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Smoky Flight to Dixon
7th August 2004

I'm sitting on the tailgate of my 4WD waiting for Ebbs to bring his car(office) back from the NW McLeans take-off. There is ash falling from the controlled burning on the Mt Sugar side of The Gap and the sun set is a deep orange as it filters through the smoke. I still can't believe that only a couple of hours ago, on my first thermal flight in over seven years I was flying through that smoke at 6000 ft.

For those who don't know me I'm Simon Plint and I dropped out of the sport some years ago due to family commitments and a lack of funds to upgrade my de-laminating Moyes XS. Recently I have got all geared up to get back into the sport. With two short coastal flights in my new 2nd hand Sting2 I was keen to take advantage of some of this great winter flying I had been reading about in this forum.

The synoptic chart showed a large high off the WA coast and a smaller one over SA and NSW with a low over NZ so westerly winds were to be expected. The day before I headed into town for a meeting at 12:00 noon and the sky was blue and cloudless. By 1:30pm there were clouds forming everywhere. On the way back to the Uni I stopped a Bray Park to watch them form.

I knew that if today was like yesterday that we would be in for some good flying. I arrived at Freos at 10:30am to find Ebbs, Camo, Steven, Dr Death and Anna enjoying a sunny spot next to the shop. Camo was trying to download way points from his laptop to Ebbs' new GPS much to the disgust of Dr Death who was more interested in the old Morris 1800 which had pulled in for petrol.

JOD arrived and gliders, gear and pilots were split between cars as we headed off to NW McLeans. Ebbs, JOD and myself went in the office and picked Camo and Tish up at the bomb out paddock where Camo left his car.

We arrived at take-off to find the wind about 45 degrees off the face to the SW but regular cycles were coming through and the streamer just below the take-off would be blowing straight up the face.

I think it was Chris who was first to take off and went right, turned in some lift then cruised back past take-off where he started turning in something more substantial. Tish took-of, went left and started to climb out over the back with Chris.

The cycle passed and the rest of us went back to setting up. Soon JOD and Dr Death were off and we got occasional glimpses of JOD through the trees to the left of take-off as he soared the ridge lift. By this time Ebbs was at the take-off and waiting for the next cycle while Camo Mat, Mat (with a beard), Steven and myself moved our gliders closer to launch.

Ebbs took off into a good cycle, went right for a while then left and all the time just going up. I didn't see the others go off because I was busy getting myself clipped in. Thanks Anna for helping me with my radio and giving me the hang check.

I was the last one on the hill and Anna helped me crab my way down to the take-off where I waited for the next cycle. Mat came from the left down low and was heading for the landing paddock. He worked hard to maintain height for about ten minutes. Then a cycle came through and I launched into good lift and started turning straight away. As I gained height I could see the other Mat (with a beard) further over the back but higher and working one of his first thermals, not of the day but of his flying career. I resisted the urge to just play around take-off and drifted over towards Mat. There seemed to be little punching cores all over the place but it eventually turned into some nice 400fpm that took me to 6000 asl, close to base and over the towers.

Now I had time to look around and to realise that, apart from knowing where the lake was, I was not sure which way to go. This was all new to me. OK, I can see the lake and the coast but which headland is which. I also realised that my hands were stinging with the cold. Don't ask me why but I at the last minute I put my cloves in my back pocket thinking that I would not be able to operate my radio with them on and that I could get them later if need be. Well that was not possible once I was airborne was it?

I couldn't see Mat any more but there were two gliders over Sugar Loaf, lower than me and heading for the smoke. I decided that I had enough height to make it through the smoke and hopefully there might be more lift in the smoke.

The radio came alive with Chris saying that he was at the coast OVER one of the ships, Tish had been to Readhead and was now cruising around over Scenic, Ebbs had 4000 ft over Charlestown and Dr Death was about to land at Gateshead. I relayed Dr Death's message to Anna as I came out of the smoke back near cloudbase. I spotted either JOD or Mat towards what I now realised was Spears Point.

I got some more lift near the mine at Wakefield and flew over Boolaroo. I was at about 4500 asl and recognised that the large roof area to my left was the John Hunter hospital. This meant that I was not far from a large park near my house in New Lambton. I was flying in not much sink and at about 35 kph. I crossed over Blackbutt and reached the park at about 1500 ft and thought I would try to find some more lift since there seemed to be a lot of parks that I could make it to. I radioed that I was over Bunnings at Kotara and Mat responded that he had landed at the Whitebridge shops.

There was blue sky to the coast and what clouds there were in the other direction seemed to be disintegrating but still I managed to circle in some light stuff. Perhaps I was just benefiting from the south east front coming through. Merewether golf course became my new landing destination with the Adamstown soccer fields a alternative. JOD was ahead of me and setting up his approach to Dixon Park. Now I was over the Macquarie street ridge at Merewether and I was lining up Townsend Oval but I wasn't loosing that much height,

I could see all the gliders near the showers in the lower car park. Camo, Chris, JOD, Tish and Steven had all made it to Dixon. Tish's voice came over the radio to tell me that there was a light SE and I knew that I was going to join them and at the same time realise a dream I've had since I first witnessed CMac flying back from the Watagans and landing on top at Merewether.

I had enough height to buzz the club house, so I did and then came in for a nice landing on the southern side of the fort. I hopped my Sting over the carpark in the light SE and there were cheers and congratulations all round as we all shared each others sense of achievement. My hands were numb and after getting out of my harness I pulled my gloves out of my back pocket and put them on. Also I could hardly raise my left arm. I don't think I did any right turns in the whole flight.

With the hand shakes and cheers over it was down to the job of packing up and the realisation that our cars were back at the Watagans. As luck would have it Selmsy showed up and offered to take us, gliders and all, back to Freos. We all jumped in his van and headed for the nearest drive through to stock up with beer, chips and bourbon. To spite the lack of seats in the back of the van we had a pleasant ride back.

Here's Ebbs now in the office. See ya.

Thanks,
Simon.

P.S. I have put some photos here;

http://homepage.mac.com/simonpli/PhotoAlbum19.html