Floating in the Sky

TOCUMWAL, NEW SOUTH WALES - 13th December 2009

An old family friend of my cousin, John, is a big gliding enthusiast and owns a third share of a glider out at an airfield fairly near to Mooroopna (about 100km is pretty close by Aussie standards). With me being a big fan adrenaline-based activities such as these, it had been arranged as long ago as last June for him to take me for an airborne spin.

SportAviation, John's flying club, is run by a friendly couple at an airstrip in Tocumwal, just over the Murray river that divides Victoria and New South Wales. The airstrip was originally built by the Americans in the Second World War as one of the bases for an assault on the Japanese should they invade northern Australia. Subsequently, it got converted for civil use, and has vastly shortened runways now that B-12 Bombers aren't coming by on a regular basis.

Gliders, obviously, cannot take off by themselves, and so are dragged airborne by a small plane with a line running off the back of it. I took the liberty of videoing our takeoff from the back seat, which you can watch below:



When the glider pilot is happy with the altitude reached, he disconnects the cable and frees the glider into his control - usually at about 2000-3000 feet. The aim of the game is to locate "thermals" - vents of hot air rising the lift the glider higher and higher allowing perpetual flight; a good thermal can send you all the way up to 10,000 feet in a few minutes. Usually they come in vertical cylinders, meaning you have to bank go round and round in a circle in order to sustain the lift for an extended period of time. If you're lucky though, you'll get a "road", where the thermal moves laterally allowing you to continue rising while flying in a straight line.

Unfortunately for us, it was a clear, sunny day without any sort of cloud in the sky. Unlike normal aviation, clear days like these are terrible, as it means thermals are dispersed and hard to find, but the air is still turbulent due to the general heat. Sure enough, we struggled to find a decent bit of lift for a good 10 minutes, before we strayed across a small one that gave us a bit of lift. Its diameter was damn small, meaning we had to back at about 60 degrees to stay in its current... and I can tell you first hand there are few things that'll make your stomach twist more than being strapped into a seat at a few thousand feet with the blazing heat of the Sun beating down on you through the glass, all the while performing incredibly tight circles at banking of 60 degrees, with your gradual circulating ascent punctuated by periodic shudders as the glider drifted in and our of the thermal. If you don't like roller coasters or swinging ships, gliding on a day like this is to be avoided!

We eventually got up to a little shy of 4000 feet before enjoying a nice relaxing cruise over 15 minutes or so back down to land, but I was reliably informed that it had been "really hard work" - something my insides could testify to! But it was still an amazing experience - not just because of spectacular panoramic views of the Australian bush spreading out to infinity in every direction (see below). The thing that really struck me was the phenomenal force existent in simple air. As John described it (slightly paraphrased), "down on the ground we don't really see anything... occasionally we see a tornado go by and think 'wow - that's a bit strong'... but it's only when you floating in a glider that you really understand that that power is everywhere". I just finished reading "Chaos" by James Gleick, and part of its story relates to how smooth flowing air currents can suddenly deteriorate into a state of total chaos with seemingly no pattern or rules to it: turbulence. No one really understands it, but its existence is a small part of an infinitude of reasons why our actual ability to model the atmosphere (and thus forecast weather in any sort of long-term manner) is useless. Going gliding is as good an interactive example of this in practice as you could want.



Anyway once we were all back in the hangar/office and relaxing with a couple of ice cold suds*, the proprietor of SportAviation got us to pose for a photo in front of our machine - "Golf Victor Yankee" - so that it could be recorded on website's blog, and sure enough the entry for the day has John and myself grinning away (see below).



* bottles of beer

The Daily Rod's Top Travel Tips:
#7 - There are always ways to prove the assumption that you're totally immune to motion sickness incorrect.