A fine week of Soaring

A FINE WEEK OF

By Oliver Winkler

SOARING

Every year the week preceding the South Island Regionals marks another important date for aspiring and experienced cross country pilots alike. Pilots from all South Island clubs and even some pilots from the small neighbour to the North-West make their way to Omarama to join an ‘Advanced Cross Country and Mountain flying course’ – often just referred to as ‘Jerry’s Course’. Well known Canterbury and Nelson Lakes member Jerry O’Neill has for quite a few years driven the Cross Country flying training in the Canterbury Club and by organising ‘Jerry’s course’ opened his training to all New Zealand pilots. The course is not a beginners course, some previous cross country experience (i.e. Silver C) is desired. The course aims to train pilots up to complete a 300km flight. As well as trainees a lot of experienced pilots come back year after year just to enjoy the social flying, the interesting and challenging tasks or to get current again for the South Island Regionals.

After the general weather briefing at the Omarama terminal we would meet in the camp kitchen for a lecture. Jerry involved other experienced pilots in his lectures to get across more than just one opinion on certain matters. The lectures’ topics would range from general cross country flying, mountain flying safety rules, Omarama specific weather patterns, ridge flying and of course wave flying. After the lectures we would usually prepare the gliders and then discuss the task that Jerry would set for the day. What would be the most likely way to get to this turnpoint, which land out option will we have on this leg etc. On most days we did not fly in a typical lead and follow style, which would have been hard to do with more than 15 gliders participating. Everybody tried to get around the task, communicating with each other which places worked well or what areas to avoid. Sometimes we would meet up with some fellow course gliders and tag along for a while and then separate and go slightly different ways again.

We are not sure what sort of deal Jerry has with the weather gods but year after year his course is blessed with great soaring weather and not just that, they also provide a variety of weather patterns so that we could experience everything that Omarama has to offer. In just one week, we had excellent thermal days with high cloud bases, convergence days, a blue wave day and a proper Omarama wave day! Out of the six course days we had six soarable days!

SOARING…

Photos Oliver Winkler

Top: The Neck, Lake Hawea Bottom: Approaching the Wall, last barrier on the way to Mt Cook (from the Newman/Dobson Wave)

Left: Following PY in the blue Ben Ohau Wave

Since half the course was still enroute to Omarama on the first day it was decided to make good use of a great thermal day without a set task. Two of us eventually caught up with Jerry on the Hunter ridge and then followed him around to cross over to Makarora before gliding back towards the Barrier and then the Ben Ohau range. Dingle - Makarora - Head of Dobson, not a bad flight for what was the first Omarama flight of the season for most of us.

The next day we tried to get down to Thomson’s Track - Dingle - Stewards Stream but the weather was a bit more tricky and the convergences proved a bit harder to use for some of us. The task was not completed by most of us.

Tuesday’s forecast showed a rather dry air mass but with enough wind and stability to possibly create blue wave. A trip to Mount Cook, the highlight for anybody who has ever flown in Omarama, was planned. We all knew the theory of wave flying and how to (usually) get into it but without any nicely marked lenticulars, rotor cu, or even just a few wisps of clouds it took us all a while to get properly established in the wave system. Most of us eventually followed Jerry’s advice to enter the wave from Omarama Saddle which seemed to work best on that day. From there we slowly made our way in the lee of Magic Mountain and the Ohau Skifield, crossing over into the Neumann wave right above the Dobson river. From here many of us managed to climb high enough to cross over ‘the Wall’ at the end of the Dobson River and then climb in front of Mount Cook. After a bit of sightseeing and picture taking on a pristine day with a completely cloud free Mount Cook and only very few clouds at the West Coast we started heading back. Some went along the Neumann wave again while one of us decided to follow Jerry along the still completely blue Ben Ohau wave. Needless to say it was highly impressive to see how Jerry weaved his way on this invisible wave, all the way from Mt Cook village back to the end of the Ben Ohau range, loosing less than 2000ft despite flying 80-90kts all the time!

Wednesday was another good thermal day and a 300km task from Omarama to Cromwell and then up to the Head of the Dobson was set. Despite some over development in the basin we headed off South onto the Dunstan range. Showers and decisions on some people’s parts to push on to the turnpoint meant we had land outs at Alexandra, Lauder and Falls Dam. Only a few people completed the task on this day and all who had landed out were aero or road retrieved before midnight.

Thursday’s weather looked pretty bleak with lots of cloud cover again but a rather unstable air mass led Jerry to set a task for the day. Some didn’t share Jerry’s optimism and decided to have a rest or sightseeing day instead... and were surely a bit envious when we came back in the evening. Stewards Stream - Tin Hut - Two Thumbs was the task for the day. It was honestly quite interesting climbing up high on the Ben More range and heading north with

T: On the Makarora Ridge, McKerrow Range Lake Wanaka to the right. C: Paul in CC, not landing on the Maitland strip but back in Omarama B:Rainbow with Big Ben in the background

dark showers approaching Omarama from the South, hoping they would be gone by the time we get back. As some were struggling a bit at the other turnpoints some elected to skip them and go straight to Two Thumbs which was an area that some of us have never ventured to before. Some good convergences with high cloud base (up to 10,000 ft on the Two Thumbs range) provided a good and fast ride up to the Two Thumbs turn point, overlooking Lake Tekapo, Lilybank and as far as the East Coast on the other side of the Two Thumbs. The clearly marked convergence lines were still working very well and allowed us to have a fast 90km glide back to Omarama with hardly any top ups required along the way.

Another 300km task was set for the last official day of the course to give us an opportunity to complete our gold badges. A wave day was forecast but it turned out to be a rather unstructured wave system which had most of us less experienced pilots struggling and eventually giving up frustrated. Even some more experienced pilots didn’t like the looks of it to the south and went north instead.

Luckily some of us had the gliders for another day which was also the practice day of the South Island Regionals. Again a wave day but more structured this time around. Two of us decided to give the 300km task from the previous day another try. Taking off around 3pm after the competition grid had launched we managed to get established and track South towards Clyde. About halfway we dropped out of the wave for a while but managed to get back into it to complete the turn and track towards Glentanner. Once we crossed back into the McKenzie basin the wave system seemed to work better and better, especially the Ben Ohau wave. At this stage we were certain we would manage to finally complete our first declared 300km flight, climbing through 18000 ft just a few miles from the last turnpoint. We enjoyed the rest of the flight, took some time to take some pictures and amongst the first people to congratulate us to our personal best was, of course Jerry. Thank you very much for spending your time to prepare and run this excellent course and sharing all your knowledge with us Jerry, we are looking forward to Jerry’s course 2011 edition!

LS4 in the wave returning home. Around 12000ft returning to Omarama and a dusky sky.