I have always had a fascination with flight, having built and flown model aircraft for many of my younger years. I did at one point during my secondary education; aspire to pursue a career in aeronautical engineering; however this was not to be.

My story begins with afternoon tea on the back verandah at our property ‘Condarra’ in the Samaria Valley, 25km south of Benalla. Our mail usually arrived mid-afternoon, and on Wednesdays the delivery also included the Weekly Times and the Benalla Ensign. This particular Wednesday afternoon, in late October 2012, we opened the Benalla Ensign to the headline, ’Benalla Rejects the Bald Archy’. Both my wife and I looked at each other and then contacted some key people including local decision makes and the Director of the Bald Archy Prize, Mr. Peter Batey. The background to the story was that the exhibition had been offered to Benalla exhibition fee free, as Peter Batey had his early education in Benalla. The key factor was that the Benalla Art Gallery had already committed to exhibitions for 2013.

In an effort to retain the exhibition within Benalla Rural City, key Swanpool people were contacted, included some committee members of the Swanpool Community Cinema, which would be in recess during July and August 2013. A general consensus on lodging an ‘expression of interest’ was achieved and a meeting was held with Peter Batey at the Swanpool Memorial Hall in November 2012. He did express some concern about the lack of hanging space and exhibition lighting, however he was assured that all would be in order, if we were to be awarded dates for 2013 which coincided with the cinema winter break. Two weeks later we received confirmation that we would have sixteen days in the July/August period.

Next came to process of recruiting volunteers, researching the lighting and securing additional wall space. The recruitment of the volunteers entailed visiting with representatives of all seventeen community groups, including our three local fire brigades. Whilst some community members thought that we were ‘off with the fairies’, there were 66 members who stepped up to support the concept.

The event ran for sixteen days from 10th to 25th August and attracted a crowd of 3,378 over the sixteen days, a record for the Bald Archy Prize exhibition.  At the end of the exhibition a function was held to thank those volunteers who had supported the event, and over $22,000 was distributed to their nominated local community groups.

Given the enthusiasm and commitment of the Swanpool and district community members, an extraordinary result was achieved, and the members were left in no doubt that for a combined effort of a positive and enthusiastic group of people, ‘The Sky is the Limit’.
​

Barry O’Connor,
23rd October 2022.

High above in the bright blue sky a glider drifts on thermals of warm air. Hovering like a giant eagle with wings outspread it seems almost motionless.

The sun beats down on the Benalla airport. Overhead I hear a long drawn out "Swish-sh" as the glider descends and makes a swift but perfect landing on the grassy swathe.
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"I will never fly again, never!"  Or so I vowed years ago, after an attempted night's sleep on a flight to England. Amongst the sleeping bodies in 'cattle class,' I sneaked my window shade up and looked out. There against the curve of the Earth, I saw the Earth's shadow. A band of a deep blue grey topped by 'The belt of Venus', a dusky pink band blending to a bright apricot that heralded the dawn. The distinctive upward angle of the tip of the Qantas planes wing was darkly etched against the pink strip and I was forever hooked; hooked on flying, hooked on astronomy and on all things natural on this planet and beyond.

A cool breeze eddies around the astronomy pad at Winton Wetlands. The distant hills and mountains recede into the gathering dusk. As night falls a myriad of jubilant frogs raise their voice in ecstasy of the waters of the newly filled lake.

Overhead we view the wonders of the night sky. Planets Jupiter and Mars; star clusters, the red star Antares in the constellation of Scorpius and the rings of the planet Saturn. We view galaxies so far away that through the eyepiece of a powerful telescope they are but a mere smudge.

One freezing cold night on the deck of a small Russian ship in the Greenland Sea, I asked our guide to show me the Pole Star. This central star indicates north, around which all other stars appear to revolve on their nightly journey.

Long ago when the great navigators steered their ships by the stars, the early explorers sailed into the unknown seas of the Southern Hemisphere. Far away from land and beneath unfamiliar stars it was a whole new ball game!

The poet John Mansfield wrote:

I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky. 
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by.   

In his book “Carrying the Fire,’ Michael Collins, the pilot of the command module for the Apollo 11 space program, wrote of taking a fix on the star Capella to check his position when he was orbiting the Moon.
 
In 2011 an Atlas rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral, California. Its very special payload was a NASA space craft named Juno after the mythical Roman goddess, wife of Jupiter the chief Roman god.
 
About nine hundred people built the space craft and launched it. It took approximately another three hundred people to care for it on its 2.8 billion kilometre journey to the planet Jupiter.
 
The Juno project hopes to uncover the secrets of the early solar system. It’s thought that Jupiter may have been the first planet formed and thus influenced the formation of the other planets.
 
Juno spent two years circling Earth before getting a sling from Earth's gravitational field to increase its speed. Arriving at the giant gas planet on time after a five year journey, the burners fired to slow the spacecraft and place it into orbit, as programmed. It was one second late!

On board are three specially constructed LEGO mini figures; Jupiter holding a lightning bolt, his wife Juno, holding a magnifying glass to search for truth and astronomer Galileo Galilei holding a telescope. It’s hoped that the inclusion of these LEGO figures will increase children’s awareness of the space program.
 
Will our quest for adventure and knowledge someday take us far away from our home here on Earth, using the old practise of navigating by the stars with the Earth as a reference point?
 
In a musty old autograph book, I found an inscription scrawled in ancient handwriting "Two men looked out from prison bars, one saw the dust and the other saw stars." 
 
Man is an explorer, forever pushing the boundaries and seeking new horizons.
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In everything we do may we always have the far sight and cooperation to work together and plan for the future and a very bright star to steer by.
 
 
Beverley Morton  

​Those of us who were fortunate enough to sometimes travel to work by plane will remember the most memorable of these flights.   This was mine.
 
I had been working with some woolgrower clients endeavouring to improve their flock.  We had been keeping our eyes out for some fine wool merino ewes.  The clients had been scanning the rural newspapers Stock and Land, Queensland Country Life and finally found exactly what we had been looking for – 800 Egelabra ewes one and a half years old for account Elders Narromine, the breeder. 
 
What a find.
 
I rang the agent at Dubbo/Narromine (400 kilometres away) and spoke to the Elders Mansfield agent Rob.  Everything appeared to be in place for the four of us to inspect the sheep with a view to purchase.  
 
Due to the distance, Rob suggested that we should go by a small plane.  I had a friend I had taught wool classing years ago, Gavan.  An experienced pilot, Gavan assured us that we would be home by 4 pm in the afternoon. 
 
We set off for Dubbo and were over Finley in New South Wales when there was a huge bang. 
 
Gavan assured me that it was only the side window. 
 
The side window?  Half of the side of the plane appeared to be missing!
 
We travelled along with a gaping hole in the side of the plane.  As we landed at Dubbo there were planes of all types.  An agricultural plane with the side missing did not look out of place among planes used for doing agricultural work.
 
I chased up the Elders Agent so we could ascertain whether the sheep were suitable, only to find that the Engelabras were not to be seen.  In fact, I was told that the property was inundated after recent rain… ‘But, don’t worry mate, there are plenty of sheep to choose from’.   Not the specific ones I wanted!
 
There were no suitable sheep, half the plane was missing and it was coming on to rain – heavy rain at that.  The cloud was very low, so much so that one couldn’t see the ground. 
 
We managed to take-off and headed for home.  We experienced another frightening wind gust, only to find the map we were steering the plane had been sucked out of the space that had been the window! 
 
We guided the plane home, flying above tree height to keep contact with the ground and watching out for land marks.
 
Yes, we got home.  No sheep, but a day to remember!
 
What a day.
 
 
Godfrey Marple
November 2016

​Journalist David titled his entry to the Benalla Festival's 'The Sky's the Limit' writing competion in 2016 -

 ‘World’s best gliders seek soaring supremacy in Benalla’  
  
The exhilaration eagles and dolphins display, while surfing winds and waves for pleasure, have fascinated us for ever.
 
Palaeontologists believe pterodactyls with wingspans up to 7m, probably surfed waves of wind formed against mountain ranges millions of years ago. In comparison, humans have only fine tuned surf boards and gliders to roughly eagle and dolphin standards, in the last 50 or 60 years.
 
But you could say humans and wildlife now equally enjoy both types of waves together.
 
Terry Dillon of Benalla, Victoria, encountered that close connection when he was gliding near Bacchus Marsh, west of Melbourne. Initially he became alarmed when a wedge tailed eagle flew straight at him.
 
But it veered away at the last second and disappeared for a few minutes.
 
Then it reappeared to fly in formation just off his wing tip, clearly surfing the air waves the glider's wing generated, much as dolphins surf bow waves generated by ships.
 
Eagles can be aggressive in spring when young are hatching; just this year a 6kg Western Australian wedge tailed eagle smashed the Perspex of a glider’s cockpit in an attack.  Fortunately the pilot was able to eject it quickly before it injured him and he later landed safely.
 
Dell McCann, also from Benalla, farmed on the Delatite River east of Mansfield until early 2016. A couple of summers ago she was delighted to see eight eagles spiralling upwards in just one thermal.
 
Then the next thermal moved down the valley – they start forming in the Victorian Alps near Mount Buller then move west – and there were four more eagles climbing effortlessly at maybe 300m per minute in that one too.
 
The eagles must have come a long way to enjoy the thermals because she only knew of one pair nesting nearby.
 
In Benalla in January 2017, about 180 pilots from 29 countries will be flying some of the most advanced gliders, worth up to around $500,000, to compete in the world gliding championships held every four years. Quite possibly they will be encountering eagles as well.
 
It is not by chance that Benalla was chosen for the championships because the area has some of the best gliding conditions in the world.
 
Certainly there will be talk of “thermalling gaggles,” as pilots manoeuvre under cloud bases where the best lift is usually found, to avoid fellow competitors and gain the height they need to travel to the next thermal on their cross country races.
 
In the 1930s gliders lost one metre of height for every 15m they moved towards their destination in still air; current gliders have more than tripled that efficiency to achieve a 50 to one glide ratio.
 
Airliners surprisingly achieve 15 to 20 to one glide ratios if engines fail. That means that from a normal 35,000ft (10,700m) cruising level, a powerless airliner could travel up to 182km depending on destination ground level.
 
The glider altitude record was set at 15,445m in Argentina putting it well above airliners.
While gliders have been equipped with compasses, air speed indicators, altimeters and variometers for decades, the latter a device to indicate when air is rising or sinking, now colour LCD displays of varying sizes also provide information about what the air is doing as well as fronting multi channel GPS receivers for precise navigation.
 
An ever present question pilots ask on a cross country race is, am I high enough and particularly, am I high enough to reach the finish point, without chasing more thermals?
But ultimately the best glider pilots feel their aeroplane performs as an extension of their arms and legs; that skill commonly enables them to fly at up to 300km/hr over 1000km or more.
 
Last summer Tim Shirley, who retired to Benalla to pursue gliding to his heart’s content, flew from Benalla to Temora and then Hay in New South Wales, before returning on the final leg of his triangular course to Benalla.
 
That 750 km trip took him about seven hours as he side tracked to take advantage of thermals along the way.
 
But once he reached Yarrawonga on his return trip at 6000ft (1830m), he knew he had enough height to reach Benalla nearly 70km away, without seeking more thermals.
 


​David Palmer
October 2016