HGFA Skysailor Magazine

SKY SAILOR 29 July | August 2019 of stopping just yet. I locked onto my next target, Brigalow. I was slowly catching Tony and by the time I overflew Brigalow, he was only 5km ahead of me. Onward I pushed and could see a large town ahead – Chinchilla. We both arrived together and saw two gliders parked on the ground on the edge of town. Tony radioed he was at 3000ft and unless he got another climb in the next minute, he would land with those two to be sociable. I was still at 5000ft and asked, “How far have we travelled so far?” “Roughly 80km,” was the response. “I’d like to keep going if it’s okay with you?” “Go for it, we’ll come pick you up from wherever you land,” he called back. Now I was on my own and for the first time, I considered, ‘100km! Could I do it? On my first ever XC flight?’ Following the highway without a map it was hard to tell how far I’d travelled. I’d never used my vario for distances before, so I just kept going. It was getting late in the day, the climbs were weaker, fewer and further between. I saw another town ahead (Miles), but past a large, long forest area cover. I was at 3000ft, I didn’t think it wise to push further. There was a perfect grassed paddock right on the edge of the forest, a few metres from the highway. I located the powerlines, set up an approach and did a text book landing. “Whoohoo!” I carried my glider to the road to pack up and a few minutes later the retrieve arrived, helped me celebrate and pack up and we headed back to Dalby. Straight line distance on my first ever XC flight was a whopping 110km. I couldn’t believe it. I’d had an absolutely amazing flight from start to finish. All the tips I had remembered fromwatching competition pilots on YouTube had paid off. I’d found lift where expected, thermal triggers, followed clouds and pulled it all together for an epic first flight! It was dark by the time we got back to the airfield and after unloading I was soon asleep. Saturday, 6 April First official practice day of the comp and I was keen for another awesome flight. Comp pilots were arriving all morning and setting up gliders, tweaking this and that, levels, angles and fine tuning of their racing machines. I set up my Gecko and Tony informed me his team had arrived and, unfortunately, he wouldn’t have room to retrieve me. I asked around and found Trevor, Brent and Viv who had a spare spot. They didn’t want a big day right before the comp so set a LZ just before Chinchilla at 72km. I’d been bitten by the XC bug, however, I respected their wishes. After a radio check on the team channel, we were off to tow. I released in a great thermal and, unlike last time, turned straight away. I reached cloudbase at 6500ft in no time and went on glide. This flight followed the same path I’d flown the day before, and leaving the airfield didn’t even leave a blip on my radar. I covered the distance faster than the previous day and had longer glides between thermals, arriving at the designated LZ with 5500ft – I so wanted to fly on to try beat yesterday’s flight, however, I’d be walking back if I did, so decided to use the LZ as a turnpoint and fly back towards Dalby to see how far I got. Into wind, without further climbs, I only managed 8km and set down in a grassy paddock not far from the road – 80km wasn’t bad for my second XC. Soon my Steve McCarthy, flying the Dragonfly on the first practice day of the Dalby Big Air comp All photos: Peter Tolhurst Peter Tolhurst, elated after flying 110km