Everyone was tired this morning, but we went up to fly anyways :) The sky wasn’t looking epic in the morning, lots of high cloud, but when we got up to launch it was clearing out. Started at the east launch, then it turned north, so we all went to the north launch. After getting all our gear ready it switched east again, so off to the east launch again where people were climbing out, where we finally got off launch.
When I launched it was super-rough between the east and north launches, and I had a hell of a time getting up over launch. Finally a boomer of a thermal came along, and I rode it all the way to cloudbase, with parts of the glider missing at times, but hey I’m going up so it’s OK.
Once at cloudbase I took off to the north. The courseline for today was the same as yesterday, but the winds were more easterly, so we had a crosswind to deal with. All the climbs were taking us over the west side of the Mt. Borah range, and that’s where all the good clouds were, so that’s where we went. The going was slow at first since we were behind the Mt. Borah range (in the lee) and the climbs weren’t that great, and the winds were making northerly progress slow. But eventually I got to the end of the range where it flattens out a bit and was able to fly more comfortably within glide of the main road.
A few times I got low, but I was with a gaggle, and of all of us, somebody would eventually find something (sometimes it was me, other times it was somebody else) and we would all head over and take advantage of it. I got really low at the Ponds, between Barraba and Bingara, and was able to finally climb out of there after a few tense minutes grovelling in the heat, but by then everyone else had either gone onwards, or landed.
The next part of the northerly route involves flying down a mini valley, with a dip in the middle, where the land slopes away, and many pilots get flushed here. I had been told to get high before attempting this part of the flight, so I made sure to top up before heading over it. The SE winds were actually helping at this point, pushing the thermals up the W side of the valley, making it fairly easy to surf the west end for about 20 km or so. But it was very windy down low and you had to make sure to stay up high or else risk not making the glide to the main road, and being forced to land up on the plateau where the roads are a bit inconvenient.
At this point I was getting a bit tired, hot, and generally wanting to be someplace more relaxing. I was at 2700 m by now and radioed to my retrieve that I was going on glide and landing, since I was getting really tired (flying for 4 hours in really strong stuff, +5.2 m/s up sustained in some thermals, and –4.8 m/s down between thermals). Passed Bingara at the 82 km mark (where about 30 pilots had been flushed) and headed more NW up towards Gravesend. Found a nice field at the 102 km mark and landed, and got picked up shortly thereafter.
I was kinda glad I had decided to land, even though the day was still working and pilots were still flying. The flight had definitely been a workout, and with the long days we’ve been having all week I was glad to be able to relax for a few hours while we picked the other pilots up. Keith flew 160 km, Tom flew 175 km, and Will flew 198 km. But they all landed on main roads so the retrieves were fairly straightforward.
But then we had a 3 hour drive back to Manilla via all the backroads, and got to see all sorts of wildlife. We saw so many kangaroos and wallabies that we now know the difference between them when they jump across the road in front of the vehicle! And of course all the stupid birds…they fly right in front of the vehicle and we hit them (or they fly right into the side it)…we’ve hit 5 so far, so we’ve renamed the retrieve vehicle “bird killer”.
Keith had a really low save at some point in his flight. He was so low that he was talking to the farmer in the field he was about to land in (“Is it OK if I land here?” “Yeah sure”, etc etc etc), when he found a thermal and flew away from the farmer. Low saves (<100 m) seem to be not that uncommon around here; in fact you can semi-rely on them to get you out of a bad spot.
Not too many people flew farther than Will…I think Crigel may have flown 200 km, but not sure if he was on courseline or not (and that’s what counts, flying in the wrong direction doesn’t award you points). So Team Durka Durka did very well today! Tomorrow is the last day of this comp, and then we have 2 or 3 rest days before the World Championships start on the weekend.
http://mclearn.ca/gallery/ for the pics, and http://www3.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/para/holcparascore.html for the tracklogs.
Nicole
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