Normally I spend Easter at Bright in North Eastern Victoria, but this year(2002) my daughters' school camp overlapped Easter, and so I had a couple of days free. I decided to go give Birchip a go - but not as a competitor. Instead I would see how my Thistledown Nanolight performed in an environment where it was flying with "normal" hang gliders.

I went for the last two days of the comp, coinciding with the only two days the wind actually allowed the comp to run. When I arrived there were many frustrated pilots after 2 days of blown out afternoons in the tow paddock.

Unfortunately the local camping ground was not taking any new residents as they were full up, so I ended up sleeping in the back of the wagon at the local airfield. It was very quiet!

Pilot briefing on the Sunday was held at the local RSL, and it being Easter Sunday, Warwick Duncan, the organiser, began tossing tiny Easter eggs into the crowd. Very soon they were being tossed back at him. Then it was off to the paddock, about 20km north of town where the wind seemed to be a light nor-easter, and folks just milled around trying to figure out which strips to use (the paddock is laid out with permanently marked strips for different wind directions). Eventually they decided that I should go up and check the wind direction, so the Thistedown was set up with some haste while many curious hangies eyed the structure and cast doubtful comments on the general concept and airworthiness, while still others quietly took mental notes.

When ready, I blasted off, finding that there was only a very light drift from the NE at altitude. The tow pilots scattered to set up on the northerly strips. As the thermals were still a bit light, I landed to get the balance of my gear together.

The task was announced over the UHF radio - a 73km one way downwind trip to Warracknabeal.

A few pilots soon launched, and within an hour, some were getting up.

I launched and headed upwind. My first attempt to kill the engine and fly away misfired when I either lost the thermal or it petered out, and I ended up landing back at takeoff, but on the second attempt, I found a reasonable thermal upwind of the paddock and was able to kill the engine and climb out. Then I turned and began the trek toward Warracknabeal.

Climb rates were slow, and I was topping out at about 3000ft. There were quite a few hang gliders scattered on the ground along the course. At one stage, about 20km out, I thought I was about to have to land, but picked up a zero sink core at about 800ft and worked it hard for about 10 minutes until it took off and I rocketed back up.

At about the 30km mark, I was at 4000ft and could see the destination quite well and had a decision to make. My car was at the tow paddock 20km north of Birchip. If I went to Warracknabeal, I would have to hitch a ride back to Birchip with one of the other crews, but there would be no room for my trike, so I would then have to hitch out to the paddock, get my car and drive to Warracknabeal to get the trike, then drive back to Birchip. I decided that it just wasn't worth the hassle, so I figured I'd try for an out-and return from the point I'd reached.

Unfortunately, I didn't seem to find a decent thermal on the return track, and landed about 18km from the paddock. However, I was able to then start the engine and motor back another 10km, where a thermal I couldn't pass up tempted me to kill the engine and come back the rest of the way in silent mode. Then I headed back to Birchip for the evening's entertainment (the "Blue Max" on video).

About 11 pilots had made goal, and on a conservative estimate, assuming that I found no thermals if I had continued down the course line, I would have come in the top 15 pilots (out of about 60), so I was pretty happy with the day’s performance.

The next day dawned with a light Northerly, and the performance was repeated after a great breakfast at the local milk bar.

I had left my wing and trike out at the paddock, so I left the car in Birchip and hitched a body ride with "Team John Denver", who sang karaoke style along with a CD of the late departed singer’s most popular works all the way out to the field, even broadcasting the resulting wail over the CB. The price of the ride was joining in, so I added a bass line to the familiar tunes.

This time there was no ambivalence in the paddock. The northerly breeze was a clear indicator of which strips to use, but it died fairly quickly and was often overtaken by thermal cycles leading to some "interesting" launches and landings for some of the pilots in the paddock.

The task was once again announced on the UHF, sending everyone scrambling for their maps, then complaining loudly that they couldn’t find the goal - only to find that it was an April Fools joke. The real task, a 65km downwind dash to the south, was announced shortly.

I launched and headed upwind again to find a promising thermal over a paddock that was being ploughed. In fact there were several small dust devils following the tractor. Killing the engine led to a climb to about 2000ft where the thermal became really diffuse. Rather than give up, I spent the next half hour working this absolute rubbish, never getting higher than 2500 ft and often dropping below 2000, and drifted about 5km downwind, all the time watching other folks in thermals well away from me get up and go. But you don’t leave lift. At last the rubbish lifted off and I climbed to 4000ft or so and turned the nose toward Birchip. A thermal at about 8km out from the town lifted me back up, but by the time I crossed the outskirts of town I was getting desperate, and in fact was down to 500ft looking to set up a landing at the local airstrip, when a peep on the vario offered hope. A very long, hard scratch later, I was back at 5000ft and heading South.

From this point the going was fairly easy, with good thermals every 7km or so, and the thermals topping out at about 5000 to 6000 ft. I occasionally joined up with other hang gliders – some of whom dropped .out. As I’m not very comfortable in gaggles, I let some of them have the better part of the thermal and waited until they had climbed away from me before proceeding. This slowed me down a bit.

Eventually my GPS indicated I was near the goal, and looking around, I saw a bunch of gliders in a paddock about 6km away in approximately the right spot.

Stretching a glide, I came over them at about 500ft and landed gently in the rather soft paddock.

About 25 of the 60 or so pilots made goal that day, but quite a few pilots never made it out of the paddock even after several tows.

The landing paddock was too soft to take off from to do a self retrieve, so I packed up the wing and trike and left them in the field and hitched a ride back to Birchip. Then I jumped in the car, drove back to the landing area, loaded up and continued on my way home (it was on the way).

What did I learn from the weekend’s flying?

Basically it demonstrated that in the hands of a reasonably capable pilot (and I’m not going to play false modesty here) a basic nanolight is perfectly capable of soaring flights of both good distance and duration, and adds the advantage of guaranteeing a first thermal as well as a limited self retrieve capability. On the downside, on long XC flights in wind, your retreive may be somewhat more difficult than on a standard hang glider.