Manilla XC Open, day 5

A much better day today for me…flew much farther and walked not at all! I mentally picked myself up and dusted myself off after yesterday's fiasco, told myself today was gonna be the day, maybe it worked?

The designated course line for today was the same as yesterday (113 degrees), but the winds were a bit more north, which meant the flying was not exactly downwind but a bit crosswind. After yesterday’s long flights, many people chose to take the day off (or fly less); Keith was among them, taking off and flying to Godfrey’s. Tom, Will, and I all flew XC though. Conditions were a bit ratty and rough, and the air was pretty active. Over the back and to the ridge running to the west of launch was pretty slow going, since I was not going to go down again the same area twice in two days! So I made sure to be at cloudbase for most of that transition (20 km or so), and then dropped onto the flatlands beyond.

At this point Tom caught up to me, as I had gotten low on the flats and got a low save at about 50 m (the glider I was with didn’t make it, landing as I thermalled over them). As I was climbing out I could see a huge dust devil in the field next to me, and Tom approaching. But he got to the field after the dust devil had dissipated, so he didn’t know how close he was to it (it was a really big one, with dust outlining it all the way to cloudbase). In fact there were lots of dusties on the flats today, not sure if that is common around here or not, but reminiscent of Chelan.

After that we flew together for a bit, and then Tom got a climb that I missed, and by the time I got back up to cloudbase, Tom was ahead of me. Once again I went on a long glide, and was searching desperately for some lift, birds, pilots, anything. I finally spotted a dust devil going off in a field within glide of me (but barely), and I speed barred over there with about 80 m to spare. The dusty was turning clockwise so I cranked into it counterclockwise and rode that thing all the way to cloudbase!

Back on track for Narrabbri and I could see it in the distance (at the 82 km mark). Got to the town and there was a big black cloud over it, and lots of pilots under it, but nobody climbing. We all searched around for lift, but couldn’t find any, so we continued on west to Weewaa, where we found lift finally and back up to cloudbase. Past Weewaa and I got my best climb of the day to over 2563 m, and then it was getting late (5:45 pm) so we were all maximizing our climbs. (I had been told that when flying Manilla, if you are at cloudbase at 5 pm, to slow down and fly less aggressively, since the thermals usually get much lighter about this time of day.)

From then on it was a race to see who could get the furthest with the few minutes of usable time we had left (anything after 6:30 pm doesn’t count for distance). I only turned in stuff that was worthwhile, and skipped other stuff, and timed it so that I was on the final death glide at 6:10 pm. 20 minutes to glide, and I was able to squeeze out another 15 km or so, landing at 148.6 km straight line from Mt. Borah. OLC distance 151.5 km. Time in the air 6:09 (slow)! My personal best (previous best 138 km, in Golden), and a good feeling compared to all the walking I did yesterday.

Since I had sworn not to do any walking today, I opted to land on the highway since there was no traffic in either direction, and packed up on the shoulder. Waited for my retrieve, which was in the next town picking up Tom and Will at the 170 km mark, and they picked me up on the way back to Manilla.

A 2 hour retrieve drive, with a stop in Narrabbri for pizza and some wildlife viewing on the roads (kangaroos and echidnas), and back to HQ to download our GPS’s.

Flying today was a bit harder than usual, with lots of slow climbs (2 m/s, rather than 3-4 m/s), and lots of active air that required hands on the brakes a lot. It was a bit too active for more than ½ speed bar, and even at ¼ bar I was getting the occasional collapse. Everyone commented on how ratty the air was, and how different it was from yesterday. And with the more northerly winds, we were unable to fly exactly downwind, which probably cost us lots of extra km.

Nicole