SAFA Skysailor Magazine

SKY SAILOR 9 March | April 2020 his Gecko, but had to land due to insufficient height to cross the Bringalily Forest. Not only was this a PB, but he flew further than all the topless gliders! Strangely, someone threw the sky switch again at 4pm, but the resulting clear sky and puffy white things were wasted on pilots already staring at a beer in the pub. The kiwis had limbered up with flights between 113km to 56km and were still fresh for the better upcoming forecasts. This was my sight of just how desperate condi- tions on these farms actually are: We were flying over bone-dry cattle paddocks, unburdened by grass, the vast majority of the dams were empty (actually a few of the more colourful ones could have doubled as art installations) and, no prizes for guessing, fires in the distance. The farmer that day noted my landing paddock should have been in crop and that this area previously had consistent rainfall up until four years ago when someone effectively turned the tap off. God knows how he outwardly appeared to be so cheery. Day two dawned with much clearer skies and a firmer NWwind with more W forecast down country later in the day. Viv had primed us with tales of 8:30am departure and post 5pm evening glass offs. Despite the great flying over the week, it was not to be classic Dalby conditions – hot and smoke-free E to SE winds where the above rules applied. We took off at around 10am and the 4,500ft cloudbase (3,500ft AGL), which gradually rose to around 9,000ft later in the day. One of the agreed high- lights of the event was Neville. He flew drama free and landed exactly 100km away. After being one of three Elbowmaggedon participants during a bizarre day at last year’s Dalby Big Air, he returned from surgery, close to the area where he was brought up and posted a significant PB improvement. Tom flew similarly well, landing with flat instrument batter- ies at a PB 158km with Viv up the road at 174km. Shortly after being picked up, Tomwitnessed his first gust front. We knew about snakes, but didn’t recall signing up for gust fronts. Sub 10km/h winds suddenly erupted into wind gusting 100km/h and shit went off. Luckily, Geoff, affectionately known as the ‘Night Watchman on the green side of the Tassie’, was still in the air many kilometres away. Toward the end of the flight, hills had to be traversed and he decided to take a good thermal just behind a sizeable one. Unluckily, after thermal end his nose was pointing directly at a howling headwind which had him tongue out the side of his mouth focused with full VG in strong turbulence and the bar stuffed. While a lee-side landing was a toss of the coin possibility, the hill was thankfully overflown. The inevitable seven-hour bladder call, coupled with the character-building wind combo, were clues enough it was time to land. The not so simple sideways glider turn in a gale had to be per- formed prior to the bladder being emptied. The tail end of the flight track took him from QLD into NSW, back to QLD before landing close to Bonshaw, NSW – a PB 238km away from Dalby and his first double hunge. I was excited for him as we’d come here to crack at least 200km. My first question in ignorance of what had transpired: Was that amongst his most enjoyable flights? “It was my longest flight.” Car 1 picked up a happy Neville and helped him de-rig in prickle alley. Unsurprisingly, Australia also It was a relaxed event, old school ‘score yourself and write it on the board’