This year’s Southern Cross Gliding Club annual camp in Cootamundra was not a great one for me. Gliding is a weather-based sport, and the weather did not play ball. It was hot (good), but also windy some days (bad) and with a temperature inversion other days that made the thermals run out at 5000 feet (bad).
I flew on five days of the eight days I was at camp. My longest flight was 369 kilometres in the junior. I had a total of 13 hours and 38 minutes in the air. I managed some good average speed in the LS4 and the DG303 on some days where the thermals were not so good – about 86 km/h.
Speed is important for distance flying. The thermals may start at 12 noon and finish at maybe 6pm on a good day – so you have six hours to complete a task. The faster, the further! Of course on some days the thermals will keep going later, although usually much weaker than earlier in the day.
At least nobody else was achieving brilliant flights on the days I struggled! Some pilots managed to achieve personal goals including one 50 kilometre flight for a Silver C badge and one 300 kilometre flight for a Gold badge.
The final Saturday the lift was very weak, but one of our members managed to fly 50 kilometres to Temora to deliver a special trophy that had been dumped on us earlier in the week. Titled the We Don’t Want It trophy, it is considered important to get rid of it as soon as possible!
A launch was available at Temora, but he couldn’t face the flight back. So I drove to Temora with the trailer and another guy to de-rig the glider and bring it and him back to Cootamundra. That was ok because we had to de-rig the glider that afternoon anyway in order to tow it back to Camden, our home base. That particular glider, DG303, has a very well designed trailer, so rigging and de-rigging is a quick and smooth operation.
On the Sunday I drove back to Camden towing the DG303, about five hours with stops. All went smoothly. We rigged the gliders at Camden and returned them to their spot in the big hangar there.
Camp over for another year. I hope to have another attempt at a 500 k flight later in the summer if I can arrange to rent a glider at Lake Keepit.
