Oz Report

New Ozzie Hang Gliding Distance Record

Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|Jon Durand jnr|Judy Durand|PG|record|Vicki Cain|weather

Vicki Cain «vicki» writes:

Jonny Durand flew a new Australian record yesterday.  He took off from Beechmont yesterday morning at about 8 am and landed in Roma to the North West at 6.15 pm. A total of 443 kms.

The previous record is held by Drew Cooper for 427 kms.

I just tried to call Jonny to get more details but his mum said he ran out this morning to try to borrow a paraglider to break the paragliding record!

Judy Durand «durand» writes:

It was the morning of October 31^st. Jon and Jonny Durand woke up to find ideal weather conditions for a great flying day.  I ( mother and wife) offered to drive as we recently acquired a new retrieval vehicle and it needed a test run.

Young Jonny left the house early excited with the day's possibilities.  When Jon and I arrived at launch, just after 8:00 am the hill was already buzzing with pilots.  Jonny called Roma as his goal and then ran off the hill just before 8:30 am. Jon didn't get off the hill till 9:30 am, and I hopped in the truck soon after.

I caught up to Jon Snr just before Toowoomba where he landed, 140 k's from take off.  He then joined me in the chase.  We caught up to Jonny at about 400 k's out.

Jonny's flight had taken him from the rainforests of Lamington National Park, over the expanse of the Great Dividing Range and now onto the flatlands of the Darling Downs.T he day was slowing down and he was low.  We were not sure if he would break the record or not.  Then he was joined by two eagles.  I knew this was the sign and we continued to drive to the 427k mark, which was the old Australian Distance record.  (This record was set by Drew Cooper about 10 years ago, when he towed up out in Wilcania, NSW.)

Meanwhile about 20 k's up the road young Kurt, Shelley and Jane were having an average day on their cattle property.  Nothing much exciting had happened.  Their Mum and Dad just asked them to take the quad bike down to the dam to turn the pump on before dinner.

Jonny had now flown past the old record and was looking for a good paddock to land in near the road.  The sun was about to set and he was tired, he had been flying for nearly 10 hours.  "I've found a good paddock just up the road at about 440k mark" came Jonny's voice over the radio.  We drove up the road a ways.  "No, just another few k's on the right, there is a road going into a large property", said Jonny.

So we pulled the truck in and watched Jonny do a victory loop and then come into land next to us. "Wow, did you see that" Kurt, Shelley and Jane saw Jonny coming into land on their property.  They took off on their quad to see if he was ok. Mum, Dad, the family dog, hugs, congratulations, food and water awaited Jonny when he landed.

He had flown for 443 k's landing just 30 k's short of Roma.  Not long after he touched down the three kids pulled up on their quad bike.  Their day just became a lot more interesting when they found out that Jonny had just set a new record and landed his glider on their property.

Then their Dad, another John arrived in his truck and later their Mum, Trish rode her bike over to find out what was happening.  We all talked and watched the sun set together.  Now it was time for the long drive home.  We watched the nearly full moon rise and it was orange.  It looked like a huge pumpkin lighting up Halloween night.  We arrived home 12:40am Monday morning, 15 hours after my drive started.

(editor's note: Johyn Snr owns the Beechmont launch.  Snr and Jnr have tried to beat this record for a number of years.  Drew Cooper lives down the street, but hasn't flown regularly in quite a few years.  It's 275 miles.)

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USHGA SOP's

Bill Bryden|USHGA

Bill Bryden «bbryden» writes:

I have a reasonable memory of most of the decisions the BOD has made.  But for the life of me, I fail to understand or recall why all the confidentiality over our SOP policy manual.

Steve Roti writes:

As a former regional director I'm with Bill on this.  As soon as you tell me to make the policy manual available on the Web site I'll be happy to do so. The only argument I can think of against making it all available today is that a few of the SOP's in the Policy Manual are outdated and we want to avoid putting outdated information on the Web site.

Mark G. Forbes «mgforbes» writes:

I'm in agreement with Steve and Bill.  So far as making the policy manual public.  We should go through it to make sure we don't have something in there that's misleading or outright wrong, but I really don't think we have anything to hide.

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Street Atlas on your hard disk

Williams, Deane G HS «deane.williams» writes:

On the older versions of Street Atlas all you have to do is

1. Copy the entire contents of the map data CD to a folder on the hard drive.

2. Start the program without the data CD in the drive.

3. A box comes up that says "Please insert the disc.  OK or Cancel

4. If you choose Cancel, it asks you where you want to load from.

5. Type in the address of the folder you made in step 1 and from then on the program reads the maps off the hard drive.  Much faster too.

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John Moody

John Moody

News here and here.

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Israel

Valenci, Moshe «moshe.valenci» writes:

It is with great sadness we’d like to inform you that Yossi and Yaron Levin, 1^st and 2^nd generation hang gliding pilots in our little hang gliding community (father and son), lost their wife and mother Lea Levin in the vicious terrorist attack which took place yesterday in Israel, Tel-Aviv.

In these sad moments we’d like to extend our deepest sympathy to the family who has suffered such a tragic loss.

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Mostly for our European friends

video

http://www.gnn.tv/content/emosh_hi.html

See the video of Eminem's Mosh, an anti-Bush screed.

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Photo/Caption contest

Peter Loeskow|photo

Peter Loeskow «peter_loeskow» sends this shot

Discuss photos at the Oz Report forum

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