Jenny Wilkinson

500KM OUT AND RETURN WORLD FEMININE 15M SPEED RECORD IS NOW RATIFIED

Last issue we reported on Jenny Wilkinson’s new world record. Here is

Jenny’s own story about that flight.

On 7 January 2009, the New Zealand National Gliding Championships were in progress at Omarama and I finished getting ready while the competition pilots were arriving on the grid. I took an aerotow after the grid, just before 2.30 pm and released near the north face of Mount St Cuthbert. Thermals lifted into wave and I was quickly through 13,000 feet about 15 minutes after release.

The start of the task was north of Omarama, near Aoraki Mount Cook so I set off, tracking north and into the wave in the lee of the Ben Ohau range, cruise climbing where lift was strong. While the valleys were relatively clear of cloud, the same could not be said for the western mountains and the start point. It meant that I needed to climb above cloud to get to the start point. I climbed to just above 18,000 feet and rounded the start at 3.34 pm.

I tracked back along the same wave past Omarama and then across Omarama Saddle into the lee of the Dunstan range where a clearance was given to operate up to 17,500 feet. The run to the south felt slow and the L-Nav showed a 44 knot head wind with the ground passing slowly below despite the relatively high airspeed and good wave.

Having taken nearly two hours to get there, I was finally close to the southern turnpoint just west of Waikaia at around 5.30 pm. This turn was also in cloud and required skirting around it with two attempts to get it to register on the logger.

The run back to the north was characteristically much faster tracking via much the same route. (A Ventus full of water in wave and with a tailwind is just one of life’s best pleasures.) The time back to the start point was only 1 hour 16 minutes. Approaching the finish it became apparent that there was even more cloud than at the start and a higher climb was necessary to reach the start point clear of cloud. I climbed in good lift just short of the turnpoint and finished at 6.45 pm at nearly 20,000 feet, which was above the start height and frustratingly inefficient.

Official Observer, Terry Delore was waiting to hear the result and when I called him on the radio to say the stop watch showed time on task to be 3 hours 10 minutes, it was Lex the competition scorer who quickly said, “That’s 157 kph”. After descending back to Omarama, I landed and was met on the runway by John, Terry and Wendy complete with a bottle of bubbles. The logger download confirmed an average speed on task of 157.9 kph which beat the previous record of 136 kph, set in Namibia in 1998.

This flight was the first attempt, unlike the 300 km triangle task which continues to be a challenge. The 300 km triangle task that I flew on New Year’s Day was declined for a record due to my mistake at the start. As well as being in respective quadrants, the start and finish points need to be within 1000m vertically, and for records, 1000m horizontally of each other as well, I missed on the horizontal requirement.

Record tasks can be another way of learning more, they focus you into assessing weather for yourself and planning tasks to maximise speed. Unlike a competition where you have to make the best speed around a given task, record flying is about picking a route to give the best speed on a day. Many NZ national records are not yet claimed if you are inclined to have a go, but you need to understand the rules (better than I did).