Volume 1, Number 8
6PM, Thursday, January 17th, 2002
Mum's place, Melbourne VIC
"Gordo, I have a feeling we're not in Wylie anymore."

Unashamed name dropping

I should mention that we free flew the other day and Gordo made goal at Hillston, about 120K. Yours truly flew and flopped out the back of the paddock. As Phil pointed out - It was clever to get my bombout out of the way on a lay-day.

Day 8 was the 4th competition day. The top end of the results table had taken an interesting turn with Rohan making ground on Jonny Durand and Craig Koomber for first placed Aussie.

Jonny had a slow/bad day and it showed - he wasn't his usual jovial self for a while in the pub. But he soon snapped out of it.

The top of the list is full of foreigners, and I'm catching Bomber.

We've gotten into a good routine in the mornings with Brekky/coffee at the lounge near the pub, after briefing. Ron Richardson, Gordon Rigg and Miles Davidson from the UK have joined us on a few occasions. These guys are pretty casual, and full of info. And of course they take every opportunity to take the piss out of each other - always welcome.

The gaggle flying is pretty intense. If you tow early you start with 5 - 10 gliders, then this quickly grows as you push back over the paddock and more gliders join in. They've declared a turn direction (left one day and right the next) while inside the start cylinder, but I think this just adds to the confusion.

Today I entered a gaggle which was turning left, the declared turn direction was right. One guy kept turning right even though the other 10 gliders were turning left. Lots of people seemed to like this and they were waving and shouting greetings to him as they went by.

It's quite common to get close enough to see someone's face. I recognised Gordon Rigg today because I noticed his goatee - he was about 10 feet above me (looking away).

You have to keep it smooth - if you try to bank up you can end up in the middle of the chaos, which is then very difficult to get out of. Phil's analogy is a horror roundabout where no-one can stop and you have to keep fitting more cars in. I think I took evasive action on about 3 separate occasions today, but fortunately once on course the gaggles thin out and it gets easier.

Today's task was similar to Day 1 with the turnpoint slightly further north than Goolgowi, and goal further east at Wheethalee, past Rankin Springs. Goal was the same as a task at Forbes last year which myself, Bomber and Gordo had all made. There is a distinctive hill to the east of town which we flew over on final - I'd seen it a few days ago, from the west this time. Total distance about 185km.

Again the early going was tough with broken climbs to about 4200 in large gaggles. Bomber, Phil and myself were together at the start and we decided to go, hoping to stay together. As luck would have it we got separated pretty much straight away. Bomber taking a different line leaving Phil and myself in reasonable proximity.

We hopped along towards turnpoint, over the badlands, with just the western highway below us. Our group thinned to about 6 gliders. I'd thought we were getting left behind by the field, but it seems we were dropping off many others, and only the lead 20-25 gliders were pulling away, probably in 2 or 3 groups.

Bomber had scored a good climb and glide allowing him to jump a thermal ahead of us. He was soon approaching turnpoint. Soon Phil and I had taken another reasonable climb to about 4500 and were about to head towards TP. As we left another surge came through and as we tightened onto this it kicked to 600fpm, allowing us to top out at about 5500. It seemed the inversion was breaking down.

Turnpoint was a town, where the roads weren't aligned well with the compass headings. I'd checked the map before launch, and thought I could see the hill indicating goal so headed onto the second leg with some confidence. A climb immediately after TP was good - 800-900fpm at times to about 6 grand. Phil had climbed away from me slightly.

Meanwhile Bomber had lost his bearings somewhat and, missing the step when the inversion broke, he landed just past TP. Gordo later took a sympathy dive and landed with Bomber after his radio went flat.

Phil and I were now with a group of about 5, with Irish Shane, Gary Rogers (Used to live in Geraldton) and Don Rottman (Victorian) in an Xtralite - who we just couldn't shake.

There was a trough in the area and the high cloud, moving in from the SW, had now caught us, throwing the ground into shade. Downwind of the course stayed relatively sunny for longer. Another problem was a fire to the south which was blowing smoke onto the course.

I lost some in the climb and the rest headed onto course. I didn't like their line so I headed more upwind along the front edge of a forest. After about 5 minutes it got bumpy and I was soon screaming up with occasional 1000fpm to about 7 grand, with Gary nearby.

I think the others had taken a lesser climb and might have started drifting off course. The wind was SW at about 15 mph and was cross tail, about 30-40 deg. Anyway I now only had Gary for company, usually 200-500 feet above me.

Gary headed of and I followed. We picked off a couple more good climbs, creeping towards the first range of hills. Over these we could only manage 100-200fpm for a while until downwind slightly we found better lift and then headed into the long valley between ranges. This was a long glide and we were soon down to 2500' before scoring another 100-200fpm. This gradually turned on to 400-500fpm as we drifted out over the second range.

Bomber and I had started final glide from here on day 1. Phil had radioed in that he was well to the north of course line.

Gliding again and Gary went past a week thermal which I stopped to work. The climb wasn't good and with light virga wetting my glasses, 5k of forest downwind, and lots of smoke, I landed about 34k short.

Meanwhile Phil had worked his way back to the course line from 5-10K downwind and I had been scratching in crappy lift, and then made my final glide, over his head.

I saw Gary's track log later that night and he scored a good climb not 1k from where I'd stopped to circle in crud - doh! He ended up 25k short.

Another good day for Phil and I. I made the front page of the results sheet for the day and had grabbed a 50 point lead in the Daz-Bomber challenge (now into it's 7th year).

Don in the Xtralite beat all of us...

Daryl Speight
speightd@hunterwatertech.com.au

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