Newcastle Hang Gliding Club

Whe I woke up, the BOM's radar showed heavy raid right over launch and up to Newcastle. The rain was moving inland. Seabreeze was showing 8 knots from the south. It had been consistently over 15 knots SSE all night until the last half hour or so. There were no other storms around, so I figured that the drop in wind was just a temporary thing associated with the shower that was moving through, and shuld have passed by the time I got to launch. Sure enough, I got to launch, having driven through some very heavy rain near Speers Point to find that the rain had passed. The wind hadn't returned to strenght yet, but I figured I may as well set up as it was sure to come back. Just as I finished setting up, the wind strength came back, not so strong as it had been all night, but strong enough that it should hold me up. I chould have waited, probably should have waited, but the sunrise was starting, and I wanted to get some photos, so off I ran out into the air which was good enough to hold me up for about twenty or thirty seconds and then depoist me in an all too familiar landing spot. I had left my packup gear in the car, so after parking the glider up at the launch/landing area half way down, I went up to get the packup gear. I figured that I could refly from there, and if I bombed out again, I could pack up, otherwise I'd have what I needed to pack up in dicko. Mick turned up and he said it was good and strong on top. By now, it had started to pick up down low as well, so I rushed up to get my stuff from the car, then came back down and re-launched. After six or seven passes of the south face, first a bit higher than where I'd launched from ,then a bit lower, and eventually I was scooting over the flag at the top. Once I was up higher than launch, it had really picked up, and was probably blowing over 20 knots, plenty of strength to have some fun, and not so much that I was kept parked. Having wasted so much time playing around down on burwood beach, I had to land after half an hour to get home to help Flo get ready for lunch as my sister and her family were coming for lunch. Dawson