Sunday 3rd October
No daylight saving here, the sun is up around 5am, as are most Queenslanders by the sound of it. In normal Cubley style, we were up in time for breakfast and turned up at briefing just as it started at 9am. A little politics discussing rules, glider ready, and I was one of the early launchers.
The weather looked good over Dalby, Cu at 4-5000 AGL, but a solid line running north south just to the west of the field, cu this side blue the other. The task for 18m/open was basically south then north along the Cu, then a glide west into the blue to the last turn at Goombi. For Std/15m, our task was carefully arranged so that we left the cu at the start and then were in blue for the rest of the day. Due west to Chinchilla, back east a little then west again (in case we got too close to the cloud) and then a final dog leg back to the East and home.
I started a short time after John and we met up halfway along the first leg – low and scratchy – 2 knots occasionally increasing to three knots +. Max altitude 4000 ft above ground – almost a good Gawler blue stable day? Except the only places to land is the wet paddocks, with thoughts of carrying the glider out piece by piece through the mud – makes you concentrate on the thermal a little better.
Just above John and Mike Durrant at the first turn. John was just above me at the second. The scrub areas was a little better near to the second turn and I even managed 3-4 kots to 5000ft. Heading back west again towards Goombi, I started doing the calculations – it showed that the great speed of 80kph would have me back home way after the thermals had stopped. Easy choice, I turned around and headed home. Called John to let him Know what I was doing to discover that he was smarter than me and had turned for home about 5 minutes earlier. Not too bad a leg home, and got back to the Cumulus about 20km from Dalby to find good solid climbs again. Mike Durrant decided to keep going to Goombi and came home from there, but had to fire up his engine to get home.
Graeme Parker seemed to be the only person to get around the task. Most of the bigger gliders looked west and just kept flying north –south along the cumulus, but Graeme headed out and worked 1.5 knots to about 3000 ft for the last leg to get home – a good flight.
Opening party tonight. Was quite well attended and good fun. A little expensive but worth the effort.
Official practice tomorrow, and we’ll get a cable so we can download the photos from the cameras – absolutely no shops open in Dalby on a Sunday!
I’ll load my flights onto OLC for yesterday and today.
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Hi guys
ReplyDeleteWe spent the day at the club becoming more familiar than we really wanted to be with the innards of LG, as we worked on the Form 2.
Lots of people commented on the blog so I think it is being quite widely read.
Mandy