Day 3 / Task 2 story from David Moore

After a great tow from Bronte and a search around, I found something that quickly developed into a solid 3 or 4 up all the way round. After my school boy blunders of the previous day I was determined not to lose this one so I banked hard and stayed with it, quickly drifting out of range of the tow paddock. I was soon joined by Hugh and then Grant, who quickly climbed past me and on up to base before setting off on glide. I knew there was no chance I'd ever keep up with them and I was in good lift so I stayed with what I had until it petered out (or - more likely - I lost it). I could see them both climbing again downwind so I heaved on the VG and set off in their direction.

I soon found some bubbles of lift (learning from the talk from Wes already), and eventually found the strongest part which took me all the way to base at around 5 1/2 grand, it was really quite dark so I stuffed the bar and headed (still climbing into the grey) for the clearest exit downwind and was soon out the back in steady sink. I was heading for what looked like a blue hole with 2 obvious choices: a really good looking cloud nicely on course but quite a glide away, or a smaller but closer cloud which took me slightly off course - I went for option 2 which turned out to be a good move; as I got closer I found a good climb which topped me up nicely. After a while I kept losing it and was losing more than I was gaining so with Tove's words still fresh on my mind I didn't hang around.

There were no obvious clouds to head for and there was now quite a lot of cloud cover so I headed for the sunny ground. I didn't find anything at all and I was starting to think that I'd blown it. There looked like an ideal paddock to land in which was also in the sun so I started to head in that direction, I was down to maybe 1000' AGL and was thinking about unzipping . I opted to fly to the far end of the paddock to maximise the distance, not seeing that I'd chosen to fly at probably the most obvious themal trigger for miles (doh!) as the paddock was almost funnel shaped at the downwind end. I flew straight into a corker and, again, with Tove's words still fresh from the morning, I cranked it as hard as I dared. The ground was spinning fast and I quickly felt dizzy but I was climbing nicely so I figured- stuff it keep going I'm not losing this one!

With the vario singing and the sun in my face I thought; it doesn't get any better than this! - and then it did - I was joined by a wedgie who came in for a pretty close look, and we thermalled together for a while before he decided he'd had enough and headed off. Magic. I was at about the 40km mark by now, and as my P.B. up until now was only 29km's I had a huge grin on my face!

There was a lot of drift and it was hard to make out the paddock I'd clawed my way out of in the distance - and I was still in the same thermal. I milked it for all I could and topped out at just under 6000' ASL - but still a way off cloudbase. I felt that I'd drifted a little way off course so I set off on glide towards goal with the vg back on, following the speed to fly on my trusty flytec. Looking at my tracklog, at one point on this glide I was doing over 100k's an hour over the ground so the wind really was quite strong!

It seemed like there were small bubbles of lift all over the place, (either that or I was incredibly lucky and kept blundering into them) so I started to glide with the VG chord in hand ready to pull off as soon as I hit something and this seemed to work really well. I knew I needed to head further north as I was in danger of being too far off course, so I would climb until I lost it and then glide north again towards goal until I bumped into another one, I did this for about 3 climbs, maintaining at around 4000' on average. There seemed to be dirt roads everywhere so landing out was really not a concern, it was so great to be able to just glide wherever I wanted without worrying about landing options. I was able to glide into the sunny terrain and just head towards what I thought would be a good trigger point and by flying with a light touch I could really feel what the air was doing - the glider giving so much feedback. (More info fresh from Tove that morning!)

I was at around 10km's from goal but didn't want to get too excited as I wasn't there yet (but I was pretty damn excited anyway!) Mr Flytec said I could make it with about 400' to spare but I wasn't so sure, so I eyed up a good looking paddock with a decent road in case and headed that way but once again was rewarded with a good solid climb when I got close. After a few turns I spotted the distinctive shape of rigged hang gliders in a paddock and finally saw another glider in the air (on his final approach) so I knew that I could make it.....but I wanted to be sure and, well, this was a good climb and I was in no rush so I kept circling. I eventually left the climb and went on final from probably 2 km's out but still arrived with probably just under 2 grand. Yep - I'm definitely going to make it 'cos I can drop my radio in it - time to relax!

After boating around in sink above the paddock I had plenty of time to plan my approach and make a half decent landing before I parked my wing amongst the shiny topless machines in the holy grail of hang gliding - GOAL!!!! Wow - I can't friggin' believe it! I've actually made goal! Woo Hoo!!! I don't think I've ever landed in such a happy place - everyone had a grin from ear to ear. Soon Hugh came over and handed me a Brichip Goal Beer - best beer I've ever tasted! (The second was even better - we pom's like our beer nice and warm). What a flight, and what an awesome place to fly. So rare to be able to put into practice what you've learned that very morning. Thanks to Tove and Wes for sharing their knowledge, and thanks to Peter Holloway for all the thermalling practice out at Locksley. See you in November for the big K week!