Getting there - and first flight

The trip

We left Thursday morning about 7:15am, only 2000km to go. The photo was taken just down the road – wanted to compare the sky and paddocks with Dalby. Picked up breakfast at Truro (best egg and bacon sandwich ever). Then stopped at Waikerie to pick up my Oxygen bottle from Mark Morgan – thanks Mark.  Mark told me to call him when on the way to make sure he got to work before me – called him and he had been at work for an hour already.

Stopped at Mildura to visit my brother and his wife. Great spot down on the river bank. Sunshine, great views, nice temperature, home cooked muffins – we thought about staying there rather than continuing the drive, but the prospect of great Qld weather won over and an hour later we were back on the road.

9:45pm we finally made Narromine. 14 hours and nearly 1200km completed.  Slept well then back on the road at 8am. Egg and Bacon sandwich a disappointment after Truro. As we crossed the Qld border we caught up with Tony Tabart – overtook him just so I could say I hade overtaken a Ventus 2, but then had to stop and ask him directions. There was water on the side of the road, with the road cut in two places by water. The paddocks looked really wet. Finally arrived at Dalby at 5pm. 23 hours, 2000km, it was nice to stop. The airfield is like the nearby paddocks – wet, water lying around in huge puddles. Enough dry spots to get to the tie down but really soft when you try and tow the glider around.

Rigged and weighed the glider, most things organised and so headed for the launch point. Cu had formed before 9am, looked to be about 3500ft AGL initially. Some higher cloud but generally looked like a pleasant day.

Only one tug just yet so a long wait for a launch – of course the tug had to re-fuel just before my turn. At long last into the air – and it looks even wetter. black/brown paddocks everywhere, but with the sun at the right angle you can see the water lying in all of the furrows – landing out could be a problem – just wait for my phone call Andrew!

5 knots to 4500 ft, nice cu – I set off on the unofficial task – north to Bell and then west to Chinchilla. 2 hour AAT. Going north was OK, nice streets, and a good climb at the right place. Turned over the top of the Bunya mountains in the north part of the circle, climbed to over 5000ft.

Clouds were cycling a lot so multiple options heading towards Chinchilla. A few long glides with hopes that the cu at the other end of the blue hole were actually working – they were. Around Chinchilla the dry ground is the exceptions, like aarge lake with small  islands interspersed. Still managed a good climb to 5500ft. Pushed a bit deeper into this sector to better align with a nice street heading home. The street looked fine, but now just after 3pm and all of a sudden the street just fell apart – no lift. I needed another 2500ft but nothing was going up. Considered heading back to a small airfield I had passed but another was just in range, 30km from 3000ft to the NE. a cloud near to Warra was looking reasonable, although I wasn’t too confident, but I decided to deviate a little further north which took the airfield out of the equation. If the cloud didn’t work I would be finding out just how wet the paddocks really were. 1 Knot gradually improved to 2 then 3 knots, and once I was on final glide the thermal improved to 4 knots. An easy glide home.

Really nice to go flying again after a long winter.

Two more practice days and then the comps starts on Tuesday – weather permitting.