Pukemore Saturday 8th Nov,2008
Posted November 9th, 2008 by Anand
Looking at leonardo, I can see site record has been set by Jeff flying on this wonderful strong wind day with Evan close behind.
Interesting to note Evan's comment in leonardo ".........And having the site record for 60 secs", ohh that must hurt.
It was great to see so many pilots turnup at launch on this day.
Probably credit goes to President Xen's passionate speech the previous night at BBQ party urging more pilots to text each other and head out for XC.
http://www.paraglidingforum.com/modules.php?name=leonardo&op=show_flight&flightID=147553
For me it was short lived 7.2km flight , the highlight being I was retireved by the same farmer who gave me a lift last year Oct 2007 , What an uncanny coincidence or stroke of luck. Good countryside with excellent retreve facility 
So many people flew XC - Xen, Brendon, Nick, Wayne, Alex would love to hear your account of the day.
Congrats Jeff/Evan for the record flight and for the photos, now we know what raglan looks like from air, well done.
See you on the Hill
Regards,
Anand
Great flights by Jeff and
Great flights by Jeff and Evan there. I don't want to know what the retreive was like!.
I managed a very quick out to just short of Taupri, and a very slow painful back. Great day.
B
Congrats
Nice flight. Spending sat at a school fair doesn't really stack up does it
Here is my account from the
Here is my account from the day...
Doing the akward toplanding I sprained my ankel or torn a legimant... as I found out the next day.Must have been overexitment about new harness. Didn't switch on my vario etc...
My second flight was ok, got nice height..but started to feel more pain so I decided to land like a storch on one leg.. then the mission started to be the retrieve of the day... picked up Nick and off we went scouting.. ended up as you all now know in Kawhia...
A long day... Cheers Alex
Update... not a brocken
Update...
not a brocken ankel, not torn legimants - just heafty sprained muscles.. so I am off to Physio and will be seen in the air in not too long :-)
DONT LAND IN THE VALLEY
Yeah, dont land in that valley behind take off.
I was only planning to fly around take off as I had to land and be on
> my way to Coromandel by 2.00 pm. As I was heading towards the landing
> paddock I got in to this thermal, and without turning once it took me
> all the way to cloudbase. I then thought what the hell, I may as well
> go downwind a bit and land a bit further down the road. It wouldn't
> take Shelaine very long to pick me up.
>
> In that valley bit behind take off about 7k I saw a massive shift to
> the SE and quite strong. I got drilled in to that valley just to the N
> side of that last peak just before the river. Had to land on a sloped
> field with half speed bar on and D lined it to avoid disappearing up
> the valley at a great rate of knots.
>
> I then had an hour and 15 minute fast walk/run to try and get out to
> the road. The farm trail I was on was paralleling the road but at the
> wrong side of a stream, so I ended up doing about 3k to get out to
> SH1. Boy was I knackered. We were ONLY an hour late after some spirited driving.
Landing
Thanks Xen, your account explains a lot on what I faced during landing.
Looking at your track, I have landed not not very far from you, a distance of 7.2km. On my approach to landing, the wind was quite strong and GPS ground speed reading kept ticking lower 5,4,3, 2, 1 km like countdown and I was careful not to flare since it felt like I was getting flushed and blown back.
Could not do much except to watch ground for touch down to kill the glider. Had to go with the wind where it was pushing me.
In the process missed the paddock, the fence and got dumped on the rough farm road. Was lucky not to be draggged on the road and also to get away without any injury.
Regards,
Anand