Lovely story, Robert.
We southerners just have to keep dreaming of summer! Peter Henderson ----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: CGC List <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, July 16, 2002 12:03 PM Subject: [aus-soaring] Travels with Alice > Hi > > On Saturday , Alice in Wonderland and I (along with 10 other gliders > from Darling Downs Soaring Club) worked our way around a 200km course > - DDSC, Warra,Jandowae N, DDSC). > > Unlike most of the others (the Pooch outlanded and the Hornet turned > back), I found this quite hard work but very rewarding. The day was blue > with a light northerly wind, but despite this there was lift around. > Alice's GPS marked us a useful thermal during the launch. On release, we > headed back and found it easily as there was so little drift in thelight > wind...we were on our way up. Once everyone else (we were second to > launch) had launched and climbed out we set off on task. > > About half way along the first leg I made the terrible mistake of not > taking a great thermal, simply because I could see the some of the other > gliders ahead of me. Alice leapt at the thought of climbing but stupid > me had 'press on itis'! As a result of this and having to take a > substantially poorer thermal not long after (sorry Alice) I put us at > 1700' AGL about 70km from home by direct line and much further on task > as we still had to round Jandowae North! > > I had a field picked and circuit planned; mind you, calling something > about the size of an English county a field seems rather inadequate! > In a last ditch effort to stay aloft, Alice and I were trying Bert > Person's advice to search for lift along the downwind edge of an area > of trees - and Alice first found and then slowly (oh so slowly) guided > us up to where we could go looking for something better. The radio > suggested we might 'cut the corner' and head home, but Alice quietly > assured me that she didn't mind if we ended up in a field, even that was > all part of the fun - so we headed for Jandowae N. > > We eventually scraped around that last turn point, listening to everyone > else calling their final glide and set off on track for home - nearly > 90km to go and we were already sinking through 3000' agl. We were very > much alone, but in air turning to golden haze beneath a brilliant blue > dome as the afternoon shadows lengthened below. It was definitely time > to dredge up more thermal finding advice as we headed towards the next > potential outlanding 'county'. > > Flying along the west side of some foothills of the Bunya Mts, gently > warmed by the westering sun, turned up a good climb - but at the top we > were still 2000' short of final glide. At about 40km out we found > another good thermal. As we were most definitely last, Alice suggested > we just enjoy it and fly to the top - so we did, arriving home at over > 3000' agl having flown through heaps more lift. There's an interesting > gliding corollary to Murphy's law - there is always lift around once you > have final glide! > > For the last 10km we zoomed along with full negative flap at > 100kts and even then we flew through a large patch of lift that had us > climb at 1kt on the averager for a while. > > We landed after just over 4 hours in the air - at an average speed of > nearly 60km/hr on task...sorry Alice, that's hardly what you are really > capable of, but I'm still learning how to do this. I'll do better next > time, I will...I am learning, I really am! > > -- > Robert Hart [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Strategic IT & open source consulting +61 (0)438 385 533 > Brisbane, Australia http://www.interweft.com.au > > > -- > * You are subscribed to the aus-soaring mailing list. > * To Unsubscribe: send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > * with "unsubscribe aus-soaring" in the body of the message > * or with "help" in the body of the message for more information. > -- * You are subscribed to the aus-soaring mailing list. * To Unsubscribe: send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] * with "unsubscribe aus-soaring" in the body of the message * or with "help" in the body of the message for more information.
