Day 7: Thursday. The flying forecast was not brilliant, so we were expecting a short soaring day. However, by 11am the cumulus were popping up and it looked like good thermal weather so we rushed to get ready.
We all changed our minds about which way to go after instructor Bill Nixon alerted us to a thick band of cirrus to the west – that sort of high cloud usually prevents the sun from heating the ground enough to generate good thermals.
I had the Astir, Bill Nixon the DG303, Steve Bourke the Junior and Julian Holmes the DG1000. Jim Bannatyne was flying his own aircraft, an ASW20. We all planned the same route – just over 300 k Forbes – Tomingley West – Grenfell – Forbes.
I launched first and got off tow at 2000 ft above ground in a good thermal, climbed to 6000 feet and set off north. I struggled for a while down at 4000 feet near Parkes and saw a couple of the other gliders pass above and to the west of me heading north. There were nice fluffy cumulus clouds, but finding the lift under them was difficult and the lift was choppy. I wasted some time cruising up and down under one huge cloud that gave me nothing at all. But I made it past the old gold mining town of Peak Hill, around the hamlet of Tomingley West and set off southwards where conditions looked better.
I had my gliding computer (a hacked Navman GPS) set up with the correct turn points and it gave me a reassuring “bong” and a message whenever I correctly passed through the turnpoint sector.
The next leg was better, but was still difficult going until I was close to Forbes again. Then I locked into some booming thermals averaging climbs of 600 feet a minute and the day suddenly seemed a lot better. The forecast was wrong, this good weather was going to continue for hours, so I was able to race around Grenfell, catch another boomer thermal, and dash back to Forbes. I heard a couple of the others making radio calls at Forbes, so they’d obviously beaten me around the course, but I was just pleased to make it back. I made extra sure I went through the correct finish turnpoint, then I landed at 5.33 pm after a flight of five hours five minutes.
Hurrah! A gold and diamond badge. But then I checked the special flight recorder and there was no little green flashing light. Subsequent examination showed it had failed somehow after recording only 33 minutes of the flight. Many swearwords, eyes rolling anguish. Very frustrating indeed. My gliding computer had logged the whole flight in the same format, but that is not acceptable for badge claims.
Poor Julian had a similar problem. He had declared Tomingley West in the flight recorder but actually rounded Tomingley. Damn!
But it was a great day’s flying. We’d all had a lot of fun and swapped stories of our thermal hunting experiences in the pub afterwards.
Steve especially did a good job, flying the route quickly in the lowest performance glider.
Day 8: Friday. Rain. We drove to Parkes to look at the big radio telescope. I’ve seen it before, but it was still fun.
