What an amazing week last week was. Dave topped it all off by pulling out an amazing flight from one of our favorite local sites:
It was the previous Friday that the forecast was calling Eastery winds extending inland all the way to south Australia for the start of the following week which is exactly what I’ve been watching out for to do a big flight from my favourite site-Lake George is best known for its after noon and early morning flights because its an amazing dry lake bed with a 40km ridge facing East so its perfect for ridge soaring the Sea breeze that pushes inland on a regular bases. The Canberra club has no shortage of keen pilots who cruise out after work or even get up early to soar the ridge.
As for going XC from the Lake all you need is a prevailing Eastery, which doesn’t happen too often so when I saw the forecast for Monday & Tuesday I planned to have those days off work. Over the weekend the weather was looking better & better and I was getting real keen. I got a call from Jonny Durand making some final plans for the Manilla comp, and knowing he was in Sydney I suggested he shoot down the Hume for a fly with me. Jonny had some Red Bull things to sort out on Monday so I said i’ll test the water on and we both have a go at big one on Tuesday which did look like the better day. I woke on Monday to a cirrus sky and a light Eatery, so not in a huge rush I headed out to the Nth end of Lake George arriving at 11:30 as I was setting up the wind was slowly getting more consistent but the sky was quite thick with cirrus so I was expecting another XC start maybe to Yass but not the big one I was chasing. I launched my Moyes Litespeed at 12:30 and had no probs staying up in ridge lift. At first I was finding small strong bubbles of lift that would brake up just above 3000ft asl but you could tell it was only a matter of time before one held together and gave me a ticket higher enough to jump the bit of tiger country over the back. Just before 13:00 I got a solid 600ft/m climb and I reported to Tamar (my driver) I was leaving the ridge. I had a course line set in my GPS for a town named Junee about 175km away but I first had to fly off course line to avoid air space. I took my first few climbs to about 6000ft asl and as got closer to Yass I was hoping to see Cu’s starting and base lifting but the cirrus remained. I had nearly 30kph of wind to help but with no clouds i decided to forget about staying on course and just follow the best looking ground and hopfully that coincided with the thinnest areas of cirrus. As I past Binalong then Cootamundra I was covering distance fast, all my decisions were working and I started to get the feeling this could be my day. Near Temora I pushed a long glide diving into a dusty lower than I should have and got a rough save that turned into 900ft/min climb and took me to 8000asl. With a solid tail wind I focused on good glide lines and with my Moyes litespeed RS3.5 got a fast run to the small but picturesque Mt’s ENE of Leeton where I joined 3 wedgies for an awesome climb. At about 17:30 I hit the 300km mark and in hindsight I should have keep going but I hadn’t heard from my driver for 4 hours and I was entering a area I didn’t know. I was south of Griffith and it looked like a crazy retrieve If I went down in the next 50km. Looking at a map later I had an easy glide WSW to the HWY that runs all the way to Hay. Anyway I ended up landing in a town named Whitton where I had easy walk top the pub. Waiting for my retrieve I was stoked that now a big flight had been achieved from Lake George it was easy to see the potential of this awesome site and excited for tomorrow hoping the forecast was still correct I called Jonny & Trent to tell them to get ready for tomorrow because I believe it could be a record day. Trent and Jonny needed no persuasion and agreed to meet on launch at 9:00. Jonny saying ” I’m not coming down to Canberra for a haircut, I’m coming to fly to Mildura”. We were keen and ready It was Jonny, Trent, me and driver Tim from the US. The sky looked twice as good as it did yesterday with unreal cloud streets all the to the horizon. We had one small problem… the wind was insane and so was any pilot who thought they could fly safely in it. Sadly we decided it was not going to happen today. But it will happen its only a matter of time. Trent & I showed Jonny & Tim around the flying sites of Canberra and on Spring hill we had winds of 80kph so we all felt a little better we hadn’t tried to launch. Jonny drove back to Syd without a fly I’m sure he has seen record potential in Lake George and will be looking out for similar weather next time he’s around. It will happen its only a matter of time…. Dave
