Learning to Fly

Ramp Clown

I woke up early at the bach and looked up at the ramp to see nothing but blue sky. It had been a while since I had seen it like that with the sun shining bright, and I was sure today was going to be better than yesterday.

Guto woke up a little later and we had a big breakfast as we expected to be flying all day long. When we got up the ramp it was nearly 11am and people were starting to arrive and unpack their gliders. I wasn’t keen to hang around with so many people there and Lucas Sampaio was keen to try for São João da Boa Vista. The wind was southeasterly like yesterday so I was keen to try. The sky had lots of small clouds forming, but there was a small gap between the ramp and São João, and we waited about 25 minutes before clouds started to form solidly all the way along the planned route.

By this time the ramp was packed and I was itching to get out of there. Lucas decided it was time to give it a go as 2 of the more experienced pilots were prepping for take off and we could try and follow them. Nobody else was flying at that time and it was a bit daunting being first, but I didn’t want to let it faze me. Guto decided to hold back and wait for Daniel to arrive, but I was keen to give it a shot.

Lucas took off first and found a thermal about 100m to the left of the ramp. I then stepped up and Thaís looked at me and said, “Seeing red huh?” I realized everyone was watching me and took 2 steps forward and flew off straight into a thermal about 20m from the ramp. I circled for about 2 minutes and was already almost 200m above the ramp. I could see everyone looking up and tried not to imagine what they were thinking.

I circled longer but kept popping in and out of the thermal and could see that Lucas and Moacir were getting much higher than I was. I tried to follow them but the thermal started breaking up and I was drifting with the wind over to the western side of the ramp. I wanted to go back to try and find something closer to the southern side of the ramp, but Washington was flying there and was much lower than I was, so I decided to start heading along the ridge towards São João before I got too low.

I put my foot on the accelerator and gave it a shot but only hit descending air pockets. I didn’t get anymore than a kilometre from the ramp before I knew I was going to have to land and managed to do so close to the road up the hill so I could get a lift. Guto picked me up and we were back up the hill in no time, only to hear Mário jeering. I had thought I was the only one, but it seems although he had been much higher, Lucas hadn’t made it much further than I had.

I prepped my kit for another shot and by that time Daniel had shown up. I guess I had broken the ice and everyone was taking off and flying along the ridge to the east where it was a bit more guaranteed. I wanted to do the same but the queue to take off was pretty long so Daniel and I took our kit over to the Eastern ramp. I had never taken off from their before and I promise not to do it again. The ramp is not very steep and with the light conditions I hardly lifted off the ground and had to run through the rough for a bit before finally being able to sit back.

I struggled my way along the ridge to the right, seeing as most of the pilots were over that side. I circled for a bit in the first valley and was able to maintain my height for a minute or two but soon gave up and headed further along.

I was soon getting pretty low and scraping to find something, but I could see a thick flat, gray based cloud forming in front of me and some pilots high up under it. I figured such a solid cloud must have a thermal coming right from ground level so I extended my accelerator a bit more to try and make it there before it was over. I got pretty low and near the high tension power lines which was kind of worrying before I finally found it. It was surging and strong the whole way up and the glider kept softening and folding in at the tips but I held on and in only a couple of minutes I was at over 2000m and nearly in the base of the cloud.

I had noticed the lines slackening on one side or the other of the wing as I hit the turbulence and I remembered to roll my hips with the waves to keep the tension even in the lines. I think I normally do it when I’m flying straight, but today I noticed that when I’m trying to turn in a thermal I was fighting to keep the turn, when I really should have been relaxing and letting in carry me up.

It was cold at that altitude and I spent a minute digging some gloves out of my pocket. By the time I had them on I noticed that the thermal had died and everyone had taken off in the direction of São João. I was already a bit behind and having the slowest glider I decided it would be a bad idea to try and catch them up.

I looked around and saw that everyone was losing height near the southern landing area, so I decided I would head further along the ridge. I went for nearly 15 minutes without finding a single thermal and finally had to land in a newly planted corn field.

I spent nearly 15 minutes just looking at my surroundings in disbelief. I had been so high and where I was looked like a guaranteed thermal factory, but I had found nothing. I started packing up my glider, and then saw about 40 buzzards come in and start circling to my left and another lot behind me. I knew it was a good spot, but I guess somebody had forgotten to switch it on. It took me a couple of hours to hitch back to the batch, and everyone I run into had dropped from the sky about the same time. It was a funny cold air that just stopped everyone from rising.

When I finally got to the chácara I picked some oranges and had a nap on the verandah while I waited for the others to turn up.

Total flight time: 45mins