Official practice

Official practice day

A long briefing which included the opening by the local Mayor. They seem keen to have the gliders flying at Dalby – which is nice.

The weather briefing didn’t say much except cloudbase at 4000 maybe 5000 later. A brief mention at the end that there were warnings of rain/thunderstorms.

First launch was planned for 11am so all were advised to marshall by 10:45am. Complete mayhem, the big gliders were meant to be at the back but didn’t show up on time, so after lots of shuffling the organisers gave up on classes and just said to grid wherever you turned up. So instead of being near to the front I was now in the back one third of launches.

Got off tow, pulled the undercarriage up, and the noise just got worse – gear door hanging down. This has happened before – and the glider didn’t perform and the noise was deafening. After a few moments I decided I should land and fix it. Called Vicki but no response, so just alerted the organisers and landed for a relight. Still no Vicki, so I phoned her. For the first time in 20+ years she had decided to head into town to get the cable for the camera. So initiated a rapid return to the airfield to tow me back for a launch.

Finally re launched, and keen to start. A 2.5 hour AAT meant that I didn’t want to start after 1pm as the day had been finishing at 3:30pm. Started at 1:10pm. Heading south, left the start at 4300ft and glid through a decaying sky to reach the first solid cu’s at just over 1000ft – a good 4.5 knots.

The clouds were overdeveloping and cycling and collapsing – tricky picking a path, with lots of changes of direction.

I left one climb looking for a better one, which was almost a major mistake, the clouds ahead all decaying. Finally found a slightly weaker climb in the sunshine but this got me to some better clouds and a good climb back up to 5000ft. Decided to head to the next turn sector and chased a good street. There was rain coming out of the clouds a little to the west, but should be able to avoid this. Then it started to rain out of my cloud. There were a few gliders around and I managed to stay above the majority. Now over a lot of scrub with almost unlandable paddocks in the clearing – some guys looked decidedly low.

I found out later that John Nicholls got low in a similar area and decided that firing up his engine was a better option than grovelling into worsening paddocks. A numb erof people used th sesame option.

Staying up was the major aim now, with the task secondary. Avoiding the growing number of rain showers whilst maintaining some trajectory along task. I deviated around a major storm and then had to veer around the back to get into the last sector. A long glide to some small cu further into the sector resulted in no lift. Time to head home, and I had final glide to a small airfield half way back.. Skirted the rain again, under the overcast, heading for the solid part of the cloud, and at 2000ft I hit 6+ knots. Final glide was easy now. I came in 15 minutes early, but really pleased to have once again avoided the wet paddocks.

No scores yet, so no Idea what the earlier starters were able to achieve, but I am happy with the flight.

Vicki couldn’t get a cable for the camera so still no photos.

Day 1 tomorrow, so now we have to get a little more serious.