http://goldcoasthgpg.com.au

http://ozreport.com/ozweather.php

Apparently, I don't know daylight savings time. So ignore my rantings about that in the last two articles on Beechmont. Let's just say that launching at 9 AM is pretty cool and launching at 7 AM (sun time) seems possible on the right day here. I have launched at 9:30 AM (DST) in Zapata, and have heard or earlier ones (in paragliders) but haven't seen them myself, so I don't know if that's true.

We were on launch at Beechmont again at 8 AM on Tuesday after a night of rain in the area. The grass was wet, but the sky was clearing up. It takes but half an hour to get to launch from Mudgeeraba (the Gold Coast).

I set up right away although the wind was a bit of a bother (other pilots who came just after I launched chose not to fly). Jonny had to run back home as he brought the wrong harness. I got off and up right away with thin cu's barreling over the back. The flying in front of launch was remarkably the same again with cloud base at 3,200' and Jonny thermaling up below me when I headed down wind to Hinch Cliff as I touched the wispies.

I checked out the shadows toward Hinch Cliff and it looked like there was a line of cu's to my left. I wanted to keep going straight, right at the cliffs, and over most of the plateau, but thought it would be better to get under the clouds. I didn't see right away that there were in fact clouds right along my preferred path.

Jonny saw that, and stayed along the route that I started at. He arrived high at Hinch Cliffs while I had to work them from down lower. He quickly got ahead of me and left the cliffs at 3,600'. I was at 1,600' when he said that and in a thermal going up at 200 fpm.

To compound this error I left Hinch Cliffs at 3,000' instead of waiting to get higher to jump over the next range and get far into the second valley near Beaudesert. The lift had weakened at Hinch Cliff and I was thinking about staying with Jonny rather than staying up.

Over the back the lift was poor in the valley behind the range and I didn't get up landing fairly quickly. This was a deal breaker for Jonny who was hopefully counting on Belinda for retrieval. It just demotivated him and he landed shortly thereafter about ten kilometers past Beaudesert.

There were cloud streets to the northwest, although cloud base was low once again and there was the chance of rain out to the west (as well as here). Still it was disheartening to have a failure on such a good looking day. Jonny had a hard time looking out the window at the cloud streets on the way back.

Maybe tomorrow. The winds have been much higher than what Jonny says he usually flies in when going for the big time cross country flights here. This is one reason we have been going later (launching yesterday at 8:38 AM and today at 9 AM). That and the fact that with clouds out over the ocean the early morning heating is blocked.

I love flying early in the day, usually because the air is so smooth. It is not smooth here early in the day especially crossing these ranges and mixing ridge lift with thermals. But it is manageable.