Well, another great year has passed and I have many an epic adventure to tell you all about. There are so many highlights I can hardly choose where to begin, but one that leaps to mind is the following:
I was at Warehouse Stationery, clutching my 40% discount voucher, about to attempt a coup of unprecedented enormity. Tucked under my arm was 700 laminating pouches, enough for a whole year of NZHGPA membership cards. The pimply checkout guy stared impassively at me as I placed my gambit on the table. He pondered my voucher and, like the awesome foe I knew he was, his eyes went straight to the phrase “Does not include business machines or consumables”. He said to me, “Do you think these are business consumables?”
I said, “No.”
I was now committed, there was no going back. Did my clever logic win his confidence, or would he utter the dreaded phrase about checking with his supervisor... The seconds ticked by like... like about twice as many seconds as there really was... until finally he shrugged and put it through at 40% off.
My hand was shaking as I handed over the NZHGPA credit card. “Be cool, dammit!”, I said to myself, “finish the job and get out!”. And that, my friends, is exactly what I did. Probably the greatest moment in my career as Administrator so far... I saved you, my paymasters, over $65 with that one act of genius.
Before you get too impressed though, let me tell you, you ain’t seen nothing yet. I don’t want to give away too much, but let me just say that if all goes well with a certain Nigerian businessman I have invested your fees with, you will never have to pay membership fees again! Watch this space...
In between the endless hours I have devoted selflessly to being your humble and sensible Administrator, I have managed to score a bit of flying myself. The first thing worth retelling was memorable spring flight was from here in
Matt Barlow was here visiting, as was Clint Fraser from Nelson. Shane McKay was doing laundry, so didn’t join us. The idea was for Matt and Clint to stick around and let me keep up with them. This plan worked well for the first 3 minutes and I never saw them again. Matt got to Hanmer Springs (2nd longest flight in NZ history) and Clint laconically and mysteriously guided his weapon to a St Arnaud Pub for a personal best 99km flight. It was touch and go whether he would be conscious by the time we retrieved him.
One reason (excuse) I struggled to keep up with Matt and Clint was that my beloved Top Navigator vario/GPS died about 5 minutes into my flight. I had never successfully thermalled for long without a vario before, so assumed my flight would be short-lived, especially after following Matt down what turned out to be a no-lift dead end for both of us. I just barely crept over a saddle with maybe 30m clearance into the next valley where I knew there were good landings and prepared for the inevitable.
Before giving up though, I glided to a little spur near the valley floor that had worked for me once before. I was delighted when my glider was buffeted around by some decent lift and I set about rescuing my altitude. It was weird to say the least, thermalling without a vario, but it became enjoyable and quite easy before long. I became very quick at using near and distant landmarks and their relative rising/falling as a measure of my upness or downness. More effective though was how it made me really feel the feedback of my inside wing in any thermal. The feeling very strongly resembled that of using the angle of the water’s current to fling your kayak most efficiently across a river. I loved it. Things were even weirder once I got well above the surrounding ridges. It became much harder to know if I was rising or not, and consequently I probably left many thermals well before I topped them out.
Also of note was how I got the altitude heebie jeebies for the first time. Somehow being up there near the clouds in total silence brought it all home to me how odd this activity was and how tenuous was my grip on the air. This was exaggerated by hearing every little creak and groan of the harness, or twang of a side wire. But my progress was surprisingly smooth until I got to Mt Patriarch.
Matt and Clint had climbed over this mountain about an hour previous and reported some pretty grunty action. When I looked up at it looming vertically above me it resembled something out of the Lord of the Rings. It was shrouded with nearly black clouds and it was a psychological barrier for me to choose that route when I could see over the Wairau river was beautifully sunny foothills with tasty little puffballs overhead. I had to cross the river after Patriarch anyway, so I thought I would blaze a new trail.
However, what should have been a make-able glide was nullified by having to ferry glide across the sea breeze that was forcing itself upstream. It was with mixed emotions I landed for a new personal best by (500m) of 55km. Next time I will balls it out with the evil powers of Mordor! And yea, The Laminator shall reap his vengeance without mercy...
The footnote to this flight was when I bragged about it to Rob Whittall (He’s like this really famous pilot who is now living in NZ who I had to email because as Administrator I have to email famous people all the time.) I thought I was pretty much now in a whole new league being able to fly so far without a vario. But Rob soon deflated me. He said someone stole his vario five years ago and hasn’t flown with one since. He even claims if someone gave him a new one he still wouldn’t use it. Oh well, can I at least say I am equally good as Rob Whittall now?
I was lucky enough to get to Omarama for two separate weeks this year. The first was a friendly week of flying organised by some genius to coincide with the equinoctial gales of November. I did not rig my glider even once in 5 days. Luckily I took my windsurfer and had a ridiculously fun week... the second trip was obviously the Omarama XC Classic, which is always my flying highlight of the year. I had the odd bombout as usual, but had again taken my windsurfer and thus rescued ruined days with some hilarious sea breeze blasting on
But there were great flights too. My best one started with a bold decision. Me and the majority of pilots had successfully established ourselves at cloudbase above Magic mountain, and one by one they all headed downwind to Snowy Top, with the aim of reaching Mt Cook 100km away. I was intending to do the same but I liked the look of the clouds over
A couple of brilliant young lads were kind enough to bring my truck down the hill, and The Greatest Driver on Earth thoughtfully gave them a radio to talk to me with. I pottered along agonisingly slowly, as the head wind was compounded by the fact that after my first couple of textbook clouds I was confronted with blue sky. I literally had to wait at cloud base for about ten minutes each time for a new cloud to form ahead of me. Sometimes I was leaving a thermal aiming at nothing but the tiniest wisp and hoping it would be a real thermal when I got there.
I could see my gleaming silver Pajero as a tiny speck sitting on the roadside of
A pathetic wisp had let me down and I had glided down to a scrappy little blob of rock just above a paddock. I was mentally setting up my landing approach while trying to describe my position to the boys who had rather disappointingly averted their gaze from the tiny speck in the clouds. I unzipped my harness and as is often the case this created an instant thermal. I cranked my High Performance Super-Sport Aeros Combat 2003 Custom Prototype Comp Wing into that baby while apologising profusely to the boys who still hadn’t seen me in spite of being at the other end of my landing paddock.
Within a couple of minutes I was back chattering with cold at cloudbase and then it finally happened. The much loved, much talked about, rarely encountered
Before I knew it I was at the end of the street after about 8km straight gliding. Maybe I took the textbook a bit too much to heart because I was lower than when I had entered the street. I should have maxed out my last thermal because the next cloud was about 10km at the start of the
But at that stage I was positively mortified at how long I had kept my two valiant escorts from getting back to their real friends at camp. I was glad to land beside what I thought was a handy road. This road turned out to be on the wrong side of the Clutha and necessitated the boys driving all the way to Cromwell and back up the other side. A 50km pointless diversion, sorry guys! Needless to say the beers were on me (That NZHGPA credit card is amazingly handy!). I came second that day to Guy Williams. My best ever XC Classic result, and a new personal best by about 300m! I now have four flights between 54 and 56 km. I need a psychologist I think...
I have nearly finished, but I still have to relate the most amazing thing of all of this year. Shane McKay was dribbling on one day and mentioned a super thermal he had found that day that made his vario go to a new “super-tone” that he had never heard it do before. It was like a special noise that it changed to after it had screamed as high as it possibly could. He said he had looked at his screen at the time and it expressed some unbelievable figure of lift, so we didn’t believe it. Anyway, I then got into the habit of glancing at my screen whenever my vario makes a particularly high-pitched noise. My record for a long time was 14.4m/s above a little knob by Mt Sunday, here in
But one flight from
This year promises great things, with development of a new site above my house, and the imminent return of my nemesis, Chris Shaw. So you can be sure I will fill many a page next year with equally boring stories as this one... until then, go hard, and try and beat my 18.8m/s.
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