Dasklip to N7 - 2006 Dec 07

Ok, so I gave in. I calculated that two hours of cross country flying was better than nothing and I was certain to be miserable all day knowing that Rich was gobbling up all the XC without me. So I raced out to Porterville, arriving behind the Birdmen Para Wagon and their pilots and 16 Norwegians from Mountain View B&B.  In total there must have been around 26 pilots on launch. The conditions were light WSW, with blue sky and about 6/8th puffy clouds which looked like they were sucking by the concave bottoms and it was only 10am. Had to be back in Cape Town by 15h30 for work, so I made ready in record time and launched right behind 3 or 4 pilots who showed me it was light but flyable and I headed north. Dasklip Picked up a beaut thermal in the gulley north of take off before Razor Back.  1100ASL and I decided to leave the thermal as I had enough height to fly north along the apex of the ridge.  Craig is against wasted height gains whilst flying the ridge and I took heed.  My task for the day was to force myself to stay on the ridge at least as far as Bumpy.  I had ascertained that I had easy penetration off the ridge and the conditions seemed smooth.  Well not for long.  Things changed over Teenagers and I looked longingly back and out into the flats where I could see Rich and others having a fine time near cloudbase.  The sky was rapidly filling with gliders, some high, some low.  Saw pilots converge on the gulley and Razor Back and get up, but they seemed content to hang around there for a long time. A Mistral 3 pilot on a blue wing wearing a black flight suit with yellow go-faster stripes was soon my only companion heading north.  Cloudsuck was violent in a broken 6ms kind of way.  Almost laughed when I found that the Mistral pilot and I kept looking across to each other when a cloud grabbed us.  In my mind we seemed to be seeking reassurance from one another that all was ok even though our gliders were all over the place and our varios squealing and cloudbase looming quickly.  We craned our necks a number of times to try and see what the rest of the cloud was like but there was too much fluffy stuff hiding their shapes above. Dasklip As the vario continued to wail and my glider trembled and shook (oh, maybe that was me) I decided I had to step on speedbar to slow my vertical ascent and get me closer to my northerly destination and away from the heart of the suck.  I worried that I might take a collapse on speedbar with all the movement that was going on, but the Shaolin held his side together.  Nonetheless, when I think might lose control of a situation, I tend to fly away from the apex of the ridge and so found myself grinding my teeth between the foothills and the apex for awhile...still going up.  Stayed on speed bar too long and by the time I cleared the suck and got back on the ridge, I had sunk below it.  The Mistral had stayed on the ridge and we arrived at the same place, me a little higher.  Air was smooth for a moment and I relaxed a bit, the Mistral was below me about one and a half line lengths and a little off centre to my right and ahead, closer to the ridge. I lost my glider.  Don't know what the initial collapse was, but the Shaolin was as shocked as I was and took a long time to recover.  I forced myself to look up although I knew my right wing was battling to fly again even with my instinctive tugging on the right break lines.  The fabric seemed to be tucked into the lines and I could feel resistance as the fabric freed itself.  At the same time, I saw my left wing suddenly fly and dive forward.  Oh, boy, that SIV feeling all over again.  The Mistral pilot had now realised that all was not well above him, alerted by the noise perhaps.  He looked up as my glider recovered and dived forward towards him.  We had plenty of distance still between us - at least a glider line length.  I idly wondered if I lost it again, would I hit the top of his glider and collapse it or would I bounce and slide off the back.  I pendulum forward and to the right, then used the energy to turn left away from him and the mountain.  Went looking for that bit of sh#%%y air, found it and warily climbed out well above ridge height to 1460mASL where the cloud was threatening to get in the way again.  The Mistral pilot had scuttled on ahead away from the noisy fabric, but found no lift and eventually returned to the base of my thermal/cloudsuck/whatever, but he had left it a bit late to catch the elevator and got a minimal climb. Looked over into the Citrusdal Valley and was soooo tempted.  Partly because I wanted to escape the rough stuff and partly because I wanted to go further, but I knew that not having retrieve meant that if I sunk out in the valley I was going to miss my business appointment.  Sigh.  It was a close call and I was almost irresponsible.  Carried onto Bumpy where I got more cr%# thrown at me.  My nice little flight was starting to wear thin.  By the time I got to Goedemanskraal for a top up, I was positively begging to land.  But I had to get to the N7 and cars where I could hitch back to Dasklip - no time for walkouts.  By now I was flying down the N7 towards Picketburg through all the thermals, cloudsuck and convergence or whatever gives so much lift in this area.  Tried a turn or two but lost interest.  I wanted to land.  Eventually did at the Goedemanskraal turnoff.  No wind on the ground and yet the air 20 metres above the ground was turbulent and had me prepped for a PLF.  Finished packing when an invisible whirly screamed through.  Thank you Universe for delaying its arrival.  Got a lift almost immediately to the Porterville/Eendekuil turn off and another to Porterville almost immediately after that and another from Mountain View B&B to Dasklip. Flew for one hour forty five minutes.  Universe style retrieve was forty minutes from start to the top of Dasklip.  Arrived in Cape Town with half an hour to spare.  Now that is Universal organisation!!!!! Flygirl

Last Updated ( Tuesday, 15 May 2007 )

 

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