Today was a bit more stressful, lots of clouds and some pretty ones not working at all.
I planned to go to Bingara and cut across Terry Hai Hai to the plains but in Barraba there was almost no sun and I could see rain in the distance. I headed towards Kaputar but it was a struggle. As I was going to cut to the plains, Ian in the ASH radioed that there was 7kts 10km north of Kaputar, I climbed to 8000 and went through. New goal was Moree but again many dead clouds and I got lowish at 4000ft. The clouds were rather large and I was wasting lots of height to get there and explore to find them dead. I decided to go to that huge one and it paid. 12.5 on the averager the vario needle bent on the stop for most of the climb, in a few minutes I was at 8000ft again.
I thought I'd try Moree and that cloud should still be there on the way back, 2 more dead clouds and I turned back 20km from Moree.
The big thermal was still there but much weaker, then it was just a matter of staying high to get back home. All in all 328 Km.
Ian and Miro flew in the ASH I think they also didn't reach Moree The Newcastle gang progressed in their training and flew Grob around Gunnedah.
Cheers
Jacques
Thursday, November 4, 2010
2nd & 3rd November - Jacques Graells
Jacques did his first couple of flights in the club's LS7, and I persuaded him to tell us about them:-
"I first did little bit of soaring around to get used to the LS7 and landed, I thought doing an outlanding on my 1st landing would not be very wise. After a little rest I was planning to go to Boggabri Mullaley and return. All was good in Boggabri so I pushed a bit to Banbaa and I wanted to go down on the edge of the pilliga scrub, but there were only small and sparse clouds so I went down to Mullaley. Since all was still good I headed to Tambar Springs. The west was over-developing a bit so I headed to Premer and just after I turned it started to slow down. I had a down wind leg so I took weak thermals drifting home and waiting till it cycled. Then it became bombastic and I came back.
Since the conditions forecast was similar for today I planed a 300km for the gold distance. LK-Narrabri-Premer-LK.
Andrew Samson from the UK in the LS6 decided to fly the same task and we took off at the same time.
We got split just before the Kelvins, his thermaling was more efficient than mine but I was doing longer legs so I got ahead.
He caught up in Narrabri and I wasted some time to make sure my turn point got registered then we split and joined several times in the end he arrived a minute before me but much higher than me. I was aiming for 85km/h but I only achieved 79.5Km/h maybe tomorrow :)
Looking at the forecasts we could get close to 10'000 ft tomorrow but high probablility of thunderstorms, we will see in the morning.
You can see it live here http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0sKN7Qb6Yyecoi6GOpICCMukzxeeXlXp5
Cheers
Jacques"
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Sunday 31st October
My partner John is back in Aus for 6 months :-) and we travelled up to Lake Keepit on Saturday afternoon by car, towing the Mosquito trailer. Arrived at about 10 pm and found I had left my gate pass in the other car in the hangar at Keepit! However a phone call to the Park Manager sorted things out and he came to the gate to let us in. The emergency code wouldn't work for some reason.
On Sunday morning I was duty instructor but after consulting the weather forecast no one thought it would be much of a day. We were supposed to get 20 - 25 kt north westerlys followed by thunderstorms at 1600. Jay and Mary elected to fly back to Bankstown while they still could. Tomas towed. There was no one who required instruction, so I rigged the Mozzie assisted by numerous club members (thanks very much) taped up the joins and went flying.
Jacques flew the Junior, Attila flew his recently acquired Cirrus, I flew the Mosquito and that was about it I think. However there was activity over at Kentucky and the duo flew back from there, and the Grob was aerotowed most of the way back. I think I heard Harry Medlicott on the radio, Ian Downes was in the Grob and Todd Clark was in something!
Despite the sky being mostly overcast, there was good lift about though I found it a little hard to centre. Probably out of practice. Cloudbase was about 6000ft, though it went up to 6500 later.
There was a nice line of cu going down the Melville ranges and I considered gettng a clearance to fly along it, but with the forecast 20kt winds in mind I thought I'd go upwind first. Headed along the clouds up to Mt Kaputar, no trouble making progress against the wind - looking at my stats afterward the wind was no stronger than 11 kts even at cloudbase. Met Attila going the same way, but much more efficiently than I!!
Not much clearance between the aerials and the ground, and on my second attempt to get around them I got flushed down the gully behind in some of the worst sink I have ever experienced. I thought I would not make it out from the trees. However I got to a landing paddock at about 1000ft AGL and found some zeros, which eventually turned into about 4-6 kts so I was out of trouble.
Back to Keepit, mooched about over Carrol but was getting lower so back to the airfield. It started working again as I got to the Caravan Park and there was still a nice line of clouds over the Melville ranges so I called up the Tower. Got an automated response "Tamworth Aerodrome 119.4". Apparently the tower is closed on Sunday afternoons now. Called Brisbane centre and they confirmed that it was allowed to go gliding in the control zone but asked me to make a broadcast call on 119.4, so I did!
I didn't go far down the ranges - in hindsight I wish I had gone further, but the outlanding scare made me a bit cautious.
Turned back and flew to Keepit again all in a straight line climbing at 6 kts without turning all the way back to Mt Surprise. It was apparently raining at Keepit. Started worrying about weather at aerodrome so came back and landed. Needn't have worried at all, because Attila stayed up for about another couple of hours!!
All in all a much better day than the forecast would have led one to believe and a much needed fix for me!!
Spent a very convivial evening with the Newcastle contingent and UK visitor Andy - an excellent break!
On Sunday morning I was duty instructor but after consulting the weather forecast no one thought it would be much of a day. We were supposed to get 20 - 25 kt north westerlys followed by thunderstorms at 1600. Jay and Mary elected to fly back to Bankstown while they still could. Tomas towed. There was no one who required instruction, so I rigged the Mozzie assisted by numerous club members (thanks very much) taped up the joins and went flying.
Jacques flew the Junior, Attila flew his recently acquired Cirrus, I flew the Mosquito and that was about it I think. However there was activity over at Kentucky and the duo flew back from there, and the Grob was aerotowed most of the way back. I think I heard Harry Medlicott on the radio, Ian Downes was in the Grob and Todd Clark was in something!
Despite the sky being mostly overcast, there was good lift about though I found it a little hard to centre. Probably out of practice. Cloudbase was about 6000ft, though it went up to 6500 later.
There was a nice line of cu going down the Melville ranges and I considered gettng a clearance to fly along it, but with the forecast 20kt winds in mind I thought I'd go upwind first. Headed along the clouds up to Mt Kaputar, no trouble making progress against the wind - looking at my stats afterward the wind was no stronger than 11 kts even at cloudbase. Met Attila going the same way, but much more efficiently than I!!
Not much clearance between the aerials and the ground, and on my second attempt to get around them I got flushed down the gully behind in some of the worst sink I have ever experienced. I thought I would not make it out from the trees. However I got to a landing paddock at about 1000ft AGL and found some zeros, which eventually turned into about 4-6 kts so I was out of trouble.
Back to Keepit, mooched about over Carrol but was getting lower so back to the airfield. It started working again as I got to the Caravan Park and there was still a nice line of clouds over the Melville ranges so I called up the Tower. Got an automated response "Tamworth Aerodrome 119.4". Apparently the tower is closed on Sunday afternoons now. Called Brisbane centre and they confirmed that it was allowed to go gliding in the control zone but asked me to make a broadcast call on 119.4, so I did!
I didn't go far down the ranges - in hindsight I wish I had gone further, but the outlanding scare made me a bit cautious.
Turned back and flew to Keepit again all in a straight line climbing at 6 kts without turning all the way back to Mt Surprise. It was apparently raining at Keepit. Started worrying about weather at aerodrome so came back and landed. Needn't have worried at all, because Attila stayed up for about another couple of hours!!
All in all a much better day than the forecast would have led one to believe and a much needed fix for me!!
Spent a very convivial evening with the Newcastle contingent and UK visitor Andy - an excellent break!
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