We set a goal at Hay. A distance of 311.4km. After launching at 12:37, Len Julia and I team flew all the way to Hay. It was great conditions, good Cu's at 3300m, climbs 3-6m/s and the occasional big dusty on the course line. Julia and Len got down to 500m once but other than that we were all above 1400m the rest of the time. Julia missed the last 4m/s climb 10km before Hay and we arrived at goal at 6:30. Len at 3000m asl, me at 2770 and Julia somewhat lower. Len said let's keep going for the 400k (before his radio battery went flat) and Tim Ettridge our driver said "yeh go for it".
I stuffed up and started out the wrong road, then by the time I realized and got under len he was 1000m above and heading off. Julia went down 40km past goal and I called her position as I climbed slowly from 700m asl. My radio was now flat and I topped out at 1850m. A bit further on I climbed to 2250m and started all the calculating, time to dark, time remaining in air from height and distance to 400km.
At 8:30 gained 230m at 0.7m/s and had to leave on glide to make the dark curfew approaching. I watched the sun go down and started to think that Len was probably landed behind me and Tim and Julia would pick him up and look for me on the way home. Then at 8:52 at 200m agl there they all were on the side of the road packing Lens glider. I yelled out with delight (a bit like Mark Webber when he won the GP) and landed 2.4k up the road at 8:55, 406km from Forbes.
I quickly turned off my GPS as it would soon overwrite the start of the flight after 8 hrs 18 min. After carrying my glider 100m to the fence I went back for my harness and it was almost too dark to find it amongst the 0.5m saltbush. > The first thing Julia said was "your amazing. I looked up and your glider was not red. It was black." Len just said "common, hurry up and pack up that glider".
On the way back to Hay we rang Trent from Canberra. He and Barnsie had landed at Hay at 8:30. Ed from Canberra had raised his PB from 105k to 240 and Pete Dall flew a Malibu 160k. We got Trent to order our dinner and all ate together at the Riverina Hotel in Hay before diving back to Forbes. Home at 3:30.
I almost didn't fly that day. The day before I flew for almost 7 hours to Coonamble (260km).The air was rough and I ended up nauseous and buggered. Julia and I landed at a homestead and Len 10km behind. As Julia put it "It was the best place to land ever".
After a swim in Terry's (our host) pool (Julia rescued 10 frogs from the skimmer box), we had some beers, then Terry cooked us a BBQ steak and after dinner we had a cornetto for desert. Steve McCarthy being the top bloke he is came and retrieved us and we were home at 3:00am. Julia had 2 PBs in 2 days.
There's always a better day to come. How big would the club be in Australia????
