Johnblog

Pilot’s view towards the Blue Mountains at 4,400 feet.

It was a lovely gliding day yesterday with some puffy cumulus clouds up at 5,000 feet and plenty of strong lift. I broke my PB with a flight of 2 hours 34 minutes. It was a very enjoyable experience, but a bit tiring having to concentrate for that amount of time.

There’s lots of circling involved to stay in the thermals, then once I reach 4,500 feet I head off to a different patch.

I can’t go above that height near Camden because that is “controlled airspace” up there and you have to have a transponder and a flight plan and talk to the air traffic controllers which is all a bit complex and boring.

So I explored westward almost as far as The Oaks, and eastwards to the main Sydney-Canberra freeway, the Hume Highway.

Circling in a thermal.

Above is a picture out of the front looking towards the Blue Mountains.

All this gliding is making my knees browner.

The gliding is moving along nicely. I now have my ‘B’ certificate (which doesn’t mean a lot), and I’m almost at my ‘C’, which means I can go cross-country.

My check flight for the ‘B’ involved flying the glider with the airspeed and altitude dials covered up to make sure I could rely on my own judgment rather than staring at the instruments.

In the Junior over Camden on a blue day.

It wasn’t too difficult until I entered the circuit at what I thought was about the right height (which it was). Then the instructor opened the airbrakes on the downwind leg to make the glider lose height and I thought: “Oh, I must be a bit high and he’s helping me.”

Silly me! He was simulating flying through sinking air and kept the brakes out until we were too low for a normal circuit. Once I twigged what was happening, I turned in towards the grass runway early before we ran out of height, and we landed in the middle of the strip. That was just the right thing to do so I passed that test ok.

Then I flew the single-seat Junior and stayed up for two hours and 12 minutes, a personal best. There was still lots of lift around under lovely puffy cumulus clouds, but I came down because my bum was getting a bit numb!

Yesterday wasn’t a good soaring day, 30 degrees, blue skies,but no thermals – still a very pleasant way to fly.

It’s been raining heaps in Sydney, but we had a lovely break in the weather on Wednesday which brought brilliant gliding conditions with puffy white cumulus clouds.

I had a dual checkout with instructor Mike Woolley – we launched to 2000 feet and, following a group of soaring ibis, we climbed to 3,500 feet in the thermal they were kindly marking for us.

Then I launched in the PZL Junior and found there was plenty of lift. I stayed up for an hour, then landed in case anyone else wanted the aircraft. They didn’t, so I launched again! There was a long line of cumulus stretching north-south near Narellan that was providing plenty of lift. Interestingly, the lift seemed to be all along the front of the cloud line, not so much directly underneath the clouds which is where you usually find thermals.

This, I’m convinced, was a sea-breeze front! The sea breeze is caused by the land heating up more quickly than the sea because is absorbs more sunlight. It warms the air above it, which then goes up because it is less dense (hot air rises, as any fule kno), lowering the air pressure. Cooler, denser air from the sea moves in underneath the warm air and helps push it up.

Wikipedia explains: A sea-breeze front is a weather front created by a sea-breeze, also known as a convergence zone. The cold air from the sea meets the warmer air from the land and creates a boundary like a shallow cold front. When powerful this front creates cumulus clouds, and if the air is humid and unstable, cumulonimbus clouds.

So I wandered around for an hour, climbing to 4,500 feet several times, then the lift gradually faded and I landed. What a lovely way to spend a day.

The rainy summer weather has hampered my gliding progress, but on Friday, it added to the excitement. I had a check flight with my instructor and soared in some good thermals to 3700 feet. There were some big showers coming in from the coast so we landed after 36 minutes.

I was ok to go solo, so after another student had a flight, the instructor told me to get in a short solo quickly before the rain storms set in for good. The tug took me into some light rain, but I hung on till 2000 feet, then released the tow.  The rain was getting heavier, so I pulled out the airbrakes to lose height and positioned myself for a circuit. I could see from the windsock that there was a strong crosswind on the strip so, as taught, I added 10 knots to my approach speed to allow for the windshear at low level.

The club’s PZL Junior single-seat glider.

When I descended below tree-top level above the airstrip, the turbulence over the trees and the windshear tossed the aircraft around. The adrenalin flowed freely, but I managed a good landing despite the roller-coaster ride! An unforgettable seven-minute flight. I got soaked walking with the wingtip as the glider was towed back along the strip and then straight back into the hangar. No more flying that day!

I’ve graduated to flying a single-seat glider, the PZL Junior. This flies well and is much lighter than the two-seater. I’ll have fun in it when the weather improves.