Flygirl and the world of Paragliding - Mt Borah to Barraba 11 May 2009

Mt Borah to Barraba 11 May 2009

Please Magdy, let's fly!

Wait, be patient, it is only going to get better.

But I want to FLY!

We are supposed to be flying together, remember. If you take off now and bomb out and I take off in ten minutes and get away, we won't be able to do that. Be patient.

We are on East take-off and it is around 11h30am. Ness, a recently licensed student of FlyManilla takes off. Conditions are very light. Almost no wind. He executes a perfect forward launch. And goes down, down down.

Oh no! We look from the lip of take-off willing him to find some lift. He finds something, very light, turns the wrong way and falls out. We are beside ourselves, verbally willing him to find it again and get up. He finds it again but it is so light he struggles to make it count. Ness sinks out further. Short east bomb out looms. He is so low now, but he has not given up. Tiny pockets of lift. He works them, impossibly low (our angle of view makes it look worse than it is) He is tenacious, working the tiny lift bubbles, not giving up. We are amazed, but the end is inevitable. He does not give up until the moment just before his feet touch ground in a perfect landing. Well done Ness! What an awesome display of scratching.

I am only marginally deterred by the sinky conditions. Godfrey and Natalie are coming up soon and can give us a lift up. I want to fly, I want to work that light lift, I want to be in the air!

Magdy is calling for patience. The conditions are turning. Looks like South take-off is starting to kick in. Very cross now on East. We are undecided about moving across. I want to fly. I reckon I can bomb off the South East lip. Throw myself into a committed forward launch. Glider jumps into the sky, but then it overtakes me. I can't slow it down, not running fast enough but I am giving it everything I have, overshooting, stall it as I run off the mat into the grass, aborting launch. The wind is coming diagonally over the back. We have to move to the South or West.

Wind is actually coming up the South West point. Make the decision to take-off from the West. More space. As west warms up, this is likely to be the better option. I layout quickly. Want to fly. Magdy is advising patience again.

Wait for the sun to come over more and warm up the west face.

I am beside myself. Want to fly. I ignore his advice and forward launch only having to abort as I cannot get some twigs to fall out of my lines with sharp break action. Immediately I try again, but wind is very cross and I drop the glider once more.

Wait another fifteen to twenty minutes, Magdy the Sage, admonishes.

A recently signed off student, Fish, forward launches. Perfectly. I am jealous. I need to practise my forward launches. He heads straight out. I watch. We watch. Holding our breath. We want him to find something. He does. It is light, but more promising than the conditions Ness took off in on East. He works the thermals well. I am excited. I know I can stay up.

Magdy, let's go.

I am ready, he says, not clipped in.

Fish is still flying. I look at the streamers, feel the side on wind, waiting for it to straighten out a little more. I can't bear this any longer.

We are missing minutes, I cry.

Fish is finally starting to sink out, but I know I can do this. I know I can stay up. I can't wait anymore. Wind straightens out a little and I launch. In my peripheral vision, I see other gliders jump into the sky as I go over the lip.

Hope Magdy is one of them... Sit back into my harness and sneak a look. Yep, two gliders and one of them is the steel grey Omega 7. I go thermal hunting. The air is soft but buoyant. For the next few minutes we feel out the air and I identify some repeat thermal activity. The spine right of take-off is regular, but I had seen that Fish had done well out front, working a thermal that came from the tilled brown fields upwind. The spine offers sure lift, but is not going to get me up high enough to go over the ridge. I kick out on speedbar.

Hook a thermal earlier than expected. It is tight and narrow and I realise that I might lose it if I try to flat turn and go wide so I crank in my turn and bank my wing. I am losing a bit of lift efficiency, but at least I am not losing the thermal. The vario sings sweet constant sounds. Godfrey has arrived with Ness and is giving recently licensed pilots in flight thermalling advice over the radio.

Higher and higher I go, slowly, but surely, adjusting minutely with my brakes too keep centring myself in the strongest lift. 1100 m ASL now. I can probably go with this thermal as it is still pulling but it means committing to it as I might not get back in front of the ridge. I am lower than I would like it to be. Would prefer 1600m. Magdy has not climbed with me and is scratching on the South West point. I decide to wait for him and kick forward. This is the first climb of the day. It will get better and we both really want to fly cross country together.

Sink, sink, sink. I am now low in front of the ridge heading for the ploughed brown fields I find work so well. Well below ridge height, but I feel pretty sure I will find the thermal I am looking for. The others are safely on the ridge in sure lift. It is light, so very very light, but I find my lift. Slowly I turn, going inside of myself, settling deep into my centre, my solar plexus. The outside world fades. I am aware of the mountain, the ground and the other gliders starting to head in my direction, but everything is fading into the back ground. I feel the 'silence'. A cocoon developes around me. I am in the thermal, communing with it, just me, my glider and the air I am turning in. All that matters is this moment. We are one.

The others are sinking out. Magdy is trying to find the base of my thermal. It is so light. Climbing higher, leaving the others behind. One by one they land. I am getting away. 1100m and climbing. This is the one. Can't wait anymore. Feel sad as I watch the sky empty of gliders, all landing at west bomb out. I know Magdy must be spewing. A white Nova glider launches, but looks like he is following the rest to the ground.

I am gone.

Heading down the ridge. I think about that for the moment... Hmmm. I am on the ridge and I am OK with that. Normally I get off after the first thermal gets me high and head for the flats. I let that feeling sink in. I am comfortable on the ridge. How unusual. Nice. Satisfaction. Almost smug. Half way down the ridge heading North towards Tarpoly I spot an eagle. It is HUGE. The biggest one I have seen this season. There is thermal wind on a dam ahead and to the West at the base of the ridge. The eagle is thermalling on the ridge higher up this thermal column. I am higher than the eagle as I fly over it. Strong thermal. 4 ms. Quite wide too. The eagle below changes direction as I join it. We are now rotating in opposite directions. Hmmm. Must be watching me. As it nears, I change direction so we are now turning together. The eagle is huge... Did I mention that. I marvel at this master of the Manilla skies. It out climbs me, drifting over the ridge in stronger lift. I follow, but it has decided it has enough lift and heads South leaving me to climb to cloudbase 2100m ASL.

Giggling and laughing I am touching the clouds. The eagle encounter energising me, the clouds like cotton candy. I cannot believe my good fortune. I am flying above the ridge, I am in the sky and I am so happy. End of the ridge. Flying with clouds now. Must go around the notorious Tarpoly sink hole. Apparently the left/west mountain range is a more successful route and I am keen to try it, but the clouds are closer along the east side of Tarpoly and so I decide to fly from cloud to cloud rather that risk the blue hole before I get to the west mountains.

Speak with Magdy and Godfrey on radio. Magdy about to relaunch.

Clouds don't draw as well as I expected they would. Very light lift. Make it over Tarpoly and the bridge where I get another weak climb. Flying at 1600m ASL now. A little concerned that I seem to be reading the clouds wrong as I hop from one to the other but not keeping height. Getting lower now. Focus changes to ground triggers. The low ridge on the right is not offering up any decent lift, in fact I am in 4ms sink.

Sink going on for too long. Cut diagonally across to the North West hoping to shake the sink line I am in and get to the hills south of Barraba. I look back at the Tarpoly gap and wonder if the wind flowing through is washing out all the thermals down wind. Hopefully I will get lift as the south wind flows up this low ridge before Barraba. 50kms on trim. Wind stronger closer to the ground than at cloudbase.

18kms or so and I am sliding down along the ridge. Promises and whispers of lift, but as I turn in them, they are so broken I lose precious height. Crab along the ridge. Do I go over into the flat agricultural land with the wind, hoping to connect with a thermal that may trigger further back off this low ridge? Retrieve looks like a long walk out if I don't get up. If I was in a competition I probably would, but I have had a nice flight. I don't want to ruin the day with a 3 hour hike to the main road.

Push forward off the ridge. There is a green paddock that is now lit up in sunlight. Promises, promises. There is something there, but maybe I am too far downwind. Get the feeling that I have swung around the back of the thermal and getting bits that have broken off and rolling downwind. Too low now. Wind strangely strong near the ground. Must be thermal wind. Barely penetrating but smooth. Land next to the road 23.7km from Mount Borah. Smiling.

An hour later Magdy flies over me :-) :-( :-) to land at the Barraba substation, 33 km.

Damn :-) With Ion back in Sydney I was hoping to be the distance winner for at least one of the days!

Life is Good.

Last Updated ( Wednesday, 13 May 2009 )

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