|
Florida Flying
By Jim Yocom
Florida has become one of the Meccas of hang gliding. Ten years ago places like Florida and Texas were hang gliding wastelands. The advent of aerotowing has changed all that! The Wallaby Nationals suffered from some inclement weather, scoring problems and mis-called tasks. You can read a day by day account of the competition on-line in Davis Straub's Oz Report at http://www.davisstraub.com/OZ/.
I tent camped at Wallaby and had a wonderful time! With showers and cool nights, I could not have been more comfortable. Wallaby's resident chef, Jeremy, was up to his usual high standards when preparing meals for some 100 competitors and probably another 100 support persons. Every day featured kegs and popcorn under the Red Bull tent, where pilots could re-live their daily flights. I even tried Red Bull, two cans in one day! I know now why my head felt like it was spinning! Malcom Jones has purchased additional property, cleared and seeded new areas, effectively doubling the area for launching. And oh did we launch! We regularly launched 100 pilots in about an hour! This is so nice at a competition, because pilots regularly jostle for launch position so they won't be the last one in the air. There were no such worries at Wallaby!
The Wallaby Meet has become very popular with pilots from around the world. With camping, meals, showers, and beer all available right at Wallaby, they really do not need to worry about much. Many of the tasks are out and returns or triangles, so retrievals are easy. This year, the start circle for flex wings was a 5 mile radius from Wallaby, while the rigid circle was 3 miles. You
|
|
