Cross Country Adventures and Other Stories
Had a great flight,or even one that didn't turn out as expected?
Why not share it with the members on this page. Stories, IGC files and photos are requested.
Horsham Week Day 3.-Craig's Story
For the past 42 years at the start of February glider pilots have gone to Horsham for the Horsham week competion. This was my 5th time at this event and my 3rd time I've taken the Bendigo Club Super Arrow there to race. In 1969 when the Super Arrow came out, it would have turned a lot of heads with its staggering performance. At 31 to 1 glide rate it would have seen off most of the competion at that time, but now it is at the bottom of the performance range at the modern comp. I still decided to take the Super Arrow because I have had about 250 hours in the glider so I know it fairly well.
The first 2 days the flying was fairly hard with not huge heights and climbs that at times were hard to find and centre. Things changed for the better on Day 3 though. At the morning briefing they set a task of 241km for sports class, which at the time seemed ambitious when I looked at the sky outside. The weather briefing said that when the day got hot enough we would see cloud base around 7000 ft with the chance of thunder storms late in the day. The task set for me was Horsham, Kaniva, Ellam and back to Horsham.
After gridding I was thinking whether I would skirt around the Little Desert or blast right across the middle. I would have to see what height I had when I got ot the edge. Finally I got my tow behind the towplane and I released in lift, I thought. Then it was down to about 1000ft before finding a climb that worked. Before the start some pilots climbed up the side of a cloud, I went to see if I could do that but no luck. Best thing to do then is to head off on track. On the first leg out to Kaniva I ran mostly on the northen edge of the Little Desert N.P. getting to cloud base at around 8500ft. There was a slight head wind heading out and my speed was 68 kph for this leg to the turn point.
The Second leg to Ellam was a different story, although I still had the head wind the lift lined itself up in a nice street. I did the 79 km in 45 minutes at an average speed of 106kph. Smokin' for a wooden glider! If I had kept the speed up for all the flight you would have needed a jet engine to keep up with me. Unfortunately I slowed down when I got down to 4500ft and had to work a weaker climb just before Ellam.
The final 69km back to Horsham should have been a breeze after bombing along at 8000ft most of the flight but I discovered that all good plans sometimes come unstuck. Two thermals and I thought that I was bulletproof with final glide in the bag. Just 1 cloud shadow to cross then on to victory, so I thought. I went from a comfortable 7000ft all the way down to a low of 1800ft with 20 km to run. For those who don't know, in the Super Arrow it was a huge ask and I would've ended up in a paddock if I had kept on going. The thermal that I eventually found was 1 knot ( very weak 1 knot) but it did see me back up to 3200ft which gave the the height to head for home. As luck would have it, in the last 10km there was lift all over the place.
Although I was beaten by the fibreglass gliders and came in 4th overall I still had an average speed of 80kph for the task which I was stoked about.
Craig
Colin and John Throw Down The Gauntlet!
The Bendigo Gliding Club has an annual trophy for speed around a 100km triangle in a club 2 seat glider. The club also has an annual coaching regatta corresponding with the Melbourne Cup Weekend. As one of the coaches in the club, I was asked to fly with two members, Patrick Roberts on Monday 5th Nov and John Mackley the following day. The glider available for the flights was the PW-6, VH GYC, owned by the club.
On the Monday, Patrick and I only achieved a speed of 64 kph around Mitiamo and Serpentine. There were areas influenced by high cloud where thermals were difficult to find. The forecast for Tuesday was more favourable, with regular cumulus cloud, bases 6500ft. The task nominated for pilots attending the coaching weekend was Raywood, Elmore, Borung, Inglewood, Raywood, a distance of 179km. As John is not an experienced glider pilot, I settled for Raywood, Elmore, Mitiamo, Raywood, a distance of 118km.
Phil McCann, flying Geelong Club's Super Cub dropped us in lift. After a good climb we started on track for Elmore. We were fortunate, taking advantage of other gliders as markers. Approaching Elmore was under an extensive area of cloud shadow which required a slight diversion to a sunny area. A good climb resulted, averaging 4 knots and peaking at 8.5knots. The next leg was down wind and marked by regular clouds. After turning Mitiamo, a climb under a cloud gave us final glide at 6500 ft, 33km to run into a slight head wind, 1000ft safety height and field elevation of 450 ft. The average speed for the task was 84.28 kph.
John was delighted with his first cross country flight but did appreciate that it requires intense concentration over an extended period. Hitting the fatigue barrier is real, something that requires experience and current practice to overcome. I also enjoyed the flight, being particularly impressed with the performance of the PW-6 as a glider suitable for teaching cross country flying.
Colin C Campbell
Rod Takes His Daughter Gliding
"This is a video that my daughter shot last time I took her up" Just click on the image. Experience just what it's like to take a winch launch and connect with that first thermal.
It's Not Cross Country, but...
Let's go for a fly said Patrick. OK said Phil. I might bring my video camera said Patrick. OK said Phil, do you want the front or back. Back will do said Patrick.
To see how you can have fun without going cross country click here:-
Cameraman, Director and Producer: Patrick Roberts
Pilot: Phil McCann
Guest starring Keith Evans as the "hookeronerer", wing runner and, by the magic of cinema, winch driver
Raywood 17 June 2006
Chasing the 2 Seater 100km Trophy - by Craig Dilks
For some years now Phil Organ and Myself have had a go at winning the Bendigo Gliding Club’s 100 km trophy. It’s awarded for the fastest around 100km in a 2 seater during the year. The first year that we had an attempt, it was in the K-7, GNX. After a few passenger flights on the day, we took a really late launch, close to 4 o'clock, and of course the day died early. We found ourselves in a paddock waiting for retrieve crew to pick us up.
This year it was very similar, Phil and I took a launch late in the day in the clubs brand new PW-6. The idea was to do and out and return to MT Towengower, 55km south of Raywood. The flight started normal, one winch launch followed by the first thermal in which we had to put up a good fight to climb. It only took us to a bit over 1700 ft before we moved on to the next climb, which was a lot better and we rose to a bit short of 4000 ft. The words from Phil in the front seat were "Stuff this lets go ". Of course just as we left that climb we ploughed into the best climb of the day so I pulled back into it and screamed up to over 6500 ft. Then we left the field behind and headed south.
The sky had one big cloud street lined up for us in the right direction and we went for what seemed like forever, until we reached the other side of Bendigo, then the street swung towards Mount Alexander, away on our left. Our plan to keep going due south suddenly changed after flying straight for so long and we both agreed to follow the clouds and keep to where we knew the lift to be.
Mt Alexander is 55 km or so from Raywood so we would still get the distance required. I tried one climb and it became weak and hard to work, "The object is to make the glider climb", Phil said to me, so then I gave the glider to him and said "Well, Mister CFI, show me how good you really are!". So Phil took the controls and proceeded to show me how to get lower still. By this stage I called "Chicken" and Phil made a chicken sound from the front seat. One half kilometre from the turn point is as close as we got.
Down, down, we went until we got a climb over the Cathederal in Bendigo, at about 3000ft Phil switched to Bendigo CTAF on the Radio as we contemplated the prospect of outlanding at Bendigo Airport. That’s when I landed the climb that would soon get us out of trouble and back to open paddocks. Looking forward, the sight of the north south runway at Raywood was fantastic.
I can't say in the final glide that I was not disappointed in not making it to the turn point but at least we made it home .What picked up our collective spirits is when we down loaded the logger and found that we had done 101 km in 49 mins at an speed of 123kph average. See…, the PW-6 DOES go when you get the right day. Craig