ROBEAR

It was a lot drier this weekend, with the ground crunching and the sun beaming down. This made those 2 minutes of sitting on the runway waiting in the glider with the canopy closed just before the tug pulls you into the air really uncomfortable. Although it was hot there was a small breeze but the moment the canopy closes it turns into a greenhouse and like a light switch, you instantly sweat.

A minute later as you take off, the air starts blowing through the small vent and you’re all good.
This time I had Peter then Paul on my second flight.. both great pilots. I was told I’m coming along really well – which is great news! I even got a ‘perfect!’ on the turning to a point exercises.. which is great as I really feel more confident.
The highlight this time was that we practised stalling!,, It was a weird feeling as the glider starts to shudder as you approach the stalling speed, because of the drag vortices that are generated. Normally this is a good warning but I continued to pull the stick back and as you stall its nose just starts to drop away and you pick up speed quickly as you’re on your way again. It seriously feels like the rush of a roller-coaster.
I did my own thermalling today, managing to get up to cloud base, in this case around 7000 feet ( ~2.1km ), we couldn’t go any higher as you aren’t allowed to go into could in a glider in Australia without the right instruments.

I was pretty impressed by today and every time I go gliding and get more confidence I think it couldn’t get much better than this!
..But Peter said, you just wait until you do acrobatics.. ha..
I can’t wait.

When I rocked up to the Darling Downs gliding club around 11am today I was whisked straight into the awaiting Puchacz training glider that had recently landed. My instructor Leon gave me a run through of the preflight checks and I suited up in my parachute.

I was talking with Fran this great pilot who had flown there from the Gold Coast to fly the tug for the day. It seemed like an ideal situation, her little plane was great and you can apparently buy them as a kit with most of it pre-cast, you just need to put the large bits together, which saves them time in the factory. It’s a little twin seater.

The first flight of the day was a chance for Leon to see where I was. I got the controls pretty quickly as he had given me some great pointers on incorporating the rudder. I find when people explain the reasoning behind something like that I get it much quicker.

— The problem is the nose wants to yaw up and away from the turn and you need to correct this with rudder. So when you pull the stick to the left, the right wing goes up and the drag is higher on this wing, so it is pulled back. Applying left rudder counteracts this. Power pilots apparently don’t understand this concept very well, so I am happy to have this skill down now. —

We did lots of turns and the day was littered with excellent lift.. Several times we thought about coming down, and looked for where we should be to join the circuit.. and beep beep beep, the variometer lets us know we are getting good lift, often up over seven knots.

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On my last flight of the day I ended up doing a lot of thermalling by myself and he seemed pretty happy as I managed to get the plane from 3000 feet above ground to around 4500.. Which was the biggest buzz. In the end after battling to find lift for the past half hour, when it came time to come home it became impossible,, so Leon ended up doing some impressive steep turns to wash off some altitude.

Ideally would have loved to get in a third flight but I’m happy we got some at all. I look forward to going back in the new year.

As we rapidly accellerated down the Warwick runway I was instantly reminded why I took up gliding 5 years ago and since gave it up due to work and location. I’m glad I’m now back learning in what is apparently one of the best areas to go gliding in Australia.

The Darling Downes Soaring Club seem to be a great bunch of people. I flew with Dennis on a mission to retreive a glider the Australian Airforce Cadets had been borrowing. The Sky all around us was dotted with slow moving storm cells, which from the air looked like pool cleaners or flying saucers hovering above the surface with a thick curtain of rain drenching the ground beneath. As the storm passed over, the ground behind was heavy with a thick layer of surface water.

As we were under tow, Dennis constantly gave reports on alternative landing sites should the rope break. A cloud in the distance to our right lit up the sky as lightning struck the ground underneath. Our tow duet came upon a cloud that was lower and darker than the others and so had to dive down underneath it. This made Dennis have to work hard to maintain the tension on the tow rope by increasing drag on the glider. If we were to let the rope go slack then tight again as the tug flew off, the risk of it snapping is much higher. So we had to apply a lot of rudder to slip sideways through the air and even add some air brake! which gave the feeling we were dropping out of the sky as this drastically increased the drag on the glider.

After we unhooked from tow, the next 1/2 an hour was spent searching around for lift through thermals. There was not much available as little sunlight was hitting the ground and the rising air we did find was very weak. We gained only about 1000 feet as the lesson progressed.

Just like riding a bike, many of the skills come back quickly. I was applying stick and rudder at the same time fairly well. I had a lot of help, but I can’t wait to improve.

One of the most incredible parts of the flight is landing at about 67knots or around 120kph with your backside only a few inches above the ground at the grass airstrip near Bowenville. I look forward to many more flights in the future.