Acting on a fantastic weather forecast, me and a bunch of Christchurch regulars headed into the Craigieburn's one recent Saturday morning... It turned out to be blue and quite stable but after a 50 minute uphill walk to the launch, frankly, who cares if its light just as long as you don't have to walk back down again.
I pulled my crisp new Ozone Octane out of its bag. Only having a handful of flights on it so far I am quietly glad that the conditions are not overly strong. After meticulously laying out my lines in a well ordered manner a dust devil proceeds to wander through the take off area picking up gliders and knotting them one by one. Nice one.
Craig takes off and, to my surprise, goes up with little trouble. Once airborne I sift around the take off area, going up and down like a seesaw. Several passes and one nice asymmetric collapse later and I'm in a nice thermal making my way away from helicopter hill. With a bit of height I head for Tims' Knob where Craig, Jill and Rod are hanging out.
As Craig and Rod make their way south I follow with the hope of clocking up a few kms. Before long I join Rod scratching above a scree slope a couple of hundred meters above the tree line. After several painful minutes of scratching we finally manage to climb out on a gentle thermal. Heading south once again I strike the same problem in the next valley only this time I am alone. While I'm scratching Craig comes over the radio and says he's thinking of top landing to have a break and wait for the valley to heat up a little more. I think this is a good idea although my main focus is on thawing out my numb and now lifeless fingers.
Top landing in unusual places is something I will now keep in mind as a very cool thing. It is difficult to describe the feeling of having flown to a totally new place that is so isolated it's almost like walking on the moon. After having something to eat and drink some colour returns to my fingers. The thermals don't seem to be any stronger though. I relaunch and find my self scratching again. Now too low to glide to the road due to the kilometers of forest in front of me I am forced to land above the tree line in the valley before the ski field. Bummer.
With so much prickly vegetation around I have never had so much trouble packing away a paraglider. Once packed up I walk towards the road. I call Steve Platt on the radio to let him know I'll be a couple of hours. He kindly offers to wait for me to walk out and pick me up on the road. (Thanks again Steve). Craig tells me my best walking route is towards bridge hill where there is a walking track.
After nearly 2 hours of bush bashing and several river crossings I discover a walking track and decide to follow it. My first encounter with civilisation was a large shaggy dog followed by a family with screaming kids. I don't think I've ever been so glad to make human contact before even if they did think I was a hot air balloonist! Now knowing where I am, I manage to get a ride to the campsite at the bottom of helicopter hill. Two and a half hours after landing I meet up with Steve and we head back to Christchurch with a story of an average flight and an epic walk.
Hiya folks. Things have been a little quite on the club front, but there has been plenty of flying to be had over the summer and autumn. Many kiwis gained loads of airtime enjoying a successful trip to the Australian PG Open at Manilla. There have been many trips into the Craigieburn mountains (see Tony's article), and the flying at Taylors' has been 'on' pretty consistently, especially in the settled autumn weather.
At the time of writing a few of our members are at large; Ross and Janet are midway through their 6 month Aussie experience and Nigel and Desiree are on a winter sojourn in Europe.
In June of this year the 2nd World Air Games (WAG) will take place in Andalusia, Spain.
New Zealand is entering a team of 4 pilots (Angus Tapper - Queenstown, Russell Read - Te Kuiti, Grant Middendorf - Auckland, and myself) in the Paragliding section. I'm not sure if the HG's are sending a team (they were not represented at the 1st World Air Games in Turkey, 1997). The paragliding competition begins on 18 June and the results will be posted daily on the web site above. Stay tuned.
Finally, New Zealand is to hold its first paragliding aerobatics competition/ display in Queenstown on Sat 14th of April (over Easter). The event is held over water with landings on the shore of Lake Wakatipu. See you there!
Knees in the breeze!We assume that our thirst mechanism will protect us from dehydration. That if we become dehydrated, it will tell us by triggering intense thirst until we are properly hydrated. But this isn't always the case. It is possible to lose fluid so quickly that the normal thirst mechanism is overwhelmed or overridden.
The sources of fluid loss are respiration, perspiration, urination and defecation. The rate of loss from each of these will vary according to activity levels, air temperature, humidity and altitude.
RESPIRATION: With normal daily activities we lose approximately one to two liters of water via evaporation from the lungs. As we breathe, the air that we inhale is "conditioned"-- it is warmed to 98.6F and humidified to 100% humidity. This warm, moist air is then exhaled and the cycle starts over again. The combination of extreme cold temperatures and altitude can dramatically increase the rate of water loss through the lungs -- up to one cup per hour, or six liters in 24 hours.
PERSPIRATION: With normal daily activities we do not sweat very hard so loss is minimal -- about one to two liters per day. But with exertion in hot, dry weather, loss through sweating can become extreme. During heavy exertion, we can lose one to three liters of water per hour, which can easily amount to 8-10 liters of fluid over an afternoon of exercise.
URINATION: One to two liters of fluid are lost daily via urination -- a natural clearing of waste products from the blood. The amount of urine produced will increase with overhydration and decrease with dehydration.
Through the activities of daily living, the average day's loss of fluid is four liters, which is generally replaced by the fluid we drink and the food we eat. But the amount of fluid required can be significantly increased by exercise, sweating, diarrhea, temperature or altitude. The most common cause of increased fluid loss is exercise and sweating.
The effects of even mild dehydration are decreased coordination, fatigue, and impairment of judgment.
However, this condition can often be treated rapidly with an electrolyte solution consisting of one teaspoon of salt (sodium chloride) dissolved in a liter of water, which should be slowly sipped over a period of 60 minutes. Add a tablespoon of sugar or a sweet drink powder to replenish energy stores and to aid the absorption of sodium.
Courtesy Patterson Stark DC
This is the fluid replacement I recommend as opposed to the commercial drinks, which cost heaps and can sucker your glucose levels away from muscle to the gut to get out all that supper nutrition! This will have to be modified to suit each individual. If a small knot in the stomach occurs, cut the molasses. In long events, one liter of the Stark Fluid then one liter of water. After that, about three hours, its time for some food.
To one liter of water add:
2gms of Ribose (from health shop) (20gm for recovery, watch for loose stools and reduce)*Shake well and never let stand for more than a few hours (refrigerate for storage), other wise it will go off (ferment!), This is food and as good an energy/stamina drink as I can think of.