FLYING THE GLORY OCTOBER 2012 By Tony Tabart
Photos Jo Pocklington
The Morning Glory is an astonishing wave formation that appears in the early mornings, rolling in from the sea off the Gulf of Carpentaria, for only a few months of the year. Flying the Morning Glory has become more popular among glider pilots in recent years, but the effort required to get to Burketown, where the chance of a Glory happening are barely 50/50, make it an intrepid journey not attempted by many. Australian Tony Tabart has represented Australia multiple times at world championships (he was the first Australian to win a day at a Worlds when he did so in Yugoslavia in 1972), been manager for Australian teams and helped out at the Worlds in Omarama in ’95. He is also a power pilot with an instrument rating and ran a small aviation business for some years. He has approx. 11,000 fl ying hours, both power and gliding. He completed building a Lancair (a high performance two-seater American kit) in 2005, which he owns with his partner Jo Pocklington. Tony has been flying for about 50 years and ‘the thrill is as great as ever.’ At 76 years of age, Tony has no plans to retire from the sport: ‘I’ll continue as long as I have my health and my ability; I’ll be fl ying as long as I can.’ Tony shares his adventures on this year’s Glory trip.
The Morning Glory has been on my bucket-list for quite some time. After seeing pictures and National Geographic articles, the Morning Glory became a definite must-do. We’d even taken our Lancair up to Burketown four years ago but it was late in the season and there was no Glory. Ian Barraclough invited us to join his 2012, self-launching-glider safari and we jumped at the chance. There was a bit of a rush to finish the C of A on the Ventus 2cM, VH-VTT, and test fl y it, before putting it in the trailer for the trip north to St George to meet up with the group, mainly from Lake Keepit. We launched from St George for the first leg to Augathella; my partner Jo Pocklington was towing the trailer. Some arrived with difficulty, others had engine starts. There were three motor gliders in the group, who travelled with the most confidence each day, three self launching gliders and two power planes. Next day, all made it to Longreach - a blue day and not great soaring conditions. The Albert Park Motor Inn kindly supplied a bus for our use to and from the airfield. We headed off, hopeful of the possibility of reaching Cloncurry, 540km north. Only the motor gliders made it. Predicted high cloud moved in and cut off conditions north of Winton. Jo made it to Cloncurry with the trailer, but I turned back 100km north of Winton, landing back on the airfield there as it was impossible to safely proceed further. John Clark in his DG800 and Ian and Geoff Sim in their two-seater ASH also landed at Winton. We parked on a grassed area behind markers, but were asked by council staff not to do so again. No phone signals meant no contact with Jo to stop her proceeding, so she had to drive back the next morning, 350km from Cloncurry, to meet up with me. A night of heavy rain resulted in poor soaring conditions, so we put VTT in the trailer at Winton
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