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Written by Greg
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Thursday, 13 December 2007 |
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On Tuesday 11th December at 2:30pm Ewa Wisnierska was interviewed on the Lisa Chiat show on CapeTalk radio. This was a full-length studio interview. |
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Written by Greg
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Friday, 07 December 2007 |
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The thunderstorm we had in De Aar a few days ago ripped out the telephone lines to our guesthouse, and ever since then the internet access has been a sporadic affair using borrowed cellphones using 3G .. which yields very poor connection. My apologies for the lack of news from the front - more photos will be coming soon. After waiting for Telkom to repair the line, they came back to us this morning with the most worrying excuse I've ever heard "Aish. We have no cables. We cannot repair your line because we have no stock of the cables. This is because .. ahh .. they steal the cables. We must order in new cables from overseas." What? How's that for corporate planning. You're a phone company and you don't have stock of telephone line? After hunting around in De Aar, and going from the computer shop .. No, sorry, you want the internet? No, we don't have it. Try the post office .... Yes, we had internet, but the machine is out of order ... try Henk Smith behind the church .. no he doesn't have a sign on the wall, it's his house but they have a hair salon there too ... But Henk DOES have internet, wireless internet, so we're back in action in the media office. But now the phone just rang, the sky is looking epic, and I must go off to fly. We'll try for a 150km FAI triangle today, since the wind is all over the place. Adios. |
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Written by Greg
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Friday, 07 December 2007 |
Jeff Ayliff interviewed Ewa today for the Outdoor Report on Cape Talk radio (567 kHz MW). This was aired at 8:40am on Friday 7th December. There is a possibility that Ewa will do a further studio interview next week.
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Written by Greg
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Friday, 07 December 2007 |
Nevil still owes me a beer. Apart from losing his bet with me (a pilot on an intermediate glider), he got outflown by a girl! So he was wound up and ready to go faaaar. Before I'd even had my first cup of coffee Nev was angling for the runway. "Can we go now?" So I towed him into the sky while everyone else was standing around, and he worked slowly away downwind. The climbs were slow and only to 1000m above the ground, but he managed to get 27km out of it before landing.
Then a very unstable airmass came moving in from the NE. Deeper into the airmass we could see the first signs of thunderstorms. But it was strangely difficult to get away from the airfield, despite the clouds building overhead. By the time the pilots start to get away, the clouds are building too fast for comfort. There are stalks poking out of most of the cumulus clouds, and the clouds are mostly taller than they are wide. The wind is converging near us, the clouds are drifting in all different kinds of directions. And to the NE, a big thunderstorm cell was looming. After our experience with the gust front a few days ago, none of us were keen to push our luck. The pilots come back to land before things get hectic. The last pilot down has to spiral and use wingovers to lose altitude, and when he levels out at 100m he is going up again.
Surprisingly the sky doesn't overdevelop as badly as we expect, but it's still a bit more active than we would have liked. It might have been possible to sneak away to the south riding ahead of the most unstable air and dodging storm cells, but is it worth it?
The Swiss team have a similar short day, with a 40km out and return flight. |
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Written by Greg
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Friday, 07 December 2007 |
The weather forecasts weren't great. We would have moderate W winds, climbs to 14000ft from 11am and with a strong Southerly coming through at 4pm killing the day off. It looked possible to fly 200km if we were quick. I offered to tow the pilots, but nobody wanted to fly so early, so I kitted up and got a tow from Des.
Beep, beep, beep. 1m/s for a while, 2m/s for a while longer. Eventually I'm at 3000m near the airfield at 11am. Wow! This day might work after all. I cruise off on our declared goal route, towards Colesburg and Aliwal North. My groundspeed drops from 50 to 40 to 20. Headwind. Damn.
I change course and skud down the railway line. Lower, lower, and desperate. A small rowdy thermal gives me a hard time of it, but I get up slowly. I have another low save soon afterwards. I probably left the airfield 30minutes too early, but I manage to save myself and then Ewa and Martin join me and things improve.
Of course the wind never follows the roads. So we took some gambles across moon country, but it was never intimidating - there are always roads within walking distance in this area. There are small clouds occasionally at 5000m ASL, the basewind is around 30km/h, and things look good.
Ewa goes through the 200km mark just before me. Our personal bests again! We cruise on, flying fast at times, slowing down when the cirrus clouds cast shade over large areas of the course. Then Ewa passes 222km, the German record. We start to think that 300 might even be possible on this surprising day.
The wind starts to push through from the SW beneath me, streaking the dams with chop and catspaws. Ahead, a line of low clouds marches towards us from the SE .. the dreaded seabreeze. This 'breeze'can often be 50km/h, which can really ruin your day when you suddenly have to land in the leeside of a mountain which you thought you'd fly over easily. I sit up straight in my harness, and the tension starts to wind up. I think I can just beat the seabreeze front and get to the Jamestown road, then I could ride the front N. It won't add any straight line distance to my flight, since it's on an arc from De Aar, but it would be nice to get 300km via turnpoints. But just as the road is in sight, the thermal I'm in goes mental. 5,6,7,8,9 m/s. Flying in a straight line. Above me an ugly dark cloud is bulging out, I can't see above the base to judge if it's a thunderstorm. It looks scary, with a rumpled base. And there are odd little shreds of clouds forming quickly beneath my feet.
I considered just riding it out on full speedbar, heading NE towards the clear air, but the air was wild, and I knew that there was an airspace restriction at 4200m ASL which I would surely be lifted through.
Big ears in, speedbar on, weight-shift into a spiral dive. I get 8m/s descent, which is enough. When I exit the spiral I'm going backwards. I run with the new wind direction back the way I came, in the hope of finding weaker wind for landing. There are big hills downwind of me now, and the valley narrows into a neck. I spiral down some more to land before the constriction which will increase the wind speed. The poplar trees are bending in the wind, the grasses are waving. But close to the ground the wind is only 35km/h and I have a tiptoe landing with no fuss at all.
Ewa has a bit more of an excitement on landing, going slightly backwards on speedbar on her Stratus7, and dropping the wing over a fence. Thankfully the fence holds the glider and she's down and safe, somewhere in the back country with no real idea where she is. Because she's flown so well, karma works in her favour and there is a friendly local who loads her into his car at once and takes her to Aliwal North. He had to move the two bags of dead pig from the front seat to make space for her, but Ewa was so grateful for the ride she didn't care.
Thanks to Geoff our retrieve driver and Nevil, we are in the car by sunset, and the long drive home begins. Despite being a route on reasonable tarred roads driving in a BMW X3 at speed, we get home after 1am. Almost 1000km of retrieve driving this day, because the main roads didn't follow the course line. |
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