Metamorphosis

Aint it cool to learn a new language? I learned 3 languages (English, Chinese, Malay) as a child in South East Asia, so I didn't appreciate the significance of speaking a language... until I began to learn Portuguese as an adult.

Yeah sure, languages allow you to communicate with words, but it's much deeper than that. If you allow a new language to become part of you, you are also allowing yourself to be affected, to change.

Contained within a language, is how a people perceives and interacts with the World, and responds to the state of being human on this planet. Study the words and structure, and you have but begun. The juice is between the words, in the pauses, in that elusive word-less reality. But you need the words to get you there.

Immersed within an unknown language-culture-reality, layers of what you thought were part of your-self, but were merely layers of your life, are peeled away, leaving you in a vulnerable but opportune condition. A chance to re-invent oneself presents itself, but more accurately you would use the word re-create, in that you do not have direct control over the outcome. Therein lies the beauty and risk.

Oz

After a fun few days in Atibaia, a city near São Paulo, it was time to head back to Australia.

São Paulo-->Buenos Aires-->Auckland-->Sydney

24 hours of roaring jets, fluorescent lighting, allocated seating, and airline food later... I landed on a very very large island.

Here they seem more concerned with someone bringing in some fruit, than drugs... fair enough, there is a lot to protect here.

Caught up with everyone at Moyes about all the funny stuff that happened during the trip.

The next morning I was having breakfast on Vicki's patio, when two locals came to visit me. Not sure if they were interested in me or my muesli, pears, honey and yoghurt...

Then I hit the gym and spent some time at Coogee beach. The sun was strong, but the air cool. The water... well, it was beautiful.

God I love Australia.

Até a Próxima Vez

Para os meus amigos Brasileiros, eu preciso falar muito obrigado pela sua hospitalidade durante a minha viagem ao Brasil este ano! Brasil é o país mais bonita que eu já vi. E as pessoas são bonitas também... por fora e por dentro.

Eu ainda não acredito que legal estava de voar com vocês em Andradas. As condicões são boas e fortes lá, os pilotos são rápidos, e a vista é incrível!

Nesta vida nós precisamos fazer muitas decisões. O que pegar, o que deixar... Após o meu melhor amigo Chris Muller morreu num acidente de asa delta uns mêses passados, para mim voar não foi como antes. Eu estava ficando perdido e a felicidade de voar desapareceu em mim.

Mas agora tudo é melhor. Eu sei com certeza que o vôo livre vai ser muito importante na minha vida, agora e para sempre... e eu nunca vou esquecer nisto! Obrigado por me adjudando para lembrar! Chris, eu vou te ver um dia, mas não já.

Então... até a próxima vez os meus irmãos... térmicas fortes e bons vôos!

Bretchy

Words

O Gavião always launches first.

I have heard that talking is a phenomenon that occurs only once thinking has ceased. If this is true I would like to know what the hawk thinks...

With time, words change their meaning... their significance isn't constant. Words like success, happiness, love, purpose... meant something different to us when we were kids, when we were teenagers, and as adults. Even as adults the flux is continuous. But there is one word that has remained constant in my life; unchanging, immutable, ever-present, and self-justifying... Fun. I've never had some fun, then wished I hadn't! You don't need a reason to have fun, you just have it, and it feels right.

I remember playing in my backyard in Melbourne when I was about 4. An inflatable pool, the sun, water everywhere. All was right in the World... looking up at one of the lemon trees I thought... one day I'll be big enough to reach one. Through the years, I've found my fun in different ways, and in different places, but the feeling has been the same.

Victim of Fun

Climbing out from launch



Looking ahead on course



M for Moyes



Sloped LZ



New friends

Woke up feeling tired from all the hardcore flying lately, so I walked to the waterfall and dove in... brrrrrrrrrrrrrr !!! The water was cold but it sure felt good... better than a Starbucks any day. Then I lay on a warm rock and gazed into the sky, to imagine what adventures the day would bring.

After planning a 150km triangle, we landed trying to fly towards rising ground, along the first leg. The last bit was way fun, as we navigated through the narrow valleys and over the 200-300m hills... micro-scale thermal XC. Landed on the steep slopes of a 50m hill, fly-on-the-wall style. The hill was so steep, it was difficult to walk down, but the radio reception from the top was great.

Gun shots fired, but it was only people in the nearby town celebrating a holiday.

A few people from the town came by to see what was going on and check out our wings.

Odyssey

Next stop: Cloudbase



Looking back on course



Looking ahead on course



Made it home to São Lourenço

With the excellent forecast, we decided to stay in the mountains for another day.

The morning brought moisture and low cloud, but we were still hopeful. As we sipped on coffee, and ate bananas with honey (from Konrad´s nearby farm), we planned a 100km triangle.

First a leg deep into the high ground... there are places to land there, but you had better be prepared for a night in the jungle and a long hike out. Then a leg out into the lower hills and finally back to goal at the São Lourenço airport.

A slow climb out from launch dampened our enthusiasm. The big clouds across the valley were beginning to overdevelop. I was a little hesitant to go into the high, narrow valleys with clouds like that around, but Konrad was keen so I figured it would be worth a shot.

We kinda skirted the growing monsters, close enough to extract some of the energy without being destroyed by them. I knew that a gust front expelling into the narrow valleys would be a serious problem for us if we were low... a mistake that we would have little time to regret. But the winds stayed light and as I became more confident, I ventured deeper into no-man´s land, where even dirt tracks were rare. Many places to put it down on the high plateaus, but what would you do next?

It was mostly dolphin flying near cloudbase, making sure not to be trapped under a strong towering cumulus. Within 5km were groups of clouds towering to 30,000ft; 20km away I could only see black, rain, and lightning. Took some pics of the landscape hightlights... the dark, ominous sky and sheer isolation filled me with a tingling sense of anticipation.

The last steep cliff gave way to open ground, lower hills and the first turnpoint- Auiruoca. The tension of the high planes passed, and it was back to classic small hill XC flying under scattered cumuli. A low stop over a grass fire, then a banana plantation lead to the final leg to São Lourenço. The shallow tailwind final glide towards the city was calming and a chance to shake my head and smile, reflecting over the intensity of the high plane leg through the Serra da Mantiqueira range.

A 200m ground effect glide to landing at the airport at sunset, in the smoothest air in ages, was the perfect finish to a rewarding day.

Stella reached us before we could pack-up, then it was time for some good food and the chance to talk about how awesome the flying had been.

Hard Life

On the way back to Rio, we stopped in the Serra da Mantiqueira mountains for some big big mountain airtime. 10,000ft peaks and way big clouds called for us... life is hard... hard to miss.

Finale

Post comp XC with my Litespeed S4 and Flytec 5030

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Last day, lots of tension in the air. Nenê was in the lead, but would he hold it?

Today´s task was similar to many of the others, with goal back in Andradas. Had a good start and was with the lead gaggle for the first half, until I dove for a big cloud, just in time for it to die and leave me low in the shade.

Betinho was also thinking the same thing, so we shared a similar fate. We struggled for a bit, and made it in, but much slower. Carlos won the day, and Nenê held his lead to take the comp!

It was an emotional moment when Betinho got up on stage with his young son, and announced that he would be retiring from competitions soon. The standing applause was long and deafening.

That night it was clubb´n till 5am. I had planned to sleep in, but Konrad woke me up at 9am and convinced me to go flying. The plan was to try to fly back to Rio, rally-style.

The first goal was São Lourenço, 200km to the East. With a late start and a bit of a headwind, we only made 100km, via Pouso Alegre. Flew directly over the big city low, Google-style, and checked it out, as I chased a bit of straw in the air, hunting for lift. Got low on the far side of the city, over a water park... hmmm... landing here wouldn´t be so bad, eh?

We were actually on pace, until a 40km blue hole shut us down. We limped across most of it, and one more thermal would have brought us into cloud-land again. Landed on a tiny little slope, on a 50m hill by a river. As I dove into the field, I could smell the scent of coffee blossom, and the dampness of the slow-moving river.

I was a little grumpy, still being in goal-mode, but after getting out of my harness and looking around, I realized that this whole flying thing today was pretty füken cool.

To me, life is joy and pain. This year, I have had a lot of both. I try to hold on to the joy and let go of the pain, but it aint easy.

Nirvana

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Finalmente... finally. Or final-freak´n-mente!

Won the day, a 100km dogleg task in 1.5h. Just over 60km/h, in a light tailwind. This was a day when we didn´t need to leave the streeting to follow the course line. For the first time this whole trip, I had a good start. High, on time, in position... and waiting.

The first glide was 15km at 80km/h. The second was 10 at 90km/h... Now this is hanggliding racing at it´s best! An unstable day, though, and the sky started to become very unsettled as we rounded the turnpoint. The convergence lines were beginning to overdevelop into lines of thunderstorms. Not only were we racing each other, but we also had to reach goal before the storm front hit.

About 25km out, I was in a good position in the lead gaggle. The next cloud on course line didn´t look very good. The nearby storms were growing, advancing towards us.

Time to make a move, I turned hard left and dove at 90km/h towards a development line that looked to be 30min away from exploding. Dustin was thinking the same thing, and left too, but lower and at a less severe angle.

As I watched the distance to goal increasing slowly, I began to wonder if I had made a critical error. Minutes later I was banked up in a solid 5m/s and with a perma-smile all the way to cloudbase. The short overdeveloping street lasted about 5km... I skipped along at cloudbase, pushing 100km/h. Left the edge of the street, now at a quase-do-able final glide position.

But then the open air was friendly, and as the numbers began to improve, I began to relax... something you should never do. From somewhere in the sky fell a short burst of rain, wetting my glider, and leaving thousands of performance-robbing droplets clinging to my entire wing. But with smooth dolphin flying and careful line choosing, the situation began to improve.

Damn it, I started to forget that everytime you become complacent, a new challenge will present itself between you and the goal line. Immediately after taking a deep breath of relief over the goal-make-ability situation, I spotted some smoke in the distance... it was head on the ground! Despite this often happening in this area, somehow I had managed to be surprised by it!

How can you make goal when you start with a marginal tailwind glide position, and hit a headwind? Well... with a lot of luck, I guess. The good air continued to goal, despite the lack of clouds or thermals.

Looking behind me, the brightly lit white leading edges of about 20 flexwings -blades- advancing, against the black sky... were ominous, threatening. I think I can hold them off long enough... I thought to myself. The goal field continued to approach favourably in the positive air; I could see the goal line and the scattered termite mounds in the field.

The sight of an empty goal field, with only an orange line and a windsock blowing in the breeze, is something that only a comp pilot can understand. I remember the first time that I won a day years ago... as I approached at 100km/h, tears streamed down my face. I had to tell myself to focus and fly the wing. These days I don´t get as emotional but the feeling is still intense. These are the moments where everything makes sense... I am here, and this is what I am. All else is hollow.

As soon as we had tied all the gliders to the truck, the entire sky blew-up into a grand performance of wind, rain, thunder, and lightning. The long drive home, in the dark yet strobed sky, in the drenching rain, was somehow calm.

Deep Play

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Everything into one.

It isn´t easy to isolate my experiences into individual days; my mind doesn´t work that way. Here I am trying to remember what happened on this particular day, but everything that happened is related and is interacting with other things that happened on previous days. It is all one single flight.

Anyways, Nenê won the day, and a few top players were short.

Turnpoints, convergence lines, wind noise, and my screaming vario... all the elements were there. A tricky part came along though, and my buddy Guga and I flew the last 1/3 of the task together, until landing 6km short.

All was good, then all was bad. A cloud fell apart on us, then a long glide in some shade over shallow hills. We flew through the valleys of 200m hills and thermalled with urubus to stay in the air. It was slow going against the wind but we survived the last turnpoint between 200-400m above the ground.

We only had 10km to go and it was downwind... but no go. Made it half way there between 100-200m above the ground. We scanned the sky for birds, and the passing ground for landable fields.

Guga has a good eye for soaring birds. Not only does he spot them first, but he seems to recognize changes in the thermalling behaviour of a gaggle of urubus. He would often suddenly move over to another group of vultures, even though they were not climbing better, but were flying a little differently. Sure enough, their thermal would soon become stronger, and we were there when it happened.

At 100m above the ground, we were opposite each other in the turns, still zipped up, and completely focused. We had to scan constantly to keep track of the birds as they flew in and out of tiny patches of lift.

The final call came... it was over. Every last iota of lift had been lost and all we could do was straighten into the wind and flare into a small, sloped tapioca field.

We didn´t say anything for half an hour or so... we were both a little down. But at the same time I was high on hanggliding.

The last 20km were so freak´n cool. Being so low, in the boundary layer between earth and sky, where you are touching both simultaneously, is a place that I like to be.

It might have sounded like a stressful time, but the point is, it wasn´t. I was completely in the flow. Scanning for signs of lift and circling, gave me the feeling that I could see everything together. The most subtle clues became obvious directions. The slightest smell of smoke, earth, or orange blossom, caused me to react.

Bit of a downer for me for the comp, but you grow during the down times.

Way way fun.

Cloud Dancing

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We lost another day due to the influence of a cold front, so I spent a few hours at launch helping Moyes pilots with their tuning and hardware issues.

The other day, I had half an hour to kill before the start gate, so I had some fun playing with the clouds.

Didn´t fly into clouds but I was able to climb above cloudbase in a small clear area surrounded by towering cumuli. The upwind cloud was about 500m high and was cresting like a wave. The cloud movement here seems faster than other places... you can watch clouds develop without having to look away every so often to notice the changes.

Imagine looking up at a wave the size of a mountain, as it comes crashing down on you. Strangely, I was drawn to it. If I had allowed myself to be engulfed by the cloud, would that be surrendering control, or taking it?

Good weather on the way...

Terminal X

Terminal X, sponsor of the competition, with live webcasts at launch.

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Guga takes the day again. A 95km task that went against a 20km/h headwind into the flats, with high overcast and no clouds. Real tricky...

The rest of the course was blaz'n. The final leg into the mountains was really interesting. Flew over a massive rock formation that looks like a giant elephant lying on its belly on top of the mountain, with its ears drooping, and trunk stretched out in front. Asked the locals about it later... guess what, its called Pedra do Elefante (Elephant Rock).

It was like 3 flights in one, each leg presenting entirely different conditions.

Again the wind went head lower down and nearly got us during the final glide. A last 100m hill before goal handed us a dose of lee-side turbulence and sink to welcome us. A small detour to some circling urubus brought us back to glide height. Same story as yesterday, 6 pilots playing chicken with the goal line. An exciting end to a cool task over a special part of the World.

Ultimate Flying

Gaggle Combat



Goal Ambience

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Pinhal-->Aguaí-->Mogi Mirim 85km

A real mix of conditions. Chose my own route on the first leg but it did not work so well, because the convergence line that I was chasing dissipated. Got a little low in the shade but eventually got back with the lead gaggle.

The conditions kept improving along the course, which was way cool because it seemed like with each glide our speeds were increasing. That feeling of an accelerating average speed is climactic. Towards the end we had stopped turning, only pulling up in lift and pushing over into the sink.

The 6 of us, Guga, Dustin, Michel, Betinho, Nenê, and myself duked it out over the 20km final glide. Each of us kept trying to fly just a little faster than the other... and this inflated into impossible speeds. This is where it all begins, where hanggliding almost becomes a contact sport. We were stacked all over each other, going 80km/h, unwilling to ease up, despite the goal airport rising in the horizon. As with most airports, the ground rose towards it, and the 10km/h tail had turned 10km/h head.

1km to go and we hit the descending air along the downslope. We are now best-gliding through the turbulence, and looking back and forth, just trying not to hit someone. Betinho hits a small dust devil within the boundary of the airport and gets banked hard to the left. I hold on and get thrown the other way, as bits of dry grass are thrown in my face. We flail across the goal line within seconds of each other and manage some sort of landing along the red dirt landing strip. Try unzipping and getting the VG off at 20m, as you fly through a dust devil. Now that's multi-tasking!

Dustin tried to hold the same speed as us, and lost too much height, landing 200m short.

All was good in the end though, and within minutes we were all high five'n and hacking open watermelons with a machete. A lot of vitamin m in these parts too.

Guga took the day.

Volcano

North Launch

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Yeah so we have been launching from the rim of an ancient volcano. The centre of the volcano appears to be about 20km in diameter. The generally rising ground towards the rim produces complicated cloud development and wind patterns. The wind is generally 15km/h from some direction, and the opposite at cloudbase, and changes with the time of day, and the area.

I don't mean light and variable, I mean smoke flat on the ground from opposite directions within sight from cloudbase. I mean cloud shadows moving one direction and the smoke on the ground moving the other direction. It's crazy... for the last 2 days in a row we have begun our final glide with a 15km/h tailwind, and finished with the same but headwind!

I've given up trying to plan my legs because the conditions change too quickly. The convergence lines -there are numerous and they have different orientations- continually move or die and then regenerate. I just glide straight on course line and then make harsh detours once I'm closer.

The launch is technical too. The wind is all over the place and pilots are constantly changing their minds about which launch is best. There are actually 3 launches; if you choose the North or West launch, you have only 250m to play with to find lift. So on difficult days with a North wind, pilots often launch and then immediately try to fly around to the South side, through a dip in the ridge. Some make it, some don't.

The North launch faces into the volcano and the air tends to subside there, with development only along the fractured rim.

Yesterday, the 2 guys in front of me didn't make it, so they had to turn back into the high plateau, where you have much less time to find something, before having to land in the rolling hills, with less than optimum fields.

When my turn came, I took a few steps back, a deep breath, and gave her. In light air you need to launch efficiently to hold enough height to make it through the gully. Anyways, I made it. But by the time you get around to the South side, you've burned a third of your height. Kinda cool tho.

Super Race

Canadian Terrorist

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One final day of testflying and tuning before the 2-day State of Rio Championship, and conditions were perfect. The launch, Pico do Gavião (Hawk Peak), is the nicest launch in Brazil.

Speaking of hawks, one attacked me here. The weird thing was that it wasn't focused on my wing, but me! It kept trying to get around the wires, with its talons drawn. I shook my wing around and got the hell outta there.

The comp is called Super Race... don't ask me, I guess here that sounds cool.

Anyways, the interesting thing is that this comp uses an unusual scoring system that rewards the fast guys even more than GAP and is purely finish-order based. About 25% more points for the winner over second place for the day, regardless of time separation.

We only flew the first day, in unstable conditions that threatened to go nuclear. A 65km closed circuit with a 15-20km/h wind. The first bit was slow and trying to be too smart on the route choice, I was dropped by the lead gaggle. So, it was recovery time for the rest of the task.

The second half of the task was chosen well to take us back and forth along a convergence line, so the speeds were blistering. Came in above the lead gaggle at the second to last thermal, with a big smile on my face! It all came down to the final glide over the low hills. Final glide numbers weren't so useful because you had to clear the small mountains before reaching goal.

Moyes took the day, with Michel Louzada (Litespeed S4) being the most ballsy with the final glide. I came in third, a minute behind Michel, and 7s behind Max. Soon after, a gaggle came in together, amongst them the Niemeyer brothers on their Combats. Guga and Dustin came in later. Dustin used more aggressive numbers on final, expecting the tailwind would lift him over the last bumps as the he reached the upslopes... no dice. He was stuck in there with nasty landing options until he could pull himself up 50m.

We all hit the clubs that night. Heaps of fun, with a mix of eletrônica, MPB, and forró music. Someone dropped a pepper spray bomb... imagine 500 people with red eyes, tearing, coughing, and struggling to get out. But 30min later we were all back in there.

The forecast for the Brazilian Nationals is good.