A few days prior, that day when Kevin flew to Georgia and Paul flew 150 miles, the conditions were too strong to boat around Quest, you pretty much had to commit to XC. Never having flown cross country and without GPS, Daniel and I drooled on the ground while we watched more experienced pilots skyout downwind. Should we have gone for our first XC?s, we thought? Perhaps. But we didn?t.
Our last day in Florida was good again. The winds tracked directly from Quest towards Wallaby and the cu?s started building early. Unusual for a north day in Florida as I understand. I dropped my radio from 3200 feet earlier in the week, so between Daniel and I we had a full set of gear ? Daniel had a radio and I had a GPS which pointed towards Wallaby. We were well prepared. By the time we got ready, most of the other pilots who wanted to fly had long gone. Steve, an experienced pilot from Toronto, let me borrow his backup GPS and graciously agreed to try to shepherd us along towards Wallaby. I launched first followed by Steve and Daniel. The idea was to try to stay together and follow Steve. After loosing a couple of hundred off tow I stumbled into solid lift that took me to cloud base at 4200 or so. I looked around for Daniel, Steve or anybody else really, but did not see a single glider around. Well, I was up high and drifting in the right direction, what the hell, open country here I come.
Lots of things that came to my mind at that time: How far is 22 miles (37.5 km, I borrowed the GPS from a Canadian) in a hang glider? Can I ride this cloud all the way to Wallaby? Stay close potential LZs. Think about easy retrieve. Where is the lift? Where was that Bronson Farm with disgruntled landowner? Where did the lift go? Again, how do you tell if a cloud is building? I was in lift a second ago, where did it go? I wonder how long the batteries will last in that gps? Why is the next cloud so far? Man, there is some wasteland in Florida. Where is everyone else to show me lift, damn it?
A few miles out and below 2K I finally found my lift marker, a sailplane working weak stuff. I scurried over and slowly but surely worked my way back up. Now do I fight slight crosswind and stay close to the main road or just go downwind for that extra fraction of a mile before I land. Hands down ? go down wind. A few miles on glide and only a little weak broken lift on the way. I picked out a good LZ and arrived at it with plenty of altitude, a good 900 feet over. I was about 10 miles out, half way there and about to land . For the first time in my short flying career, I cursed out loud to myself. But then, there was something brewing over the field. Never had I worked weak lift so hard. If it was over a flight park, I would have surely gone to land. But I wanted to get back up sooo much. With about seven or eight miles to go I topped that baby out at over 4300, the highest I got on that flight. Finally, I saw another glider, a rigid flying upwind. Must be from Wallaby, I was getting close.
I?ve only had two short flights at Wallaby prior and was not familiar with the terrain around it. The GPS had an arrow pointing to the SE, but I just wasn?t sure which of those fields it is. I was getting low again, down to about 1800 with limited landing options further on until Wallaby. And then I saw a gaggle, half a dozen gliders and right below them a bunch of white triangles in a field ? my goal, Wallaby. There was some lift, nothing strong, but I was getting closer and closer. Once I had it on glide, I left the lift and went to land rolling in right in front of Greg DeWolf?s camera.
At the beginning of the flight, I tried to think positively and told myself that it was a really good day. The wind direction was perfect. I thought that there should be experienced pilots all along the way and I?d just latch onto somebody and follow them right in. At the same time, it was hard to think that I would just cruise on over to Wallaby and be realistic about it. In the end, it was a lot of luck, great conditions, four good thermals and a borrowed GPS that got me there. I flew my own flight and made the best decisions I could. An hour and a half later I knew how far 22 miles is.
Alek
- Over Wallaby
