[aus-soaring] BORING @ NQSC

[David Olsen]

NQSC members have had a quiet few weeks after Easter. The winch did not do the trip very easily, blowing 6 tyres. After some serious cutting and shutting, we now have a much lighter winch with a much lower centre of gravity.   Today (Monday) we had three aircraft flying, a Blanik, my Arrow and a Libelle. Conditions were good for our site, with cloud base at 4500 ft and thermals at 5 to 6 kts above 2400 ft, but weaker and broken below that altitude. Several longs streets formed during the day, and I used one to fly 6 kilometres at >60 kts in the Arrow, gaining 400 feet in the process getting as close to cloud base as allowed.   Later in the flight I got as low as 1700 feet over the township of Brandon, worked hard to make use of a 1 knotter, before eventually seeing it build to 6 knots above 2400 ft. It was at this time that I noticed a cloud forming below me, and about 2000 feet below the cloud I was thermalling under. The cloud was thin and wispy, growing rapidly in the vertical dimension but not widening, pretty soon it was about one thousand feet high and about 200 feet around but very wispy like a smokey willy-willy. I continued thermalling but dodged that cloud. Pretty soon, other wisps started to form below and around me, so I got out of there and headed north west towards a Cb. The Cb worked well but pretty soon started to look like raining so I headed home, finishing my flight with a couple of Chandels (spelling?).   The Libelle managed a good flight as well, heading towards the coast.   Every time I fly, I think of how glad I am that I bought GNK. She may not be high performance, but she sure is high enjoyment.   Happy Flying all!   David Olsen