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“Oh well,” I muttered to myself when the
Watts week was cancelled last Friday, “At least
it gives me the first chance in months to go
Wednesday gliding at Gympie.”
I must have mumbled a bit louder than I thought,
as several of the crowd gathered around our
inert tug were soon talking about making the
trip with me. And so it was that last Wednesday
a little convoy of cars containing David Higgs,
Alan Graham and Rod Elsworth headed north in my
slipstream and ate each other’s dust on the
turn off to Gympie Gliding Club.
The intention of all was to become reacquainted
with or experience for the first time a
launching method which is blessed with far fewer
dials and knobs and things to go wrong than your
average Pawnee.
Meet the Gympie winch, which we were to
encounter with the welcoming assistance of
several GGC members, including CGC's own
gracious Gympie wench, Judith Smith.
Being (or playing at being) good guests, the
Caboolture crew helped our Gympie cousins with
the chores of DI and setting up the Pie Cart.
The other visitors had quite a bit to say about
my Sunshine Coastal coloured footwear, but how
were they to know that up Gympie way, bright and
trendy resort style is rather more de rigueur
than their familiar Caboolture monochrome.
And bold fashion statements extend all the way
out to the YGYM flight line.
This report would be much more vivid if it had
GoPro images of Rod and Alan’s faces when they
first experienced going from 0 - 1,900 feet in
45 seconds. As one of the winch drivers said,
“It’s like putting a 250 horsepower motor
that weighs nothing on the nose of your
glider!”
While most flights were short (do you think you
can see why?) Alan Graham’s very first flight
in the ASK-21 gave him flight-of-the-day
bragging rights at 34 minutes of amazing
thermalling. Or as one local put it, “half an
hour of orbitting at a consistent two thousand
and forty-two feet.”
But the bragging didn’t last long. Not when a
certain casually elegant pilot came back after
37 minutes with a local and independent
instructor’s verification of his claim to have
soared up to 3,000 feet …
And so ended our surprisingly good consolation
day of flying - with many thanks to David Higgs
and Rod Elsworth for the photos of the day, and
to the Gympie members who welcomed us so warmly.
We look forward to reciprocating when they want
to try aerotow!
