Volume 34 No 4 Aug-Sept 1983.pdf - Lakes Gliding Club

SOARING TRANS AUSTRALIAEven before completing the soaring flight across Japan in his PIK 20E, featured in the1982 issue of S&G, p162, TUG WILLSON was thinking about his next project - TransAustralia. This he achieved at the beginning of the year, collecting the world motor glidersingle-seater straight distance record during the 4000km trip which he describes below.Correspondence had been exchangedwith Mike VaJentine of the Gliding Federationof Australia and the response hadbeen most favourable. A detailed studyof computer readouts of Aussie weathershowed January and February to be thebest months, and quite surprisingly eastto west to be the best direction. My masterwarning alerlt flashed at this snippet 0finformation. Every Australian airlinepassenger knows that the jet streamblows like fury west to east! However thecomputer told me that it only i1ies whengarbage is fed into it and Wally and his lotare fair dinkum*, so Sydney to Perth wonthe day.What actually happens is that the lowerlevel pressure pattern for the Australiansummer normally shows lows oyer theCentral and Northern mainland and highpressure over the Bight. When I latertackled Mike Borgelt on why it blew likehell the other way, he told me it wasn't anorm11 summer, and even if it had beenthen a Pom* would have got it wrong inthe southern hemisphere - these Metmen stick together!January 2 was the big day for departure,but would you believe that afterfour years of droug~1t in New SouthWales it rained. J'an~ary 3 was still notsoarable, but j,ust good enough under agloomy sky for Australia to beat Englandin the one-day cricket match at Sydney.Was there no end to this gloom and doom!Bingo, on Jal1luary 4 the sun shone andoff we went.• ,took-off in Solarbird al 1030, climbedto 3280ft, stowed the engine and passedthrough the start gate over the airfield atJ04 J. The first two hours produced verydifficult conditions as the cloudbase wasonly 4500ft asl and the mountains of theGreat Divide rose to 3000ft, leaving onlya narrow band for thermalling. Soaringtbe Blue Mountains at such low 'levelgave a truly spectaoular yiew of Ihis wonderof nature - mile after mile of beautifultree-clad mountains with deep blueI'ak,es having sheer cliffs rising verticallyfrom them to 2000ft. Eagles frequentlyjoined me in serene silent flight, soaringonly feet away from the cockpit. This wasundoubtedly the mOst spectacular countrysideof the whole cfOss·ing.One day I will return 10 linger andagain savour the beauty of these m0untains,but on January 4 it had to be speedas the world record for type stood at on'ly324km. and that was the larget. As theday passed, the mountains gave way tothe agricultural plains, and finally as thesun lowered into the wes,lern sky the surfacelemperature fell and the thermalsdied. I landed at Leeton ,in New SouthWales after covering 395km, a new worldrecord.Ground support teamAll day I had been in radio contact withMarlene, my wife, Dennis Gorton andHal Sutton, who together formed theground support team, towing the glidertrailer and spares over the GAFA.*Thermals started a littre later, at 1115.on January 5, The second leg continuedacross the d'rough·t area of New SouthWales. The devastaloing effect had turnedarable fenced land into desert with huge154SAILPLANE & GLIDING