Report by Peter How
This
was the longest camp ever and probably the most consistent long period
of good soaring weather for a long time.
Despite the attention dawn by the pre-worlds at Mmabathto, the long distance gliding camp at Gariep Dam attracted 41 pilots over a period of 50 days. 23 gliders and self launchers visited the camp, some being flown by a number of crews. However, the airfield was hardly congested, since the maximum number of aircraft stationed at Gariep never exceeded 18. Since only half these required aerotows, one tug got them into the air fairly quickly.
Some of the overseas pilots started as early as the beginning of December. Erazem Polutnik, and his friends from Slovenia brought a new ASH25M and Lazlo Hedigus's Nimbus 4T from Hungary in their container. This year we had pilots from Germany, Japan, Slovenia, Britain, Hungary and of course South Africa. Many were our die-hard repeaters and all the new visitors said that they would be back.
The weather was particularly good in the beginning and at the end of the camp. Over the new year, it was blue and very windy, and we had a gap of 4 days when there was almost no flying at all, providing a little rest for those who had been flying every day.
Contrary
to Mmabatho, we had very little cloud this time. Many days were blue and
long tasks were flown without cloud and often with winds over 30km/hr.
Despite this, 6 1000km tasks were flown, with many exceeding 800km. Some
very fast 500 and 750 km triangles were flown, with the Karoo really kicking
up some strong thermals in the blue. I remember one day flying at 10000ft
near De Aar, seeing a huge dust devil curling up way above me, looking
like a small dry tornado.
Temperatures were often over 38deg on the ground, giving us climbs often to 17000 feet or more. This meant really good TAS and thus the strong winds did not really slow our task speeds very much. What we did find was that on the windy days, over the flat areas, thermals were not very frequent, but when there was an obstacle like a small hill - wow! You went up like a rocket.
I think that we only had 6 out landings this year and, except for a cracked wheel door, no damage. I only started my motor once this year. There's really lots of outlanding fields, if you plan your flight path well ahead.
This
year we had the opportunity to compare the tow performances of a 250hp
Rallye and an Urban Air Samba with 100hp. The Samba actually gave us shorter
tow times, and we have decided to purchase our own for next year. Thanks
to Eric, Rainer, Dieter Haage and Karl Pummer for their help in this respect.
As "chief" observer, I ended up processing about 6 record claims, all Japanese and Hungarian. Lazlo managed his 1000km right near the end of the camp, with a yo-yo which was positioned perfectly for the weather conditions. His countrymen better come here, if they want to beat Lazlo's performances.
Our lovely Japanese couple, Reiko and Yuji Morinaka, pushed exceptionally hard, and really took a beating with the sun on those blue days. They probably covered more kilometers than anyone else at the camp, especially to Griquastad, which was declared a turn point so often, that I have decided that they must have a relative living there.
The
new weather forecasting service worked very. Having flown in the Karoo
for several years, we were able to make fairly good predictions, and got
better at it as the camp progressed. The presentation was very good, and
the thunderstorm predictions were very useful, giving us confidence to
venture far away from base on the days when there were big cu. I downloaded
and presented about 16 charts each day, presenting my interpretation at
the 09:00 briefing each morning. We certainly offer our glider pilots
a better weather forecast than many other similar camps around the world.
This is important when you want to cover such a lot of territory with
a 1000km badge flight. You can't wait until the clouds appear before planning
the task, and the wide area forecasts emanating from overseas are no good
for us.
Christian Sporl introduced us to the AeroKurior On-Line Contest, and took the responsibility of collecting the igc logger files and sending them to the site. We soon began to dominate the site with our flight postings, which must have given us lots of good publicity. Of course at this time of the year, our two competitors were Bitterwasse and Australia. In future years I predict that it will become an important feature at Gariep, since it just scores you on handicap against the distance that you flew. The further you fly, the more points, which falls in line with the relaxed flying mood which we have at Gariep.
Of
course the social events were almost as much fun as the flying. We organized
something different about twice a week, ranging from evening pool barbecues
to sit down dinners next to the mighty Orange River. One thing about Gariep,
that makes it different to other gliding venues, is that there is plenty
of other activities for a pilot or his family when the weather is not
perfect. The latest fun thing here is river rafting.
This year half of the group chose to stay in the guest houses in the town, and they enjoyed it so much, that this will become the trend in future. Besides a big saving, this accommodation is very comfortable and very quiet. We get a concession at the large municipal swimming pool, which turned out to be far better than the one at Aventura. There's even free tennis courts, but I don't think that anybody found much time for that as well.
The
arrangements with ATNS worked out well. The huge amount of airspace opened
for us each was used to great effect. Several flights were made right
around Kimberley, and one even around Bloemfontein. On some blue days,
excellent and very picturesque flying was done in the mountains to the
east, where there always seemed to be clouds. With very few clouds to
the west, it remained light very late and we normally flew until 19:00
most days.
In all, Gariep 2000 turned out to be a very successful camp. There are plans afoot to make the camp longer and to add some infrastructure to the airfield, such as shelters and trees. This is certainly a premier venue for gliding in the southern hemisphere and we want to encourage more pilots to attend. As long as we keep the attendance high enough, the costs can be kept very reasonable and its a place where the whole family can enjoy themselves. If you want some very good gliding, come to Gariep, and if you enjoy competition, show the world how good you are with the On Line Contest. Since Gariep 2001 will continue long after the WGC, pilots can fly with us here, after attending the event at Mmabatho.
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