Flying gliders at Lake Keepit

After packing up at Forbes I got into Lars Olav’s old moyesmobile and drove the 6 hours to Lake Keepit to get more airtime in gliders. I had the first day to get checked out again since it’s been a while since I flew gliders, and preparing to fly some XC. I needed a few flights to get my glide angles readjusted from hanggliders to a sailplane.

The weather’s been OK, not super good, but very flyable every day. Yesterday I set my first task, a 300km FAI triangle to Bingara, Narrabri and back to Keepit. I was a bit late to grab a parachute from the club store, and someone else had the one I normally fly with, so I took one that was made to sit on. When I sat down in the plane to get a tow I found my position strange and a bit uncomfortable, but I decided to fly anyway since the day was turning on and I wanted to be in the air. I tried to make some adjustments to the parachute in the air, but that is quite hard since I’m sitting on it in the cramped cockpit, and after taking the start and flying to Mt. Borah I had to go back as my back and neck was starting to cramp after only 15 minutes flying. I did a fast glide back, landed, got another better chute, and towed up again into an OK thermal.

By the time I was back south of Barraba the predicted storms had started to develop over Bingara, and there was shade and a big blue hole. I stayed in weak lift just south of Barraba waiting to see if it would clear, but the storm did not move and I did not risk flying into the shade for the next 50km to get the TP. I flew around enjoying the good lift and nice air, and went back to land at 17:30.

Today I took a break from flying, the weather was nice and very flyable, but with a high probability of storms. As I write this at 16:30 the rain is pouring down, with thunder and lightning every minute. Tomorrow looks better on the blipmaps, and I will probably retry the 300km task.