Dragons To Slay And Diamonds To Mine
The following article was published in the magazine "Motorgliding International"
Over the Mountains
of the Moon,
Down the Valley of the Shadow,
Ride, Boldly Ride,
The shade replied,-
If you seek for Eldorado!
WILLIAM McNAIR from Northern Ireland shows how an engine can help you capitalize on the good days.
William, who flies with the Ulster Gliding Club at Bellarena and the Ulster Flying Club, started gliding in 1982. He has a Gold badge with two Diamonds, is an instructor and has 820 gliding hours and 360 Power.
He had a DG-400 and has a brand-new DG-808B now.
I knew a great day was just around the corner, but I wasn't sure just what type. I'm sure you all have had the same experience. In my case, I had one of those feelings where I was just about to grasp the answer to the ultimate question of Life, the Universe, and Everything, and then it just slipped from my reach. No matter how hard I tried to recall what had crystallized in my thoughts I could not get it back; or perhaps I could just not make the next mental step.
It was gone just like the other times, but from experience, I knew that I was entering one of those wonderfully relaxing periods of life and just waited for the great day to come. As the following narrative shows it was to be a Soaring day.
Fuentimilanos, La Blanc, Benella – I've misspelled them all. Worse still, I've watched their own particular brand of rain single me out for the annual deluge.
Oh, don't get me wrong, these are all great sites and super diamond mines. The point is, if you can only afford a couple of weeks holiday, then by the time you get to these places, it is all too easy to hit on the only ten days bad weather they have had since......
Well, you know the rest. You meet the guys who have been there all summer, and sport a complexion that would mean instant dismissal (or worse) from the Ku Klux Klan. They (the Pilots, not the Klan) go on about the weather and the fun they've had and how you should have been there last week.
Well, this is story of how I was there last week, or rather here last week, because it all happened at my home club at Bellarena.
The club is situated in the North West corner of Northern Ireland, about 75 miles from Belfast. It is on the Eastern shore of Lough Foyle which is surrounded on three sides by hills rising to about 2000 ft, thus creating wave in wind directions from NW backing through to E. The NE wave comes off the Scottish island of Islay.
The main ridge is 6 miles long and between 500 ft and 1200 ft high, although this can be extended a further 10 miles to the South by a series of spurs. To the NE the ridge turns into 500 ft sea cliffs for a further mile. If the wind is blowing between North and South West, something should work.
Of course, being near the sea, there is also the option of soaring a sea breeze front when it develops.
Thermals are average, and really one needs to get over the surrounding hills and inland for cross-country to work in the summer.
Not perfect, but four types of lift form one site make it an interesting place to fly.
Thursday, late evening, BBC2 TV Weather forecast, and it looks good for some cross-country flying on Sunday. By Saturday things do not look so good, but at the least the wind will be in the right direction for the ridge to work, and a front is moving in; a typical wave situation but nothing too exciting – within 24 hours I would be proven wrong!
Anyhow, the plan is to go soaring on Sunday and that is it.
I arrive at the club and watch some training flights. After 10 minutes I decide towing would be less hazardous than instructing, so offer to fly the Super Cub, and then retreat to rig my DG-400. The sky shows no signs of wave, but at least there are thermals, so after a cup of coffee, I self launch into a gentle 10 kts breeze. A couple of liters of two-stroke fuel later, I shut down the engine, and find a steady 2 Knots of lift showing on my trusty Vario. Fantastic, lift everywhere. After a couple of minutes I discover that the only place that has 2 Knots of lift is the meter of my Vario.
I decide to return to the airfield and sort the problem out. I’ll probably start with a screwdriver, and work my way down to a hammer.
Now, I'm not really sure when it happened. I guess it was sometime between deciding to get the hammer out and taxiing into the third rabbit hole. That's as close as I can pin it down. Anyhow, from that point on it turns into one of those days where Murphy seems to be on holiday. It's not that things don't go wrong; they do, but they either don't matter or you can solve them with unusual ease. When I write my book “How to be a World Class Soaring Pilot” I shall devote a chapter on how to achieve that state of mind. I reckon that should finance the next glider.
Having fixed the Vario I see that the tow plane is temporarily out of action. Now, one of the things I've learnt about Self-Launching Gliders is this; if the tow plane dies, you do not taxi out in front of a queue of gliders and take off. You either wait for the ‘plane to be fixed or until the glider pilots are out of range (under periods of this type of stress, I add about 30% to the normal range a pilot can throw a missile at a smart Self-Launcher).
Anyway, the Super Cub is repaired, I promise to do some towing later on, then strap into the DG for a few hours soaring. While waiting for the first tow, a friend who has been flying comes over and utters the immortal words: “There's some weak wave, but it's not much good. I'm off to do some power flying”. Now, in hindsight, this must be akin to General Custer looking up at the hills and saying, “I wouldn't worry, I only see a few Indians”.
Another few liters of fuel later and I am once again soaring; this time with a working Vario. I join an SHK and we soar some broken thermals between the main ridge and the first spur to the South. I eventually get to just over 4000 ft, and decide to push upwind in search of something better. The sky does not look promising, but I feel obliged to use up a couple of thousand feet just to prove my judgment is right; it is – I'm back soaring the ridge! I decide to drop down to do some ridge running, but no sooner have I started to descend, then I see a classic lenticular start to form in the lee of the Donegal hills, about 8 miles upwind. Me, I'm down at about 1500 ft. By this time a Dart 17R has taken off, so I give a call on the radio that the lenny upwind looks like the real thing and is worth making for. No one else seems particular impressed, so it looks like I’ll have to make all my own mistakes. I can only manage 3000 ft on the ridge but the wave has now moved closer. It looks firmer and is I guess at 5000 ft to 6000 ft, with a Rotor cloud about half way between that and the ground. It also appears to have stopped about 5 miles upwind of me over Lough Foyle.
Chapter 23 of “How to be a …”:
When you aren't high enough to jump the wave bar upwind, and you haven't even enough height to go around the ends, then you just have to go straight for the Rotor lift; this is tricky, so don't let the kids borrow your sailplane and try it at home!
Anyhow, the SHK goes in to land, the Dart heads North to find some lift, and I head for the sea. I fly into the down of the wave; a steady 4 knots until I get into the Rotor at 2000 ft. The Rotor is well defined and not as bad as I have experienced in the lee of the Mourne Mountains in the South of Ulster. It is in the “Challenging” as opposed to “Why am I here?” category. However, after 10 minutes of more up than down, I breathe a sigh of relief as I transition into the smooth wave lift at 3000 ft. The averager shows 2 Knots, but this soon improves to 4.
Now, for the best part. No matter how many times I experience it, one of the most spectacular parts of soaring for me is to climb silently up the face of a creamy white wave cloud; then to rise above it and watch the stunning cloudscape unfold beneath me. Today is, like all my other wave flights, completely unique. As always I feel privileged to be here. Up here are all those wonderful places I've read about in books – places lost so long ago that most people don't even believe they ever existed; they did and they are still out here in some form or another, and all you need to do to find them is to reach far enough. This is the land of Camelot, of Guinevere, of Dragons to be slain and battles to be fought; of values and desires found nowhere else.
Today, the dragon is the mighty 5000 metre-height gain; a creature I have been hunting for many years. For this battle he has come into territory I know well.
I leave the Lenny (and unfortunately the 4 Knots of lift as well) as I climb through 7000 ft and settle down to 2 Knots. At 10.000 ft I go onto Oxygen, check the contents gauge and blinker and remember how many times I've been in this situation before only to find the lift fizzling out a few thousand later. One look beneath me though, reminds me that I'm having a pretty good day anyway. It also reminds me that I have not much time left. The hills of Donegal and everything upwind are under total cloud cover. The sky is still broken to the South, but I have only the gap below me and one downwind that would allow me to return to the gliding club. It is also closed in to the North, but that doesn't matter – it's the Atlantic Ocean there anyway. The Front that is helping to generate this wave will soon curtail my flight.
At 12.000 ft I get an attack of the “Shudders"; I shudder have checked the barograph was switched on, I shudder made sure the Official Observer stayed until I landed... Too late to worry now. The lift is now only about 1.5 Knots but still holding, which is more than can be said of the gaps below. At 18.000 ft I only have one gap below me and I'm sure the cloud base is now quite low. If that gap closes then I’ll have to go into the International Airport, which is 40 miles South East of me. I'm not too keen on this latter course of action as it means a let down on limited panel on radar to a busy airfield, so decide to curtail the flight if the gap starts to diminish. At 19.000 ft the lift tops out, but I feel the bottom of another system which could take me to the ceiling. Now, at this point in time, I have got my diamond height although not the Irish height record, and have been enjoying myself. I decide to quit while I'm winning and start my descent.
As I descend I see the upper level system is casting a tempting a shadow on the soft mattress of clouds thousands of feet beneath me. It is as if another Dragon is trying to tempt me back to avenge the slaying of his friend; I bid him farewell knowing I could not win.
The wave gap below me is holding well, and I have time to stop several times on the way to allow the airframe to warm up. I have been very fortunate during the flight in that the canopy has remained mist and ice free, largely due to the well designed ventilation of the DG Sailplanes. This is one of the most appealing facets of the DG. The head to toe view that one is afforded, coupled with the silence of soaring makes the whole experience seem like a magic carpet ride; the tales of the Arabian Nights seem to be only a thought away.
I approach the top of the clouds at 5000 ft and look down through the gap at Lough Foyle and the Mussel Banks beneath me. Just as Alice stepped through the Looking Glass and entered the strange world of the Mad Hatter, and convoluted logic, so I also must also step into the modern world with it's own strange values. I open the air brakes a little more, and with a slight hesitation step through the gap.
I am about 2 miles upwind of the gliding club at just under 2000 ft and can afford to play under the clouds as I make my way home. The Rotor is very slight and the wind only about 20 Knots, although enough to make a cross-field landing a good idea. After one of my better landings, I roll to a stop and open the canopy. A friend comes over to ask me how high I got, but really the expression on my face makes my reply of 19.000 ft seem superfluous.
The only downside to the whole flight is that people are now more convinced than ever that I am insane. It took about two weeks for the grin to come off my face. Even now, I find that I can be walking down the street, and begin to think about the flight, only to be jolted back to reality by the looks that passers by give me and my wall to wall grin.
I know what you are thinking; 19.000 ft is nothing. In Colorado they only get started at that height, at Aboyne a bad day is 20.000 ft, at Sisteron….
Well, like all glider pilots I like to share my experience of memorable flights and this certainly qualified as one of those. It also shows what is possible in our country as regards soaring. The site holds many diamonds and it is only keeping them because pilots are not looking hard enough for them. Perhaps the time is right for more people to enjoy the unrestricted skies of Ulster, and the pleasure of soaring over it's beautiful countryside.