and a second AcroFest, recently completed, in great weather, on the lake at Cromwell. A big thanks to the organisers of those competitions: myself, Louis Tapper, Doug Patterson, Kinga Masztalerz, Hugo Castanheira, Aaron Chesterman, Nico Sand, Blake Round, Hannah Rutherford and many more.

It’s been great to see the two ‘not so traditional’ competitions, the Wanaka Hike & Fly and the AcroFest, really come to the fore during the season. They’re really great comps and we’re sure they’ll both become ‘must do’ events in the future.

There was a good write up of the Southern Fun 2021 competition in the latest (previous) Airborn magazine. I thought that Sanae’s article was particularly heartfelt, encouraging and most relevant particularly for those of you who are new to, or considering, competition flying.

In the absence of the more traditional XC ‘PG Open’, the NZPRS was used to ascertain the New Zealand champions for the year. Louis Tapper was the top pilot and, although on the rankings Jessica Green was the top lady (she is not eligible for a national award as she is an American), the winner or the women’s trophy was Nina Harrap. The other awards can be seen on the NZHGPA website under ‘Notices’ including the Leo Geary and the Jill Borst Trophy winners.

The XC online competition will be winding up as well and the top pilots can be viewed by checking the NZ XContest site.

Normally, at the end of a PG Open, the new PCC is elected by the members. This year we had a number of extenuating circumstances, and the fact that only Hugo Castanheira offered to step forward and assist whilst Dave Washer expressed a wish to step down. So in consultation with the NZGPA Exec, it was decided that the new PCC for the 2022-2023 season will be me, Nina and now Hugo. We gratefully welcome Hugo on board.

At the end of each season the ‘Exchange Rate’ for foreign competitions is calculated for the next season and this has been done. The new exchange rate is 1.77 for the 2022-2023 season, a change from 1.97 for this last year.

There is now a document on the website (under competition downloads/miscellaneous) which describes the Exchange Rate application, formula and history. At recent socials I noted that, now that travel restrictions are lifting, there are a lot of pilots planning to go overseas for the upcoming northern summer season.

Some have the idea of competing, in fact as I write, Louis Tapper is doing really well at the 2022 PWC at Baixo Guandu in Brazil. Today, in the final Task 7, he came 9th out of 117 pilots. Louis has now come 28th overall at this years PWC. Well done Louis!

The southern winter season is a good time to review how we flew in the previous season and hopefully take a little time to hone our knowledge of the Rules, weather prediction, safety and other requirements for becoming competent and confident competition pilots.

I can definitely recommend a read of the FAI

First Paragliding XC Champs scores for 2022-2023 Season

Section 7 (‘General’ and ‘XC competition’ on the FAI website under ‘Documents’) to gain a better understanding of competition organisation and conduct.

Have a great winter.

Best Wishes from the PCC, - Tim Brown

NZ XContest Protocols Reminder March 30 is the end of the PG flying competition season and Tim Percival (NZHGPA records keeper) and Dave Washer, who administers our XContest page for HG and PG, are finding that a lot of pilots are posting flights to XContest that are ‘illegal’, in that have violated airspace. (There is no way for them to check if pilots have correctly used air-band radios in an MBZ).

The rules for using XContest (and supported

by NZ competition rules) require that all publicly posted flights be legal. A lot of the flights on our XContest competition, and note... this is a competition, have been submitted that are in breach of airspace and so are illegal and therefore ‘cheating’ in the competition.

It appears that many pilots use XContest as a sort of log book. That’s fine but before submitting flights to XContest, pilots must check their flights for airspace legality. There is an ‘Airspace checker” available on the nzhgpa website/pg competition/downloads that is easy to use.

Ensure you select the airspace type (A, B, C, All etc) to be checked against (drop down window top right, (filter if required)) and upload your flight to the checker. Look for any red bands to see if you have infringed airspace.

NZ Rules allows no tolerance on the GPS altitude for any airspace infringement. If the flight is not legal in every way then it must not be submitted to the competition on XContest.

- Tim Brown

NZ Paragliding Records The NZ Paragliding Female Open Distance Record is now now held by Kinga Masztalerz who flew 141.9 km from Moke Spurs-Speed Peak, Otago on 14/01/2022.

See: www.xcontest.org/2021/newzealand/ flights/detail: kinga/13.01.2022/23: 11 Oh, and the NZ Paragliding Out-and-Back record is now held by Louis Tapper who flew and out-and-back distance of 183.8 km from Long Gully, Otago on 31/01/2022. See: www. xcontest.org/2021/newzealand/flights/detail: yakernz/30.01.2022/23: 25

An Epic Win! My friend is a paraglider pilot. She dropped a glove whilst flying a few weeks back and wrote it off. The other day, she landed in a field and a dog came up to say hi. She told the dog to go find a stick so she could play. Said dog runs away, returns two minutes later with aforementioned glove in mouth. She then had to search for ten minutes to find the best stick possible to reward said dog. Good times were had all round... the end.

- Unknown, from the interwebz, BHPA SkyWings!

THE COUNTRY CODE We are all dependent on good relations with the farmers who own the land we fly from. Here are some guidelines to ensure that you and other pilots will be able to continue to fly.

ALWAYS CHECK with local pilots before flying at new sites.

ALWAYS ask permission to fly unless you are absolutely certain that the owner allows use of the site without asking.

CHECK AGAIN at Springtime as most farms have pregnant and newborn stock that can easily be frightened and injured.

DO NOT show displeasure or abuse an owner if permission is refused. This could hamper getting permission in the future.

ALWAYS GET PERMISSION to take a vehicle onto a property.

Ensure that vehicles without gliders are not taken onto the property. Put all gliders on one car rather than have a convoy crossing the property. If stock is near, drive slowly.

LEAVE GATES as you find them, gates may be closed to keep stock in or open to allow stock to feed. Ensure that all pilots and drivers understand.

USE STILES and gates where ever possible, if you must cross a fence, cross at a post or strainer post.

AVOID hay standing or cut unless permission has been given to cross it.

AVOID landing in paddocks containing crops or stock. Carefully move off crops to avoid damage.

DO NOT LIGHT FIRES at any time.

DO NOT SMOKE during fire risk times.

DO NOT TAKE DOGS onto any farm or property.

DO NOT disturb plants or machinery, move around it.

LEAVE NO RUBBISH.

A

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23

NNZ Z HHaanng g ggll ii d iing n g X CC oo nt n teest st C Cr ro osss s - -CCoouunntt rr yy C h a m pi p i oons n shhips ips January 1st to December 31st

April 1st 2021 to March 31st 2022 Scores as shown on XContest at 30/3/2022 2021-22 Season Recap

By Tom Mulder

L

ast year marked the introduction of our online Hang Gliding Championship using XContest. This was set up in an effort to encourage people to fly, to review each other’s flights and to compete as individuals and clubs in a Nationwide online competition.

I think a lot of you may remember a considerable amount of relentless prodding from me to get signed up and to start submitting your flights. I am pleased to report that you did not disappoint, with a total of 35 pilots signing up and a combined total of 441 flights submitted.

The rollover date for XContest is the first of April so we have some results to report for the 2021-22 season. For the Open XC Championship category John Smith took first place, Matt Barlow second and John Urlich third. For the Open distance category; John Smith took first place, Matt Barlow second and Tom Kelner third. For the Sport XC Championship category, Aaron Darby took first place, Paul Scott second and Tom Wong-Cornall third. Congratulations to them all, they are the ones to beat this year! For the club competition Aorangi took first place, Auckland second and Canterbury third. A fiercely fought season to be certain. And now that everyone has had a taste, I am confident we’ll have some thoughtfully planned and skilfully executed flights surfacing this season.

I think most people would agree that the past flying season has been one of the best in a while. I’ve certainly added more than a few entries to my most memorable flights mental anthology. Favourable flying weather seemed to be abundant and the quality of flyable days was exemplary, culminating in yet another unforgettable Nationals in Murchison.

Following the cues from Skysight you could make that commitment to travel to your favourite sites and be rewarded with great flying conditions.

The first flights uploaded to XContest came early in Spring from John Smith, Abe Kemp, Pete Helliwell and myself following an extremely satisfying day of flying on the 11th of September. It was cold, bitterly cold actually.

We launched off Little Mt Ida at the transmitter tower with a task set to the Omarama Saddle and back. After making our way up on top of the Hawkduns we each began pushing up the range toward the saddle. Cloudbase was around 6000ft and the day was relatively unstable with a medium W-SW breeze. John had pushed way out ahead of course and I was still at the start of the course. I wasn’t going to get any higher so there was nothing else for it but to point the kite to the saddle!

So we’re off, I’m cruising along and finding that actually it’s relatively buoyant and I can maintain my height if i keep my speed just so (In fact it was probably simply soarable given the wind direction, however earlier experience in the flight suggested we were going to need to thermal). So the mental switch goes from “it seems a bloody long way to the saddle” to “today we’re going to the saddle!”. The mental switch got a workout half way though since it still looked “a bloody long way to the saddle” and my twenty dollar ski gloves had

24 A i r b o r n

failed to protect from the wind chill factor, I couldn’t feel one hand at all and I had icicles growing on my beard. “Shit the retrieves look lengthy down there...” Nay! Only if you need one, “today we are going to the saddle!”. You know the drill, it’s that point where your brain is trying to make you bail.

The kite stayed pointed toward the saddle and that’s where it kept flying funnily enough.

I crossed paths with John a little before the saddle. He had clipped the turnpoint and was on his way back. This was pretty satisfying since it meant I’d made pretty good time and caught up quite a bit of ground. I still had a few kms to go to clip the turnpoint so I didn’t actually catch him. Given the flight there I had a nice easy run back down to Ida and to the first glorious goal of the year. That flight was the keystone to my season for a number of reasons and I was excited to upload and score it on XContest.

From there it just got better, lots of other flights started showing up, and plots! Bernie Massey; who’s this guy doing a massive sneaky ridge run up North. I’m watching what’s being uploaded every day of course and Bernie shows up. I hadn’t heard of him before since I’m “relatively” new to the sport so it was interesting to find out who he was.

There were of course other pilots that were drawn into the competition that I hadn’t heard of before either but it was novel at that point.

A quite fierce battle began between the North Island ridge soarers and the South Island inland triangle fliers. Aaron Darby was looking not too shabby in the rankings with his out and return ridge run escapades.

Down south we had a number of successful trips to the Omarama Saddle. We also had a pretty reasonable league in Omarama on Labour Weekend flying the Saddle as well. This was the year of hunting triangles and learning the hard way about closing them since our NZ rules have tight 2% closing criteria for an FAI triangle. Early November saw a couple of impressive FAI triangle attempts by John Smith and Matt Barlow fall a little short. However John Smith knocked out a very respectable 174km FAI triangle in November.

The first week of January, we had the most amazing Inaugural Aoraki Classic in Omarama.

Eight days of back to back flying (well for some anyway, I had some duties for the first few days...). The Aoraki Classic was scored using XContest and we had a phenomenal turnout from around New Zealand. Scoring using was, aside from a few expected teething problems, automagic. Upload your flights and scoring was done. The scoring rules and points for open distance, flat triangles and triangles became apparent to everyone during the week as people started to leverage the triangles. A highlight was Matt Barlow’s 128km FAI triangle netting him 257.68 points.

Everyone who went to the Nationals in Murchison chalked up a series of good scoring flights to upload for themselves and also to bolster the club competition. I remember landing one day to immediately check my flight had uploaded to XContest. I found to my surprise that I had the highest scoring flight in the world... that day..., Pleased with myself, I

continued to derig only to check it 15 minutes later and find that Booty had decided to add a leg to the west coast and back and had managed to kick me off my podium!

Anyway, here’s to a great season, some fantastic flying and some new records. I’m really looking forward to seeing what’s in store this year. So get out and fly and upload your

flights. It’s a great logbook at the very least.

Have a look every now and then to see what flights people have done. The HG Nationals WhatsApp chat is usually abuzz when there are pilots flying live on XCTrack so if you are not on that you can send a message to the HG comp committee to add you there. Fly for yourself, fly for your club and have a great time!

Safety Checks String 3.0 Paraglider Harness Recall

Following a flight incident, we have discovered a structural weakness in the String 3.0 harness. We ask pilots who own this model not to fly it any more.

Serial numbers starting with I13 (followed by 3 digits) are affected.

These harnesses were released in 2021.

All pilots with a 2021 String 3.0 are asked to return it to the NEO workshop (ZA des Vernays, 74210 Doussard) or to contact their dealer.

A reinforcement eliminating this risk will be made in a short time.

- The NEO Team

woodyvalley.eu/en/dealers.php to get a free replacement handle.

While waiting to receive the replacement handles, here’s how you can make sure your plastic-wired rescue handle is safe. As shown in the picture, with your arms you can apply a pulling force on the handle, a person of average build in good health can apply a 30-50 kg force, which is more than enough to assess airworthiness.

18/03/22 - Woody Valley s.r.l.

Want a better mag?

Woody Valley X-R7 Paraglider Harness Parachute Handle

Omologation n°: EAPR-GZ-0541/16 All with plastic reserve parachute handle to be checked before flying.

Unfortunately we have recorded a case of low-load breakage on one of our X-Rated7 rescue handles.

Test results on harnesses sold in 20162017-2018 show that the aging factor of the materials is not the cause, which we think might be the accidental sharp edge of one of the tallurit.

To prevent any other possible case of such breakage, we have decided to replace the plastic-wired rescue handles with the most recent steel-wired ones. You can contact your local dealer or national distributor www.

Airborn magazine needs your articles and photos. We’d like to read about your flights, frights, sites, experiences and techniques.

Anything that’s of interest to pilots and educating or enthusing to pilots is especially welcome.

Airborn can’t afford to pay you but does post contributors a complimentary copy which you should receive a day or so before everyone else.

Thanks I wish to thank Bill Degen for all that he has done to promote and foster the sport of hang gliding over many decades.

The Omarama Classic and the NZ Cross Country Championship are two of the events which have boosted cross country flying on this country over the years. In their heyday both of these had high pilot participation levels. We would regularly see the Classic having more pilots than the Nationals and there were big numbers entering their flights in the NZ XC Champs. Bill has put in a lot of work for this over the years and it is appreciated by the NZ HG community.

In recent years however there has been a decline in this participation. I think that this may be due to the two events not evolving in changing times. One thing that has reignited the passion for XC flying in this country just over the last summer, the passion that we used to have in the aforementioned two events that Bill generously promoted, has been XContest.

Why is this so? XContest updates instantly as soon as a flight is completed. Pilots can see their ranking change on a daily basis.

All pilots tracklogs are viewable. We are all excited to see what routes are possible. No special gear is needed for downloads, just an Android phone. We has seen many PBs flown this year and several pilots who have not flown much XC in recent years are now going XC on every flight they do.

Participation rates are high in this exciting format. Pilot skill is being raised to new levels.

There was huge buy-in to the inaugural Aoraki Classic that used XContest as its scoring mechanism. Pilots were plotting triangles and out-and-returns. Good for the environment, easier on the drivers and another dimension over and above straight line distance. This summer has been an absolute blast!

So hop on board XContest and ride this wave until the next big thing comes along.

- Boot

Just email your text to; aero@xtra. co.nz or put it on CD, DVD, Flash drive or even floppy disk. Most text programs such as Microsoft Word (Windows or Mac) are fine. Please do not put photos in MS Word files as this reduces the resolution, supply photo files separately. If it’s not digital, clean laser or typed copy helpsif its printed on one side of the paper only.

INCLUDE photos, of the people, place or gliders involved and even one of yourself to make the article more

S i te C l osures

In Springtime throughout New Zealand, farms are expecting newborn sheep, cattle, horses, deer and other animals.

Your presence on or flying over farmland could frighten or injure pregnant or newborn stock.

Even at places that you usually fly without problems, please check with the farmer if it is OK to fly. This is a difficult time for farmers and they do appreciate your consideration. Not asking has resulted in the loss of many flying sites while asking has earned their friendship.

If in doubt or if any stock are present DO NOT FLY without asking.

interesting. It’s now all in colour and with digital photo editing, it’s amazing what we can do to enhance ordinary snapshots. Digital images need to be original high resolution. Contact me if you want help sending large files.

Photos for the cover should be eye-catching, colourful, sharp, and high resolution. You can also send transparencies or prints for scanning. Anything marked with a return address will be returned with your complimentary copy.

Help promote or make our sport safer, and Airborn will present your contribution in the best way possible.

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C l a s s i f i e d Advertisements

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Canterbury Hang Gliding School Bill Degen Phone: 03 326 6411, 021 247 2676 Email: aero@xtra.co.nz www.hgpg.co.nz Cloudbase Paragliding Grey Hamilton Phone: 027 532 4874 Email: cbparagliding@gmail.com www.cloudbaseparagliding.co.nz ParaPro (paragliding & powered paragliding) Dave Dennis Phone: 03 328 8255, 0508 548 323 Email: info@parapro.co.nz www.parapro.co.nz

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QUEENSTOWN PARAGLIDING Infinity Paragliding School Chris Connolly Phone: 022 676 5599 Email: info@infinityparagliding.co.nz www.infinityparagliding.co.nz Extreme Air Hang Gliding & Paragliding School & Tandems Lisa Bradley Phone: 021 156 3256 or +61 45 728 7200 Email: lisa@extremeair.co.nz www.extremeair.co.nz DUNEDIN HANG GLIDING Aorangi Club Tom Mulder Phone: 021 148 1831 Email: tom@mulder.co.nz

Photos: Neil Brown, Ross Gray

WELLINGTON/WAIRARAPA HANG GLIDING Wellington Hang Gliding & Paragliding Club Grant Tatham Phone: 06 379 7322, 027 636 3491 Email: tathams@xtra.co.nz

PARAGLIDERS SKYWINGS Paragliding in Auckland - 33 years serving and training NZ pilots - exclusive PHI importers, Mini Wing specialists, Paramotor Specialists - Phone 027 498-2345, info@skywings.co.nz HANG GLIDERS WANTED; Falcon 225/Tandem. Very large pilot returning after a long hiatus and desiring of a docile tandem glider in reasonable condition. Would of course prefer a solely privately used glider, but, am willing to consider retired commercial if still in excellent condition. Perhaps you have one hanging on the wall of your garage taking up room and not getting used as much as you imagined it might. Or, you may know someone no longer paying their annual subscription and not receiving this magazine, but with one gathering dust in theirs. Happy to receive any offers or leads. Contact at forbigfred@hotmail.com or mobile 021 0215-5161.

FUN 190 for sale in Auckland, approx 125 hours + new WoF, Txt 021 0880 0496, leo. comeskey@gmail.com AIRBORNE C4-13 with a few spares. White mylar upper, yellow & lilac under. $1500 ono. Tom, 027 245-6777, nz_flyboy@outlook.com ATOS VQ, 2008 model, very good condition. Call Mark on 021 339 336 or email mark.

Nichols.home@gmail.com ATOS VR, Very low hours, as new condition. 20:1 glide, best performing Atos model through the full speed range. All the options; Technora sail, carbon keel, triple spoilerons for faster roll, air brakes. Call Mark on 021 339 336 or email mark.Nichols. home@gmail.com U2 160. Dacron sail, Mylar/Hydranet LE/TE, speed battens and raked tips. 2012, great condition, has flown approx 300 hours. email - skyriderag@gmail.com, phone 027 670 8301 KIWI 170 mint/new condition. Manufactured mid ’90s, unused. Test flown - Good Nov/ Intermediate first 70% double surface lower aspect ratio glider, No VG new WOF, $2000. email - skyriderag@gmail.com LITESPEED S 4.5 $2000, Phone 027 670 8301, Email: skyriderag@gmail.com KIWI Flyer 170, US 6061 tubing, low hours (has been in storage), great condition, full strip check and trim, phone 021 247 2676 email aero@xtra.co.nz MOYES Litesport 4 (149 sq ft) for sale. DOM 2004. Airframe really good but sail is worn but serviceable. Mainly white sail with kevlar leading and trailing edge. White and mid blue lower surface. Recently purchased but too small for me. Comes with manual, batten profiles and spare uprights. Will be sold with new WOF. $1200. Contact John King at 027 751 3192 or jonstoys53@yahoo.co.nz Motor Hang gliding

Ash Win Phone: 021 220 8302 email: ashswin556@gmail.com

SkyWings Paragliding Alan Hills Phone: 09 570 5757, 027 498 2345 Email: alan@skywings.co.nz www.skywings.co.nz

WAIKATO HANG GLIDING

■ Paid up NZHGPA members may run one advertisement per classification for free in each issue ■ Please email or post your advertisement to the editor, quoting your NZHGPA PIN number ■ Commercial operators, dealers, and non-members must enclose payment of $0.50c per word with their advertisement ■ include your email address for the online issue ■ Please notify when your items are sold ■ Buyers are advised that all used hang gliders and paragliders are highly recommended to have a full check as well as a new WOF when sold ■ It is dangerous to fly a glider or with equipment that is above your rated ability ■

RESERVE PARACHUTES RANGE of reserve parachutes for hang gliding and paragliding including Charly’s super compact DiamondCross in steerable PG versions and HG version with built in swivel.

Woody Valley Quadra are similar and sized in between. Bridles, Front containers, Maillons, Swivels, Hook knives etc, in stock at HG & PG Supplies, Phone 021 247 2676 or email aero@xtra.co.nz INSTRUMENTS OUDIE N instruments in stock now. Full featured GPS/alti/vario/flight computer, with high resolution colour mapping and airspace which automatically updates, Optional Fanet and Flarm via sim card or cell. A range of Naviter, Aircotec and Digifly instruments in stock 021 247 2676 or email aero@xtra.co.nz ACCESSORIES Helmets, No Limit (visor option), Insider, Loop (visor option) & the new lightweight Vitesse, phone 021 247 2676 email aero@xtra.co.nz EMPLOYMENT CORONET Peak Tandems Ltd, Queenstown, are looking for tandem hang gliding and paragliding pilots. Call 021 220 5932 BUSINESS HANG Gliding & Paragliding Supplies will be moving soon to a new address a bit closer to Sumner and Taylors. There will be some stock clearing specials. Check www.hgpg. co.nz for news, phone 021 247 2676 email aero@xtra.co.nz

FLIGHT PIX

Ben Kellett crossing the Tasman with Mt Cook and Tasman Glacier & Tasman Lake in right background

CLOUD PIX

Warren Connolly took this photo from the South end of Leslie Hills Road near Hanmer. The cloud stretched right across the Amuri Plain from over the Balmoral forest in the South to North of Waiau township. It looked like a wave but not high enough, wasn`t like a convergence, was completely stationary and there was no wind on the ground. Possibly an epic XC opportunity if someone had been there to fly it.

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nzparagliding.com info@skywings.co.nz Ph 0274 98 2345

phi-air.com

www.papteam.com www.miniplane.net