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Day 11 and .. 1 Record and 2 Personal Bests |
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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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