Author: isoadmin

Operational excellence is one of the six pillars of the Sports Aviation Federation of Australia’s strategic framework.

The SAFA Board is continuing to improve our operational effectiveness, which includes modernising our administration and technology and other areas.

As part of this initiative, we will replace Gmail and Google office with Microsoft Office 365.

What does this mean for you?
The main difference for you will be a slight change in the email addresses that you use to communicate with the SAFA.

When you email people at the SAFA, you simply need to replace @hgfa.asn.au with @safa.asn.au in the email address.

By way of example:

When you visit the SAFA website please use www.safa.asn.au instead of www.hgfa.asn.au.

The @hgfa.asn.au email addresses will no longer work from 10 April 2023.

When will it be effective?
This change will come into effect on 10 April 2023.  You can start using the new email addresses now.

Until next time

Jennifer Gale
SAFA CEO & COO

Hello SAFA Members,

The SAFA Board has met and discussed matters related to the events in Ukraine and we advise the following:

In line with the Air Sport Australia Confederation (ASAC), who represent the interests of sports aviation groups in Australia with the FAI,
SAFA supports the actions taken by the FAI in responding to the events in Ukraine.

FAI Ukraine Statement Feb 2022

ASAC Ukraine Statement

Kind Regards,

Taking a trip down memory lane, former hang gliding pilot Mick Farrell of Boorowa NSW tells how he first fell in love with flight after seeing a group of men jumping off sand hills in Kurnell on the outskirts of Sdney and then taking to the skies in a hang glider. Watching the hang glider soar skyward, chasing the thermals with wedge-tailed eagles seemed like a surreal experience he wanted to be part of.

The sport and the aircraft were very different back in those days. Mick recalls that it wasn’t long after witnessing the hang gliders taking flight and being influenced by Fred Fahey, that he went to Canberra and bought a brand new Seagull 3 for $375. It came equipped with a harness and an instruction book, that was it.

“After little success trying to teach myself to fly, I heard of some guys out in Young, 70km west from where I live and heard they were flying hang gliders,” said Mick.

“They showed me what to do and I started from the bottom of the hill and gradually worked my way up. It was an amazing adrenalin rush for me, like nothing else I had experienced. After a month of my lessons, I ended up at the top of the hill and had my first flight.

“I then bought a CB 200 and started gliding off the hills here in Boorowa, but my issue was that I didn’t know how to ridge soar. I almost gave the sport away and then one day ran into Guy Hubbard in Cowra, who told me about car towing. This intrigued me. So, me and my friend Rosco Williams got involved in towing for quite a few years. It was a great way to get to 1000 feet.”

“I then got started in aero tow and love that, I found it much easier than car towing.”

One of Mick’s greatest achievements in the sport was being the 6^th person to have flown the Morning Glory in an unpowered hang glider back in October 2002.

“That was an amazing experience for Ross and I to experience, it was truly unbelievable,” he said.

“Some people go up there and never get to see the amazing cloud formation. We were very lucky and it was definitely a highlight in my years of flying hang gliders.”

Mick has since put down his hang gliding wings but says the memories and experiences will stay with him forever.

“I loved how you had the ability to go from A to B in the air and the challenge of finding the next thermal. I also loved the achievement, like the time you do your first long distance flight, then you set your next milestone,” he said.

“I enjoyed the flying aspect more than the competition side of it, I was always slow to goal, but enjoyed to journey to get there.

“Flying wing tip to tip with a wedge-tailed eagle is pretty amazing, it’s one of those amazing flying experiences.

“I live on the land and sometimes I look to the sky and see a wedge-tailed eagle and miss flying, but I have the memories and they are pretty good.”

A journey by paraglider Laurent Besnard through remote south western Tasmania in the Western Arthurs has only been achieved by two other pilots. The iconic mountain range has no roads leading to it and no infrastructure, only mountains, dense forest and buttongrass plains.

This incredible landscape offers stunning views with glacial tarns surrounded by jagged quartzite cliffs.

Laurent first took up the challenge in November 2017 and back then, no one from the Tasmanian paragliding community was aware of any flights conducted in the area. Living in Hobart for the last 11 years, it had been in the back of his mind to fly the Western Arthurs ever since he took up paragliding, back in 2015. Then in March this year, he decided to take on the challenge again.

The closest car park to the Western Arthurs is the Huon campground, which is a solid 4 hours of power walking through the Arthurs plains all the way to launch. The hike is a classic South West Tasmanian adventure, with the occasional knee-high mud pools, creek crossing and bloodthirsty leeches waiting for hikers to walk by.

Bombing out halfway down the range guarantees an overnight walk back.

“I personally love the feeling of landing in the middle of nowhere, walking for hours through those plains, and finally reaching a track. But for sure, one has to be comfortable in doing so,” said Laurent.

“It is a challenging place in many ways. However, the flying is mostly straightforward with thermals being in obvious locations and no real valley crossing.

“In my opinion, the less than ideal outcome would be, to throw the reserve directly above the range, being attacked by a wedgie, to land on “closed” buttongrass surrounded by very thick Tasmanian bush (in the worst-case scenario, the progress can be of 300m per hour). And landing at the other end of the range will lead to almost 2 days of hiking.”

For Laurent, the weather is by far the biggest challenge with Tasmania repeatedly getting hit with low pressure systems and the average yearly rainfall being 2510mm. But the day he decided to fly this year was just picture perfection.

“That day, the weather was absolutely perfect- a pristine blue day. I had never seen a forecast that good for the area before. Usually, by 2 pm the westerlies are settling in, making a return journey very compromised. This day, there was no wind in the vicinity until 4:30 pm, and then of course, it was back to “normal”, i.e. 15 knots +. This guaranteed me to fly the range and back, and back to my van,” he said.

“In the morning, the whole Arthurs plains were foggy with amazing gold looking colours. By 10 a.m., to my excitement, cumulus were forming above all the peaks. When I was finally in the air by noon, there were barely any clouds and the inversion was finally above the range.

“I flew a bit over 2 hours, reached great heights of 1451 m (this is high for Tasmania) with views to Precipitous Bluff, the Southern Ocean, Melaleuca, the Frankland Range- flew with a Wedgie who gave me a thermal lesson.”

Would Laurent do this flight again, “any day” he says. The pain is worth the gain in his books.

“I only wish this was more often flyable, a few times a year is clearly not enough. From now on, I want to take the Arthurs as a quick launch access to fly to even more remote locations, but this is in the realm of dreams as of now.”

Watch his journey here.

27/08/2019

Recently, plantation harvesting operations have been conducted at Mystic in NE Victoria. Specifically, the back of Emily Spur has been logged. This has resulted in a lot of bare ground being exposed. As a consequence, the aerology over Mystic has been altered in quite a significant manner.

We have had reports of significant turbulence now being present over the back of Emily, especially if you are down low, that has not been encountered previously. There are also effects in the larger area though, not just over Emily. Karl Texler, NEVHGC PG SSO and AIRS Manager reports that lift over Marcus is getting suppressed and that the air on the approaches to both landing paddocks has changed.

There have already been incidents where pilots have experienced turbulence and suffered significant collapses. Please think carefully about flying Mystic in the middle of the day, and whether the conditions are appropriate to your level of experience.

Pilots that have flown Mystic previously and are infrequent visitors need to be aware of these changes and not expect what was considered reliable behaviour of the house thermals. Fly the day and conditions as you find them, not based on what you have experienced previously.

Fly safe.

SAFA Operations Team.

27/08/2019

Excitement is building for the world-renown Forbes Flatlands Hang Gliding Championship, to be held from Friday 3rd thru Saturday 11th January. It is expected to be a great turn out with over 60 pilots from Australia and across the globe set to take part in this thrilling event, that has been running for nearly 30 years.

Event organiser, Vicki Cain said the appeal of Forbes lies in its consistent flying conditions, the great hospitality shown to the hang gliding fraternity and the competition organisation from the local community. “Forbes is also a great competition for new pilots wanting to further their skills. Competition flying is the best way to whet your appetite and at the same time boost your enthusiasm to chase your dreams of competitive free flight,” said Vicki.

“We encourage participation in the sport class for pilots entering their first competition. They can get a real taste and experience first-hand what an internationally renown competition is all about. There is great camaraderie amongst all the pilots, and even the most seasoned pilots still get a buzz out of seeing new pilots achieving success and earning their stripes.

“Forbes offers great flatlands flying with consistent weather and racing conditions. There are plenty of landing options in the open fields and a great road network for the retrieves.”

The eight-day competition will again take place at “Bill’s Paddock” fondly named the “Bill Moyes International”, north of the Forbes Airport. Headquarters this year will be at the Van Den Berg Hotel. We will again have the live tracking available so, family and friends from afar can watch.

“Just two years ago, we were able to call the longest task ever in a hang gliding competition; 389km from Forbes heading north to Manilla,” said Vicki.

“Of the 46 competitors, 16 pilots – made the 389km task, including Sasha Serebrennikova from Russia, which set a new Women’s World record.”

The competition is run through the Sydney Hang Gliding Club with generous support from the NSW HGPGA and a host of volunteers from all over the country. It is rewarding for all of us to know that we play a part in hosting this world-renowned competition which lays the platform for these amazing pilots to achieve these milestones.

“We are hoping for a great turn out of pilots this year and hope to see some more personal bests and record-breaking tasks,” said Vicki.

Registrations are now open for the 2020 event. Pilots can register at Forbes Flatlands.