HGFA Skysailor Magazine

34 SKY SAILOR July | August 2019 of the southern street also seemed to me more closely spaced. Following my intuition based on the photogenic quality of sunny clouds, I speed barred my way to the southern cloud street. The next 30km were some of the easiest and most predictable flying I’ve yet done – find the thermal on the upwind side of the cloud, core it to cloudbase, speed ahead through sink to the next cloud and repeat. With each thermal, my coring got better and I felt quite pleased with my glider. I was almost constantly on bar, except when thermalling, and the wing always felt solid. The lack of fluttering or any sign of instability while on bar was very confidence inspiring. The hills I’d been flying over gradually transitioned to flat farmland as I approached the small town of Uralla. The shiny roofs of a much larger Armidale occasionally glinted on my left. I was now 80km in a straight line from launch. I’d avoided thinking too much about distance, but with 20km to go, beating my PB of 101km from the previous year’s SoO seemed a real possibility. A small problem, however, there appeared to be a large cloudless blue hole centred over Uralla. Looking at the size of this hole, I readjusted my expectation to a still good 90km distance. So Close! I topped up the fuel in my glider by climbing as high as I could and started the glide into the blue hole. To maximise the distance, I streamlined my body as much as possible, making adjustments to my flight path by weight shifting. It was a very smooth glide with just a few bubbles here and there, yet it seemed to be coming to an end as I flew over the New England Highway. I was low enough to hear the road trains driving to Armidale. My last hope for lift was a farmhouse. Tin roofs can generate thermals and buildings can be good triggers, separating hot air from the sticky ground and deflecting it upwards. I sailed right over the farm without any sign of a thermal, but a row of trees along the field were shaking violently, indicating strong wind on the ground. I flew over the trees and turned into wind, hoping to catch a thermal released by the trees. Above, my wing snapped and jerked around in the turbulence as I bounced in the same spot a few tree heights above the ground. My feet were out of the harness and I was leaning forward in case the wing collapsed. Thankfully, behind me was a huge ploughed field and the wind direction would keep me off the railway tracks to the right. I still hoped to climb out of there, although the pessimist in my brain tried to distract me with vivid visuals of getting dragged in a dust cloud down the field. Looking around for options, I noticed the row of trees on the left edge of the field was better aligned with the wind. While maintaining altitude in the gusty wind, I slid sideways to get there. The situation here wasn’t any better and the erratic bouncing and the stress of hanging around in the turbulence was starting to wear me down. Even lower now, I noticed a clump of gum trees behind me in the next field. From this low angle, I could see that they were actually growing on a small hill. I let the wind push me backwards towards the middle of this mound, realising that landing backwards in these trees would be less than ideal. The shallow slope didn’t provide any lift, instead, I was getting pushed over the hill. The trees on the hill made the air even rougher. I’ve never been in a rodeo, but I did jump on a donkey’s back once as a kid for a wild two-second ride – this seemed very similar but longer. At 92km from launch I was just one thermal away from beating my PB. Like a cricketer nearing a century, the last few kilometres weren’t going to come easily. The track log shows I spent about seven minutes searching for lift here, but it felt like A hard fought thermal at 100km Cloud street shadows stretching west to east Cloud street across densely forested hills. The red circle marks my landing 150! Shining out like a shaft of gold when all around is dark Chasing the ‘EpiC ThrillA in Manilla’