Boonah Blog
A Rough Day in the Office
25 September 2011
Sunday morning stated out with lots of low mist just clear of the ground. Driving to Boonah showed patches of blue peeping through the mist and gave hope that this might burn off. Early indications were that the day might not be so good with cloud building up above the mist, but at least the strong-ish breeze was out of the North-West, which meant an 04 day, but a crosswind to contend with. Obviously the early morning gloom had put people off because we only had a few hopeful souls turn up to sample the wonders of the Scenic Rim. With the sun making cameo appearances things started to warm up but the cloud base was not very high, the wind was quite strong and there was a lot of haze, so the day was not looking too good. After a short and early briefing the students got underway in the 21, returning with tales of broken lift and rough conditions.
I did the daily on the Libelle and prepared myself more in hope than expectation of a nice, long flight. The first flight I took a tow to about 2800 ft and bumbled about in the vicinity of the airfield finding a few buffeting thermals that lasted a minute or two, but were very inconsistent. Having dropped down to 1500 ft I headed for the circuit join only to find another thermal that took me up to just over 2000 ft before disappearing again. Eventually I brought the Libelle back to the airfield after a bumpy 40 minutes in the air.
Having had some lunch and then some arm strengthening exercises helping rig someone else’s glider I prepared for another foray into the skies. There was an ominous dark cloud to the South-West of the airfield and some warned that this may be the precursor of the forecast storm, but I decided to go anyway. On the tow there was a lot of rough air but not much in the way of lift. I released North of the strip at about 2500 ft and was immediately scratching around in broken thermals but loosing overall. Eventually I decided to try the black fields to the South-West of the strip and managed to make some headway. The big black cloud was slowly breaking up and the sun was quite strong indicating that a change was underway. The first real thermal took me up to just above 2500 ft after which I headed east and got into better lift near the “Sugarloaf” pimple. This took me up to about 3500 ft with the cloud base lifting all the time. I then headed North and found a series of rough and broken thermals running out beyond the Beaudesert Road Junction that took me up to about 6000 ft. Having called “Ops normal” and never having explored the area over the Cunningham Highway I headed that way (Amberley was not active) and managed to wrestle the Libelle in very rough conditions up to 8250ft just below cloud base over Aratula.
That is as high as I have flown at Boonah and with the challenging, rough conditions I was definitely out of my comfort zone. It was a very satisfying feeling so with the adrenalin still flowing I headed for the ranges to get a better look. There was still a lot of haze about so the views were not great, but I did get to see the tops of the hills rolling away towards Toowoomba, which with the late afternon sun was quite spectacular. But the radio was giving occasional squawking noises with what seemed to be the duty pilot’s voice, and my bum was getting very sore from the hard cushioning (something I will have to see to), so I decided to visit Mt Alford instead, before putting the nose down for 90 knots and heading back to the strip. Getting closer the radio reception improved and I was informed that with the wind now blowing strongly from the South-West 22 was the runway to use. So after a short downwind and shorter base I made a cross-wind touchdown to find that everyone else had packed up and put the gliders away already.
Altogether this was a very satisfying day's soaring as by pure luck and no judgement I undertook my second flight at just the right time to make use of the change in the weather and to have one of the most challenging and exciting flights I have ever had.