The Fine Art of Delay

It’s now the day after Christmas. Lee and David, the owners of the caravan park, treated the half a dozen foreign pilots staying here to a Christmas Eve barbeque. Then on Christmas day it rained all day – a nice Christmas present for the local farmers who have been suffering through a record drought. I went for a drive hoping to spy a platypus along the Namoi River. No luck finding the duck billed mammal, but it was a beautiful drive. The parched hills east of town thirstily absorbed the rain and the vegetation greened - literally in front of my eyes.

The forecast for today was for light southerly winds, cooler temperatures, and clear skies. A welcome break from the hot north winds of last week. The temperature did indeed plummet over night, and the wind was light south this morning, but the sky was a flat steel gray overcast. I gave Fred and Anna a ride out to Godfrey’s. When we arrived, there were a dozen or so pilots milling about. Helmut and Peter were there, back from their trip north. I loaded my glider along side theirs on the “Borah Basher”, and soon there were fourteen of us heading up the hill in the truck with 3 hang gliders on the roof and a trailer full of paragliders and harnesses behind.

It looked like there might be enough wind to soar the ridge, but with the solid overcast the chances of finding any thermals or flying XC were slim to none. It would be nice to get in the air, nevertheless. It would also be good to have a couple other hang gliders to play with. We slowly started setting up, letting a few paragliders test the air. Conditions seemed a bit marginal, and none of us really wanted to end up in the west “bomb out”. Helmut commented on our lethargy and delaying tactics, and I observed that it was a classic case of what my buddy Bill Cummings calls “The Fine Art of Delay”. The basic premise is that you want to get into the air as soon as possible, but you don’t want to be the first and risk being too early and sinking out. If no one makes a move, then pilots have been known to sit through an entire flyable day waiting for someone else to go first. The winning strategy is to appear to be getting ready to go, but always reserving some task for the end that will cause your buddy (who has been watching and matching your progress) to be ready first. Helmut seemed to be winning the game since I was stuffing battens and he hadn’t even unzipped his glider bag. Peter was ahead of me, but I could tell he was an expert in the Art, so I could be sure he had some tricks up his sleeve. I had a card up my sleeve as well, and when I was all ready to go I pulled out my lunch and retired to a bench under a shade tree to eat. Helmut came by and made a comment about lunch time. I could see he knew he’d been had. Sure enough, he was first on launch, and I was right behind him. Helmut launched and spent a bit of time scratching and getting below launch. It didn’t look too encouraging. Soon the lift cycled on again and he started to climb. I launched and was quickly 500 ft above the ridge. Peter joined us and before long we had 3 blue black and white LiteSpeeds in the air. Ridge soaring can be fun, but I can only do so much of it. About the time I was getting bored I noticed Helmut doing some loops and wingovers. I guess he was getting bored too. I decided that I would see if I could make my way upwind to the next ridge to the south. It was slow going into the wind, and about half way there it became obvious that I would either get up on the ridge or end up going down on the west side well out of range of easy retrieve. I opted for the convenient retrieve and headed back to Godfrey’s to land next to may van. I got there at the same time as Fred in his paraglider. He had taken a more direct line from the mountain. I decided to surf the slightly buoyant air and give him room to land before I made my approach. While I watched him the lift I was in started to feel more organized, and soon I was climbing at 400ft per minute. I topped out at 4000ft under the grey overcast sky. From this altitude I knew that I could almost make it back to town, so I set a waypoint to the caravan park. I just needed one more thermal, and it would be easy. Well, I pushed it a bit too hard, and didn’t stop for some light lift that I probably should have, but with the fairly stiff headwind I probably would have drifted back faster than I climbed anyway. I ended up just under 2 miles short, but right next to the road in a nice big field. I made a radio call to Mary-Eve in the “Basher”, and asked her to ask Fred and Anna to drive my van back to town. Between the radio and the language barrier, it was a bit difficult, but I think I got the message through. I broke the glider down and got my gear over the fence, then settled in to wait. Not sure if my message got through I was debating whether I should hitch-hike the rest of the way into town, wait here, or hitch-hike back to Godfrey’s. About then I saw a car coming down the road. It was Fred and Anna in my van. Perfect!

All in all it was a nice day of flying. Not an epic day, but it had just enough challenge to keep it interesting and hone the skills. I was quite happy that I had decided to attempt the small XC. It was good practice that I could use for the upcoming competitions.

See the Google Earth file here.

See the flight in the HOLC here