Break Loose Adventure Blog

“Dad, I’ve never had a trophy in gliding. Can I get one too?” “Sure, Jessie, but you’ll have to wait a few more years until you can fly on your own.” “No, I mean get a trophy now! The boys did before they could fly themselves – with you.”

Eric had indeed been with me on a cross-country flight that we received a club trophy for and Colin got his wings that year. It also dawned on me that this was only the opening argument. I took the bait: “Well, what do you have in mind, Jessica?”

“You know, the Adelaide Uni Club has the ‘Come and get it’ trophy. Could we fly there and get it?”
I was looking into the puppy face that for some reason I can’t say no to.
“You said last year that it’s easy.”
“That was when the Uni club was still at Lochiel. But they’ve moved to Stonefield now and that’s a bit further.”
“Ah. We could just get it from there then.” Eyes blinking. “Where is Stonefield?”

That was several weeks earlier. The season had not exactly been fantastic and was now waning. Friday after work the temperature trace and synoptic charts looked promising for the weekend and my growing hope for a good cross-country flight on the weekend did not go unnoticed.

“Can we pick up the trophy tomorrow?” said the puppy face. What could I say?
My provisional “But only if the weather is right” fell on deaf ears.
“Can we have lunch in the glider? The boys had lunch in the air on their cross-country flights.”
“Sure, Jessie, if…”

A triumphant “YES!” drowned out the rest of my reply. In no time at all she had her gear packed and clothes ready for the morning. She went to bed early a very happy girl.

Predictably, we got an early wake-up call Saturday morning. Jessie filled her Camelback™, packed her camera, and prepared an airline lunch pack – only the crayons and colouring-in-book were missing. The nappy-in-a-freezer-bag ‘in-flight toilet’ was very important, too. Jessica was going to be ready for this adventure!

The first unexpected hurdle was the mother of this daughter of mine. Joanne isn’t quite the pushover that I am when it comes to bending to an 11-year-old girl’s wishes. When she realised that we were serious about our quest, she voiced her objections in no uncertain terms! What does she know about father/daughter bonding stuff? Eventually she succumbed to our combined persuasion skills and on the trip to the airfield joined into the boys’ bantering about my recent string of outlandings and their speculations on the chance of achieving our mutual objective.

On arrival at the field, Jessie went straight for the hangar to reserve “her” aircraft. While I DI’ed the ASK21, she washed and polished the glider. We were going to get every bit of performance it had to offer.

At the pilot briefing good thermals – some to 8000ft – were forecast. A 15kt north-westerly was expected to help us towards our goal but also meant that all gliders had to be towed to the other end of the airstrip to launch into wind. I was eager to get underway early to leave enough time for the return flight into wind.

Eventually the ASK21 sat in the launch line-up on runway 34. Jessica carefully stowed her gear and made herself comfortable in the front seat before being strapped in tightly.

Only the glider in front of us had gotten away so far. The first two had merely managed to fly a more or less extended circuit. The thermals were obviously just starting to develop now. It was around 12:20 when we finally took off. Our first thermal almost straight off the winch was narrow and rough but lifted us quickly to 2700ft where it topped out. Having drifted a fair way downwind I cautiously headed off on our track and found another climb on the northern outskirts of Balaklava. This one took us to 3500ft. The air was obviously about to warm up and if my theory was right the next thermal should take us to a more comfortable altitude, both in terms of temperature and my peace of mind.

My precious charge in the front seat was happy, enjoying the sights, pointing out landmarks she knew, and occasionally sipping on her drinking hose. Little did she know or care about the emotional rollercoaster ride I went through in tune with the ups and downs of the altimeter. For crossing the higher ground of the ranges that would reduce my working band and with its more difficult outlanding conditions I really wanted some extra height rather than scraping low across the rising terrain.

Right on cue before the first line of hills we found the lift I craved for, much stronger this time, the steady 4.5kts topping out at 5300ft. This gave me the confidence boost I needed to relax in my seat and settle into a steady rhythm of cruise and climb. All the tension was gone and I really enjoyed the flight from there on. The next thermal near Rhynie carried us even higher and I gave the 5kt climb away at a little under 6500ft because of airspace. On the way up I found out important trivia such as the fact that Riverton has a swimming pool whereas Auburn, Saddleworth, and Tarlee don’t. Jessie in turn learnt the names of the towns either side of our track as the landscape slowly scrolled past below us.

Sensing the invisible air currents with 17 metres of white fibreglass composite wing as feelers, I gently weaved my way through the convection-stirred air, trying to maximise the time we spent in the rising currents by gradually slowing down and flying faster and away from sink. We made good progress without thermaling. Jessie’s delight was apparent and very infectious!

Soon there was only one last set of hills to cross. I was able to make out what I thought was the Stonefield runway intersection although I wasn’t quite sure. With the terrain ahead stepping down onto the vast flats, we would instantly have more air between the ground and us again, and with the tailwind providing the extra push, this should be easy final glide distance. However, I decided to play it extra safe for the sake of my passenger and stopped in a nice thermal for another 1000ft in case I was wrong and needed to search for the airfield.

Speeding up in the conviction that we had the trophy in the bag we crossed the escarpment near Neales Flat. Jessie spotted the Murray River and I pointed out the roads across which we had towed the ASK21 earlier in January to and from Performance Week at Waikerie. In fact, we could make out the orchards surrounding the township in the far distance beyond the tree and scrub-lined blue-brownish band that bisected the plains in front of us. This brought up the memories of Jessie’s first aero tow, her faithful crew duties, and the other kids and the dogs she had made friends with… but I am digressing.

It turned out that my cautiousness had been superfluous. We flew past Stonefield in buoyant air with a good 2000ft to spare. Extending the glide south of the highway at Truro we flew a wide circle around the Truro Flats Airpark for a good look at the field airfield there before joining the Stonefield circuit and landing after 76min at the south-eastern end.

The usual mob of glider pilots greeted us and Jessica stated the purpose of her mission. The trophy was duly retrieved from its shelf and relinquished to this very determined little girl. As we couldn’t get an immediate relaunch due to winch problems, we hitched a ride to the clubhouse for a pit stop and an ice cream.

About an hour later, our ASK21 lifted off again but only for a short hop as a cable break prematurely ended our climb. By the time the cable was fixed and the glider hooked on, ready for launch again I was very conscious of the time. It was nearly 15:30 when we got airborne again. I doubted that the thermals would last until 17:00 which would give us maybe 1 _ hours to get home.

A rough thermal quickly brought us to 4500ft before I lost it. We had also drifted a fair way downwind to the southeast of the airfield. I headed north of our track towards Eudunda intending to circumnavigate the restricted airspace instead of taking the direct route. This would give us an extra 2000ft of working band to push into the headwind component on the way home. It was immediately apparent that the convection was more organised now as we were still climbing at varying rates for the next few kilometres, reaching 5200ft without a single turn. This would make up for the head wind I hoped. With the late launch the flight had now literally become a race against the sun if we wanted to make it to Balaklava without a stopover in a paddock. We needed to get into final glide range before the thermals were going to quit.

Somewhat unexpectedly, the streeting changed into massive sink and we were soon below 4000ft with the escarpment ahead starting to loom larger every minute. I turned north-east, deviating at virtually 90° from our track to escape the torrent of air that was dragging us relentlessly down. I told Jessie that this course would bring us closer to the main Eudunda-Morgan road in case we needed a retrieve but that I expected we would pick up the next lift “street” before we hit a paddock. A few minutes later, another continuous band of smooth lift carried us slowly but surely -again without circling – from 3000ft to over 4000ft by the time we crossed the road about 3kms east of the township. Meandering in a northerly direction with the better parts of the weak lift I finally found us an embedded core. With 6.5kts on the averager the maelstrom of rising air swept us to 8300ft, the highest point in our flight.

The vista north was nothing short of spectacular in the clear air. The sky was a brilliant blue. With the shadows already lengthening as the sun moved lower towards the western horizon, the relief of the Totthill and Bald Hill ranges contrasted starkly in dark blue and grey hues against the light brown and ochres of the surrounding country side. Further west the Camels Hump and the Yackamoorundie ranges produced a similar display. The Flinders Ranges delimited the northern horizon and the waters of the Spencer and St Vincent gulfs glistened brightly where they merged with the sun. Moments like this make gliding – especially cross-country soaring – the uniquely overwhelming experience that it is. Sharing this pleasure with my little girl turned this moment and indeed the entire flight into one of the unforgettable pinnacles in many years of gliding.

As we enjoyed the majestic view, we heard a Stonefield pilot report 10000ft in wave not far to the northeast of us. Since before our landing we had seen broken, slowly changing lenticular clouds to north and east of us. I didn’t give them too much attention in the belief that this was high-level shear wave that we wouldn’t be able to reach. This bit of information however changed my view drastically. Instead of the lift streets being aligned with the north-westerly, they were actually running north-south, almost parallel to the ranges due to the wave. The wave also reinforced the thermals under its rising edge. The heavy sink we experienced was obviously where the air plummeted down the other side and suppressed the thermals, in this case reinforced by the lee of the ranges.

This was quickly confirmed as I changed tactics: heading north in the lift and then running west at high speed through several kilometres of rather heavy sink, thus roughly following the curved airspace boundary.

Diamond Lake started to emerge on the horizon as a tiny white streak below the sinking sun, marking our as yet invisible destination. Jessie had difficulties to find it just to the left of Lake Bumbunga, which dominated the scene as a big white blob.

A kilometre or two north of Marrabel we picked up our next thermal. It was still strong but suspiciously wide and smooth in comparison to what we had earlier in the day. Given the current conditions we only needed one more climb after this but would the thermals last that long? The sun was relentlessly moving down the western sky, which already took on an orangey hue.

We were climbing through 7000ft when I heard “Zulu Bravo Golf, Hotel Tango” over the radio. Our friends in Balaklava were about to pack up for the day and probably wondered whether we would need the trailer or not. I responded with a brief position report but neglected any indication of our expected progress, leaving them in the same suspense that we were in. The thermal topped out at 8000ft and we cruised west again.

Ahead and to our left we could see a tongue of milky haze creeping low to the ground from the southwest across our track – the sea breeze. There was not much hope of any lift on the last 25km and once we descended into the sea breeze air, it would add to the significant headwind component. To the south, the haze turned a brownish tinge and obscured the city of Adelaide from us. Little did the people there know about the two aviators floating silently up here and taking in the serene beauty around us while breathing the cool, crystal-clear air.

The sink was not quite as pronounced as it had been earlier but all too soon, we were down to less than 5000ft. Tantalisingly close to final glide range yet marginally out of reach. Abeam Saddleworth I finally felt the air become buoyant again and shortly after got that solid feel. In a rather limp 2.5kts, we spiralled upwards, topping up to 7500ft and final glide. I settled back in my seat, trimmed the glider to almost 70kts and let the aircraft take us down the glide slope towards our home base with only the occasional minute corrections on the controls.

The air became silky smooth as we approached Halbury. Diamond Lake was now right on the nose and creeping higher in the canopy – first imperceptibly but more pronounced with each kilometre that ticked by. Gradually I lowered the nose and let our airspeed build up. I have always loved that last flight of the day when the air is still and oily, and the sun casts long shadows on the ground below. This time it was even more enjoyable with “Jessie’s” trophy stowed in the wing root compartment and a successful cross-country flight coming to an end. We crossed the runway and the waiting onlookers in front of the clubhouse in a low 120kt competition-style finish after one and three quarter hours in the air.

Jessie beamed as we taxied up to the hangar and opened our canopies to the warm, humid air. As she proudly told the family on the drive home, this was her first real cross-country flight, her first gliding trophy, and she also had her first cable break. Had she not been too excited to have her lunch, it might well have been her first meal in a glider, too. For me it was a privilege to have been her ‘chauffeur’.

About the Author: Ulrich Stauss is 44 years of age and started gliding at age 14 in Germany where he originally comes from, and where gliding is much more popular than in Australia. Ulrich is a member of the Balaklava Gliding Club and has been one of the club’s fully qualified instructors for several years. Both Ulrich’s boys (14[near solo, waiting for his 15th b’day] and 17 [solo, working on cross-country and competition flying]) are keen glider pilots, and his daughter, 12, (who features prominently in the article) cannot wait for her legs to grow long enough to reach the controls. To discover more about gliding visit the Balaklava Gliding Club This article has been provided for publication by Ulrich Stauss. Unauthorised use or reproduction is strictly prohibited. All material & images are © Ulrich Stauss & Break Loose Publications. Break Loose thanks Ulrich Stauss for allowing us to bring you this excellent gliding article.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 20th, 2007 at 10:50 am and is filed under Gliders & Aircraft. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.