By John Switala

The weather was unkind on the Saturday and Sunday with the Khancoban region receiving 80mm of rain in the period. Still, an opportunity to do some socialising, visit the hydro power station up the road or do some fishing (score - fish 43, fisherman nil). It was actually quite pleasant to watch and feel the rain for a change – we didn’t complain.

This year we trialled an extended period from the normal 4 days of Khancoban to 8 days, operating from Saturday to Saturday. We had 25 gliders registering interest in the trip but, in the end 21 gliders turned up. The weather being a major contributor to the no-shows during the first four days.

With the larger number of aircraft and pilots (many gliders were shared amongst a number of pilots and had several launches per day) anticipated on the camp we decided to send two tugs this time. GCV Pawnee BXP and the Scout UTK were in attendance. With twenty gliders on the grid and only one tug, previous experience has told us that the last bugger in the launch queue has to wait about 3 hours after the first guy. That’s a lot of valuable gliding time! Not to mention the frustration and “attitude” that can develop while waiting in the queue and having to “deal” with queue jumpers. With the two tugs the operation was smooth with no more then a queue of 5 developing at busy times. It was agreed by all that two tugs for this amount of gliders was a good thing!

Main tug pilots were Mark Goodley and Peter Carey with relief tugging being provided by Neil Williams, Gary Allbutt and Robbie Burns.

The Monday through to Friday was champagne flying! Cu’s filled the skies and it seemed you could go anywhere.

On Monday John Wharington found some wave and climbed to 12,500 feet. Others had ‘sniffs’ of it but couldn’t connect, so John did the best for height gain on the trip. The other days varied a little but for most it was easy to see 8,000 feet each day. With heights like that pilots weren’t restricted to the ranges and ridges and wandered far and wide to use the day’s resources.

Our Treasurer and Tuggy, Peter Carey, had the opportunity to have several flights in the Duo Discus. The first was a venture to the edge of Lake Hume to the west and to other points of interest around Khancoban with Mike Kornhauser. The other flight was over Mt Kosciusko with Phil Henderson – a first for Peter Carey (to be honest, it was a first for Phil Henderson too. Still, Peter didn’t have to know that!). Phil commented to Peter that he was a “conservative” pilot and Peter was happy with that until they arrived in front of the main range about 1,500 feet below the top of the ridge and facing a wall of granite. Apparently the cockpit conversation went from Ha, Ha, Ha to Um, Um, Um.

Peter Carey enjoys Mt Kosciusko

We had five women pilots at the Khancoban trip – this must be a record! Gracing us were Viv Drew, Louise O’Grady, Anne Philcox, Justine Thompson and Cathy Conway. Observers noted that although there were 5 women flying no brooms were spotted!!

Anne gave us some excitement though! She was in a Libelle getting some assistance from Dave and Cathy Conway in the Nimbus 4DM. On the way back from Kosi Anne got low near Mt Youngel and was struggling to recover. The radio conversation was riveting as David’s radio was very soft and Viv (whose radio was very loud) had to relay. I always thought she could ‘plock’ into Geehi strip, until a little later, I discovered she was on the Murray River side of Mt Youngel! Not much there but trees, rocks, trees, trees, rocks and more trees! Anyhow, with her superior skill she managed to fly out rather then walk bits of a Libelle out. In actual fact there was a small paddock cleared of trees in the valley, but it would have been very small and highly unknown in regards to logs, rocks, kangaroos, fencing, etc. The following day she was awarded the inaugural “Koala” trophy – for being so close, she could talk to koalas!

The Conways, David and Cathy, brought their newly (for them) purchased Nimbus4DM. This is a self launching, two seater, 26.5 metre span beast. Whenever it was on the field, it “occupied” the field, the whole field! Watching it self launch into the south, into the dam wall and over the lake, was interesting from the ground - I’m sure it was more interesting from the cockpit!! Its climb rate looked to be about 2 knots, with two on board, so climbing over the lake, which has its downdraughts at times, would have made the launch interesting. They stayed nearby the field until they gained some height – smart thinking that!

David Conway showed us a unique run over Mt Kosciusko that ended up being called “The Conway”. It involved pushing in to the summit from the edge of the main range, circling the summit, riding down the small ridge leading away from the summit to the north-east, over a saddle and into the small valley holding Lake Albina before exiting through the gorge on the main range and ending up in the valley over Geehi river. It was an interesting way to blow off 1,500 feet!! Entry height from the main range was about 8,200 feet and after the run you ended up at about 6,700 feet, depending, of course, on how hard you pushed!! The sequence was then to catch the fairly reliable thermal sitting off the gorge pumping at about 3.5 knots, back to 8,200 feet and do it again!! Much enjoyment!!

The picture shows the Henderson family; Phil, Gaynor and Courtney (she’s the small one), (on the left), on the field on Wednesday and, conveniently, our “Gliding Lawn Microphone” managed to pick up this exchange:

• Courtney: Daddy, daddy, look at the glider!
• Phil: Yes Courtney, there are a lot of gliders here.
• Courtney: Daddy, look at THAT glider!
• Phil: Yes Courtney, we’ll look at the gliders later.
• Courtney: But daddy THERE’S a glider!!
• Phil: Yes Courtney, we’ll look at the gliders later.
• Whoooooshhhhh!!!!!
• Phil: What the golly was that??
• Courtney: Told you there was a glider.
• Phil: Yes Courtney.

It seems that at least one of the Henderson clan was aware of their surroundings that day!

It seems also that the daily flying activities were too much for some pilots. Here’s an example of Ted (not his real name) whose level of tiredness was too much, having succumbed at the dinner table! Before dinner!! But don’t worry he didn’t miss out on helping to wash up!

Khancoban is on every year around the Melbourne Cup weekend (first Tuesday in November). If we have the same level of interest in 2008 we’ll bring the second tug over – it really made a big difference. So, mark the dates in your diaries (November 1 to 8 2008) and come and enjoy some great mountain flying.