Learning to Fly

Clear Skies Ahead

After all the rain that had fallen in January I was surprised to have 2 days in a row without much more than a fleeting shower. The ground had dried and there was no rain forecast for the weekend so Daniel and I had planned to get up the hill early. When we got up there it was a little after 9am and it was blowing a 25-30km/h northeasterly.

There was nobody else on the hill but Juarez, so we didn’t have much of a reference. We asked him to turn on the monitor for the anemometer and decided it would be ok for take off. Daniel took off first, and required a bit of a push to get going against the stronger gusts, but I was soon following him.

We flew around for nearly an hour before the bubbles of rising air started to become significant. We were sure it was going to be a good day to fly cross-country, and we were just waiting for the thermals to get strong enough before we left the ramp area. In the time we were there though the sun was really hot and there were some pretty strong bubbles coming up. I had been getting into the habit of using a light brake to avoid passing thermals quickly in lift conditions and I was getting lazy. I knew it was a bad habit to get into, but my laziness combined with the strong urge to climb at all costs meant I was doing it more and more often. However right in front of the ramp I caught a strong bubble and pulled in lightly on the brakes to rise with it and not go forward. I heard a strange ruffling noise and my glider lost pressure. I looked up to see that it was starting to stall and fold up in the middle just like in the DVDs I have been watching. I quickly released the brakes and it started to fly again without any trouble, but it was a little eye opener.

Daniel and I headed along the ridge and found a good thermal and got up to nearly 2500m and into the clouds. We thought we were high enough to start heading toward Mogi Guaçu, but hadn’t noticed that the leeward side of the ridge was clear, without any clouds forming at all. We flew straight for a few minutes, and soon realised that we weren’t hitting any thermals and were losing height fast due to the downdraft of the range.

We split up and searched for some rising air but were soon both landing. I landed at the bach and had to get a mototaxi back up the hill to get the car. It was more frustrating though to see that 20 minutes after we landed, as I was finishing to pack up my glider, to see a half dozen gliders passing above us in great conditions heading toward Campinas, and making the full distance of 107km. We had been so fixed on leaving the ramp area that we hadn’t noticed the clear skies and didn’t even make 7km. If we had waited just a little longer we would have been with them.

Total flight time: 1h45mins