Cross country at Ager with Dennis Pagen (july 2002) - 5
Cross country to Balaguer
The last day of the seminar, Dennis planned a task in the direction of Balaguer: from launch to a monastery 20 kilometers away against the wind and back. There are some clouds and cloudbase looks a bit low. A few early birds bomb out and a few manage to stay up. When it is my turn to start, I see Bob circling in a thermal and I launch. Almost immediately I find lift near launch and I go up pretty nicely. Dennis advises me to go towards the cloud and I go up a little bit more. Soon I reach cloudbase and wait a bit for the rest of the group. Dennis and the others are closeby and Dennis tells us to go on glide across the valley towards the monastery. My girlfriend sees us from the campground flying in formation and enjoys the sight.
We try to find some lift at the other side of the valley, which is quite efficient with 6 pilots. I find some lift at the westside of the road and can smell a pigfarm. It is not easy to find the core of the thermal and soon we all struggle in a chaotic gaggle. After getting the most out of the lift, we continue our task. I continue following the west side of the road, the rest of the group takes a more easterly route. Shortly afterward, we hear some spanish voices on the radio and we get an earsplitting sound what seems like modem noise. Apparently, there are some spanish amateur radio operators that don't want us on that channel. I continue and find some lift here and there. There is no strong lift, so I keep on going; I speed up in sink, slow down in lift. After a while I look backwards toward launch and I see that it is surprisingly far away; I have never gone this far away from the mountain I launched from. I look around and enjoy the view and make some pictures. I see Balaguer in the distance and to my surprise I see the monastery quite closeby. I fly over the monastery and fly back towards Ager.
Unfortunately I cannot find any usable lift anymore. I see a mown wheat field with 4 parked gliders. This must be the "social suck" that Dennis was joking about. I see Wayne land below me and Dennis lands soon after me. Great fun to be with my teammates and soon 2 vans arrive. I must break down hurriedly and we are on our way back to Ager. On my GPS I see that the distance that I covered is 24 kilometers; my greatest distance yet! I couldn't wish for a better end of the week.
Conclusion
The cross country seminar with Dennis, Wayne and Harm has been extremely educational. The conditions were almost always sunny, but always different: strong and weak wind, thermals, turbulence, etc. I had never before experience such strong thermals and turbulence before.
- When you turn steeply in thermals, turbulence does not affect as much and you will not fall out of the thermal as quickly because your wingtips don't stick out as much.
- As you enter a thermal, it is easier to initiate a turn when the lift is still increasing. If you are past the core and lift decreases, it is much harder to get into a turn.
- A slight slope of the landing field is difficult to notice from the air and can have nasty consequences. Avoid landing downslope (even if it is against the wind); landing with a little crosswind is easier.
- When you are thermalling, you can use pitch control to do most steering corrections. This is much less tiring than roll control.
- Drinking water is more important than I thought. Before, during and after the flight you need water. If you are somewhat dehydrated your decisionmaking abilities are reduced and decisions are very important in this sport. If you are thirsty, your are already too late; you must continuously sip water.
After the competition it became very quiet on the campground. A few stayed a little longer.
Someone lost his table tennis bat.