Great tale Robert, regards to Alice. Rolf VH-WQF
>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >To: CGC List <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED], >[EMAIL PROTECTED] >Subject: [aus-soaring] Travels with Alice >Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 12:03:06 +1000 (EST) > >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. > _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com -- * 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.
