My Flying

Bloemfontein Camp - Day 2

You need to understand that I have never ever been solo (by myself / alone !) further than gliding distance from any airfield (in a glider). For those that fly cross country all they time they might have forgotten just how big a step this is - leaving the nest and the safety of familiar surroundings. You need to place a huge amount of faith in your own skills and also hope like crazy that the weather plays along too.

Where I normally fly from, cross country flying is not really an option unless you are either very brave or highly skilled. Outlanding possibilities are very few and far between and most will result in some form of damage to the aeroplane, which in my opinion is not justifiable risk, well with my skill level anyway.

So this was one of the main reasons for me trekking to Bloemfontein, the chance to leave the nest and the safety of the airfield and head away, far away. Also, as part of the process of obtaining one's Glider Pilot License (GPL) one needs to fly a short (50 km) cross country course. The course need only be 50 km one way, but flying back sure makes life easier.

Yesterday the weather was not great at all, but today the Cu's were starting to pop all over the place. By the time I took off, from near the back of the grid, the sky was looking awesome. So what was my plan? Well for starters I was going to try my hand at flying to the dam (the Krugersdrift Dam is about 22 km from the airfield) and then to re-assess the situation there.

As it turns out, my first journey away from the airfield and to the dam went off pretty well. Cloud base was a respectable 10000 to 11000 feet but jumping from cloud to cloud worked out very well and I lost little height in the process. When I arrived at the dam the weather towards Dealesville (55 km from New Tempe) looked really good. What the heck, I got this far ok, so let's try for the whole 9 yards! And off I went.

About halfway to Dealesville I found an awesome cloud streak and was able to push up the speed with out loosing much height. By the time I reached Dealesville I wanted more, much more, and headed about 10 km further north to a saltpan before turning back for the dam. The average thermals for the day were about 2.5 to 3.0 m/s, which though not the 5 m/s thermals I was hoping for, were plenty in quantity and more than strong enough to help me to move around the sky.

Yesterday I mentioned that I was experiencing some bad breathing problems due to the higher altitude to which I was not accustomed and also perhaps due to the physically exhaustion I experienced on the ground with the heat and high humidity when I rigged the glider. I never took my oxygen bottle along on that flight as cloud base was predicted to be about 9000 feet (which it was) and generally most people only require oxygen from about 12000 feet. However, today I was fine all the way up to 11 000 feet, but decided to use the oxygen for about a ½ and hour just to boost my system. I think my body just needed a day to acclimatise to the higher altitude and thinner air.

Halfway back from the dam to New Tempe some of the clouds to the W and SW started to look really dark and menacing, but I wasn't interesting in landing just yet so I pottered around the sky just playing with the lift that I found. Well that was until I saw the first lightning bolt about 20 km away. Mmmhhh, now what? Which way was the storm moving and how fast? After about 20 minutes of just watching and waiting I cranked up the speed and flew through some very light rain to land on 36 for one of my best landings yet.

So, what an amazing day! A cross country flight of about 130 km, out and return, with some pretty good weather, finished off with a thunderstorm and a great landing, all that at The cost, 681.90ZAR including 360.00ZAR for the tow.