Andrew “The Thief” Luton tells us about he weekend
Well another great Easter weekend of flying was had for another year despite the anoos weather that we were thrown and despite the epic forecast that was given leading up to the weekend. I arrived at Forbes on Thursday night with a mate who had come along to retrieve drive for us for Friday and Saturday. On the Thursday night I decided to close my tent off completely as I had a feeling that the clouds were looking a little nasty and was greeted to rain as I awoke. Lucky I didn’t sleep with just the fly open!
My mate and I arrive out at the airport at 0830 and we set my glider up in the hanger as it was still drizzling outside. After a while I had had enough of waiting and said to Steve lets go for a tow to which he said OK. When we took off it was hardly raining but not long into the tow it started raining again and I stayed on for as long as I could. The second I pinged off and slowed the glider to a normal flying speed with full VG the glider instantly stalled and the nose fell without warning. This was no problem as it simply meant that I had to fly a little faster to maintain nice controlled flight. I did a few experimentations with slowing the glider with and without VG as well as turning to see how the glider would react. Once I was comfortable with the different control that I had due to the wing being heavier due to the rain I flew around just to the north of the airport waiting for Steve to race down to grab my mate who then came up in the Dragon Fly to take some video before I had to come into land, to which we got some good vids! Some might think that spending money on a tow when there is no lift is pointless but I found it very useful as I had never flown my wing when it had been completely wet and now have an understanding of what to expect if I get caught out one day.
Later that arvo the rain cleared and everyone was hanging around the hanger walking around aimlessly working out what to do. I went to Steve and said how much for a tow to 200-300 ft? He said if everyone was keen $5. So with that I got everyone keen enough to set up and with that a spot landing comp was on. This was great fun with everyone having 3 or 4 tows. The landings were hot some screaming in from a distance in ground effect and others flaring high to hit the spot. Dave managed to pull off a very nice HIGH flare which is on film and I will do my best to get it on the Tube soon.
Saturday came around and the cu’s were looking great. We were ready to tow by about 12 by which point the cu’s had grown and a storm had built to the North. Trent towed first and managed to slowly climb away as per usual J. Dave and I towed next but both didn’t manage to grab any usable lift, the only lift I got was 2 turns in zeros on my final approach!!! Dave towed again and managed to get away and just as I was thinking about going again I could see it was raining heavily half a km to the north and closing in fast so put my glider in the hanger and went on retrieve duties as my mate had gone home due to the weather which was a fair call!
The goal for today was Temora, as apparently their was an air show on J. Dave landed 20km down the road from Forbes not managing to outrun the storm in time. When I got to him he was standing near a tree with everything packed up enjoying the heavy shower that he was receiving. I stayed in the car as he tied the glider on the roof. As he was finishing tying the glider the back roof rack I saw him drop to the ground as a lightning bolt hit the fence about 20m from him. There was no delay what so ever with the thunder clap which confirmed that it was a close call. I thought he might have been affected by the bolt but just as I was about to open the car door to check if he was all good the cheeky bugger jumps back up and jumps in the car. Once in the car Dave explained that he had let go of the car at the split second the lightning bolt hit and that he heard a crackling noise a split second before the bolt hit and reacted in letting go of the car to fall to the ground as he though the car was going to cop it! The noise he heard was the electric charge building up just before the lightning struck. Amazing stuff!
Dave and I then went on retrieve for T-man who was still in the air and ahead of the storm. He ended up landed 18km short of goal after flying 106km. We got to him about a minute after he landed and helped him pack up before a wind gust came thorough bring a wall of dirt. Again, another top event for the day. The trip back to Forbes was greeted with a large amount of humour as we received a call from Tumut to hear that a punter had landed on a car in style! This is without a doubt definitely up for the clubs monthly fark award next month!
When we got back to the airfield the storms had cleared and left a large amount of low cloud around and calm air. A number of people were still at the airfield and Steve was towing Nicola up. Right I thought time to grab some more video footage. I taped my camera to my base bar and up we went above the clouds! This flight was absolutely magic. I pinged off just above the cloud layer and got some great footage of the Dragon Fly flying around in the sun above the clouds.
Sunday came and the cu’s looked gold. Base was low starting off at about 1800agl. This lifted by the afternoon to nearly 4000agl. Trent, Dave and Barnsey made goal Munjal 55km down the road. Dave towed first and headed off for Munjal with Barnsey and myself next in line for tow. The climbs were amazingly light, the lightest I have ever been in. I released from tow right on 2000ft agl and cored a thermal with Barnsey climbing initially at 70-100ft/min. Trent joined us off tow a little lower than us just as the thermal came to a pause. We all then bolted over to the NW about 2km away where there was a nice cloud forming. Barnsey got there first and I came in just under him with the climb rate of around 150-200ft/min which got stronger near closer to the cloud peaking somewhere just over 300ft/min. Trent came in way under me and from where I was it didn’t look like he had glide back to the airport if he didn’t get the climb. As Trent tends to do he climbed up from low and met us at cloud base (top job Trent). Trent and Barnsey decided to head off for Munjal in chase of Dave while I made the call to stay within glide of the airport as I was off home that evening back to the missus (a hard priority but after 3 days hanging out with the boys it was an easy decision hehe). The cloud that Trent, Barnsey and myself had climbed up in was quite large by the time we got there and I kept climbing up in the middle of it and then flying out to the side loosing height and then flying back in again. I managed to do this for about 30 min which was pretty cool to say the least before the climb ceased. After and hour and a half of playing I came in over the airport and after a few wingovers to loose some height in style I landed and headed home.
This was a top weekend even though the flights were not the typical crazy good Forbes type but I feel that I learnt a hell of a lot out of it. Many thanks once again to Steve for coming out and towing us up and having many laughs – It’s always a pleasure flying with you. For those of you thinking about coming out to the next Forbes weekend all I can say is that if you have a hang glider and an aerotow endorsement you are silly not to be there!
Happy Flying – Thief >:-)
