WE TOOK THE `HIGH ROAD`
The story of a speedy autumn 500 km declared by a father and son in a DG-500 with winglets
The alarm clock rattled away and one eye opened to see a sky full of wave clearly marked and beckoning. Was it a glider pilots dream or nightmare? Both eyes confirmed the best sky I have seen at Portmoak for some time. Panic set in because my son Richard and I had boxed our DG-500/20,mtr `Winglets` due to forecasted gale force winds, so now it meant rigging before we could get up, up and away.
We were still rigging when we heard other club members already at 10000 ft. A quick coffee and wee, photo the 500 km declaration form, a positive control check , hook on to the winch cable and at 10.25 am we were going for it. A low point of 700 ft on Bishop Hill, then at 9000 feet fifteen minutes after take off and still climbing at 10 knots, we were able to take stock of the conditions and get our breath back.
Time now to dip our toes and jump a bar towards our first turn point 82 km away at Edzell. A clearly defined cloud street marked the way so at 90 knots in 2 knots of lift we sped along aiming to maintain between 8-10000 ft altitude. This level appeared to give us the strongest lift, but cloud tops were at 7000 ft where visibility of cloud formation ahead was obscured.
We were taking it in turn to operate our miniature Camcorder to give us something to view during the long winter evenings. Dundee was now moving behind on our right, then Forfar and Brechin with Montrose Basin in the distance, and turning fast round Edzell into sun for the next leg to Helensborough 159 km away on the other side of Scotland. Overhead Perth we were down to 7000 ft, so slowed down in strong lift then pushing forward again to fly at 100 km maintaining 10000 ft. Stirling on our left, Lake of Menteith ahead, Callender and Loch Katrine, phew!, we were really scorching along, good lift over Loch Lomond and with only 11 km to run to Gare Loch, we got ready for more filming and a turn point photo of Helensborough.
Our next leg to Aboyne, a distance of 166 km with a 90 degree cross wind of 25/30 knots was fairly uneventful. Having covered 241 km to Helensborough in exactly two hours we knew that a fast time was on, if only....
Outside air temperature was about -20 C and we only had `in flight` Yorkie bars and orange juice for sustenance. Cloud street wave formations were breaking up now with ragged cumulus masking the wave systems. Jumping these ragged areas proved no problem by flying even faster through the sink and then slowly gaining height while flying fast in the subsequent good lift. A dusting of snow on Glen Shee told us that winter is approaching then a quick call over the radio to our pals at the Deeside Gliding Club and we were turning for home 103 km distant.
Now grateful for the sunshine on our faces and with an excess of 4000 ft of height on the `C3` we `high tailed` it for Portmoak. With Fife set out on our left, with Dundee on the river Tay and Firth of Forth shimmering in the distance, a 100 knots of airspeed giving a ground speed of 132 knots, we were soon back home. Having encountered very little sink between wave bars we air breaked off our excess over Loch Leven and the Scottish Gliding Union airfield and landed 3 hrs and 54 mins after take off. The average speed was 130 kph over a distance of 510 km, with operating height between 8-10000 feet.
Park the glider, thaw out the feet and drink a welcome hot cup of coffee. Looking at the sky with lovely wave bars still evident and two and a half hours of daylight left, should we have set the alarm an hour earlier and declared a 750 km? Our first attempt with the video camera in our DG-500 No 390 was a great success giving us a 35 minutes film of superb wave conditions.
Neville and Richard Allcoat. Scotland