Sitting at my office desk on Monday reading the weather forecast that called for sunny skies for the next 5 days, I was thinking of how unfair it was to have two bad weather weekends in a row only to come back to work and discover sun and puffy clouds outside of the office windows. Turns out I was not the only one thinking along those lines as the message popped up on our club’s message board informing members that there would be a full day of flying the next day and inviting everyone who could to come out.
I usually keep at least one vacation day per year in reserve for some unforeseen emergencies. It did not take me long to decide that desperate desire to fly did in fact constitute an emergency and that’s how I found myself on the field, instead of my office, on Tuesday morning.
At that point in the morning, there were more people than gliders and I claimed the same single seat glider that I flew solo two weekends prior and arranged a check out flight in the club’s two-seat Puchacz as it’s been more than a week since my last flight. Figuring it was a bonus day, I set no goals other than go up, try to stay up and enjoy every minute of it.
I had to wait a bit before an instructor was available to fly with me. As I was waiting, the nice puffy clouds seemed to aggregate into the solid cloud mass right over the field and people who have recently launched came back to the field reporting no lift. For a while it appeared that the “stay up” part of my goal was not going to happen that day. Fortunately, the clouds started to part, and by the time we launched in the Puchacz there was lift, so we had a 40 mins flight that I really enjoyed. I learned a few things, made a mental note to work on my coordination in that specific glider and was OK’ed to fly the Junior.
The thermaling conditions looked great as I climbed into Junior. At 2,500 ft where I released and went searching for lift. I soon stumbled onto a decent thermal climbing to 4,000 ft. Figuring I was fat on altitude, I did not look for thermals for a while but instead practiced some turns and just enjoyed flying around, circling occasionally when flying through a strong bump. I was so happy just to be up and flying instead of sitting in my cubicle that I failed to work on “staying up” and 40 mins later found myself at 3,000 ft and in a high sink area as altimeter kept unwinding. It seemed that I somehow was in the blue with all clouds too far to reach, so instead of flying straight for the clouds, I started flying in circles looking for some lift where there was none. At 2,000 ft, I realized I blew it and set up for a circuit to land and try again. Total time afloat was 48 mins.
Once on a ground, I thought about the previous flight and what changes to make (i.e. do not waste altitude and do not fly in circles in high sink areas) and decided to try again. The tow pilot dropped me in the lift yet again and I started circling and gaining altitude. As I circled, I kept flying out of lift on one side, so I kept making little corrections while looking around me for other gliders and above me to see where I was relative to cloud.
I got so completely engrossed in the intricate dance with the clouds that I forgot about time or anything else not important at the moment. As I got to almost 5,000 ft and close to the cloud base, I stopped circling and it occurred to me to look down at the ground and see how far I was from the airport. Hmm, where was the airport? Knowing that green runways surrounded by green grass and green forests would be hard to see from above, I searched for the distinct shape of the African safari (it is adjacent to the airport), but could not see that either.
Oh well, I was high enough that I could use the other main landmark – lots of water. I circled until I found Lake Ontario and realized that I was much close to is than when I started. I looked at the clouds again and realized that they were moving southeast at a decent rate while I stayed under the same cloud for a while, so I drifted away from the airport. I reversed direction, pointed the nose at where I though the airport would be and decided to pick up a bit of speed as I was going against the wind. For a while it seemed I was not moving forward as my altimeter unwound, but soon I could make up the shape of the safari up ahead. Getting closer to the airport, I remembered the soaring textbook talking about planning the local flights upwind. I realized I just learned how that recommendation came about.
I finally arrived close to the safari, picked up another thermal and started to make my way upwind. I flew through another area of sink and by the time I on the upwind side, I was almost at the circuit height. I looked at my watch that showed I was up for over an hour, another first! I was mentally getting ready to start the circuit when suddenly I flew through another bump and turned trying to centre it. It either got stronger or I got lucky at centering, but soon I was back up at 4,000 ft right over the airport. That was complete bonus time and I was smiling ear to ear looking around and at the activity at the runways and the fields below me. Couple of other gliders “stopped by” and I waived at the pilots. They eventually went somewhere and I was alone in the skies and realizing that I was getting tired and it was time to land, which I did, uneventfully. Time afloat was 1 hr 35 mins.
As I climbed out of the glider, my legs hurt from being in the cockpit for 3 hrs and my face hurt from smiling too much. What a day!
