My Flying

Bloemfontein Camp - Day 1

There is really so much to say about today that I have absolutely no clue as to where to begin or as to how much detail to go into. So sit back and get comfortable, as this might take a while...

Well I guess the beginning is always a good place to start.

Putting the plane together:

I was told the day before that the briefing would begin at 9am and that flying would most likely start at about 11am, so armed with this information I arrived early at the airfield as GLH needed to be rigged and prepared for the day's flying.

The rigging process went off very smoothly, but for, yes you guessed it... the wings. However, before I go there, let me first say that the weather in Bloemfontein had me totally confused. I was expecting some heat, I have no problem with heat, but I was expecting dry heat, and man was it humid, even that early in the morning it was hot and sticky. Furthermore, something else caught me a little by surprise (and more on this later), but as I'm a coastal dweller now finding himself at 4500 feet above sea level, I need to say that there is no freaking air (oxygen) up here. I like to think of myself as being reasonably fit, but after an hour's hard rigging I was panting like a sheep dog after a round at the National Sheep Herding trials. Pass the oxygen please.

In rigging the glider I fortunately had some help from two guys and eventually after much sweating and panting the wings magically popped in and clicked into place. Talk about relief.

The briefing:

The gliding operation run from New Tempe Airfield is one of the few commercial gliding operations in SA and is operated under the name, Soaring Safaris (you can Google it). For a weekly fee (in Euro - that obscenely expensive currency the Europeans use) you get a very professionally run operation that includes morning briefings, your plane gets washed (well this never happened!), help in rigging your plane and retrieves off the runway as well as help with retrieves should one land out. You also get a small sized serving of attitude from management, but more on this later.

All newcomers to the airfield get a proficient briefing that includes vital information on airspace, the airfield, runways, circuits, outlandings, radio frequencies, dehydration and other very useful and important stuff. For me this was an hour's worth of serious information overload and note taking. Never-the-less I enjoyed it immensely and managed, I hope, to make mental notes of all the really important stuff.

After the briefing the normal daily briefing started. It included the IGC traces of the previous day's flights, an analysis of the expected weather for the day, the day's tasks and housekeeping. Housekeeping is basically as nice way of "anonymously" crapping people out about stuff (mostly trivial), but more on this later.

Back to the glider:

Now time is running short. I'm still putting the plane together, taping it up, doing the DI and fitting all my gear such as the PDA, drinking water, etc and gliders are already starting to take off. So in other words, I'm not at the grid and thus LATE.

So eventually I'm ready, and bloody exhausted (man was I moeg), and I hook the glider up to tow it to the launch point. Mmmmhhhh, problem! The gliders are taking off from runway 36 and the only way to the grid is down the runway. What now? So I wait for the tug/glider combination to depart and then I head off down the runway towards the grid. This is when I first see that they are using two tugs (news to me and this was never mentioned in the briefing). I'm about halfway there when they hook the second tug to a glider and now need to wait for me to clear the runway, which takes me about 5 minutes.

By the time I reach the launch point most the gliders have already departed (about 10) and I'm third (second as it turns out). So of course, even with all my rushing I'm still not ready by the time the tug arrives to fetch me and they need switch off the tug and park it (horror of all horrors!).

The flight:

So eventually I'm in the plane, and quite frankly, as nervous as all hell. I don't recall ever being so nervous before while sitting in a glider waiting to be launched. This was a strange airfield, with strange people, a strange tug and I also needed to deal with the warning that as the air was thinner than to what I'm accustomed, my ground speed would feel about 20% faster than normal. Nervous, very nervous. And oh yes, I also had just witnessed two really scary takeoffs.

But as it turns out, the take off went very well and I stayed nicely behind the tug. I first tried for a low tow, the method to which I'm accustomed, but it didn't want out as I was being battered around and decided to slot in behind the tug where the air was nice and calm.

Then panic stations, at about 250 feet I decided to take my eyes off the tug and to have a look around. Holly shit!!! Boy did I get a fright. I had absolutely no idea where I was. Nothing but nothing looked familiar and I couldn't even find the airfield. Eventually, at about 700 feet I spotted the airfield and all I can say is that if there had been a problem with the rope or tug before then, I would have needed to land on the first piece of open ground that I saw, even if the airfield was right there as I would not have found it in time. More than a little scary I'll tell you. I released at 1500 feet AGL fearing the undisclosed penalty charge for exceeding the 1600 feet tow limit and immediately found some lift.

The lift was not great and I managed to climb a few thousand feet. At about 7500 feet AMSL I eventually had the chance to study my surroundings, which of course was the primary purpose of this first flight. I needed to become fully acquainted with the area and the airspace borders (i.e. the roads). One thing I can tell you is that from 4500 feet AGL everything looks the same and one field starts to look like the next and one road like the other. I of course had my PDA/GPS (with airspace files and waypoints) to help me to become acquainted with my surroundings, but if one did not pay attention, getting lost would be really easy.

Early I mentioned that I would talk again on the lack air up here at 8500 feet AMSL. About an hour into my flight I started experiencing serious breathing issues. I was breathing so hard to get air into my lungs that eventually my chest started to ache and I started to feel slightly nauseous. So after a mere hour and half I decided to call it quits and tackle my first every landing at New Tempe in search of oxygen.

Again, more than a little scary. The wind had changed a little and I elected to land more into wind on runway 27. My circuit planning went off nicely and I aimed for a spot just after where 27 crosses with 36. I came in nicely, flared and started to float the plane. Then something interesting happened, the runway started to slope up hill ever so slightly, so I floated the plane up the hill, only to find that, of course, on the other side of the up hill was a down hill. I encountered this portion of the runway just as the glider ran out of speed and I was thus just a little too high when the plane eventually stalled onto the runway. However, as the Astir is so forgiving, it just mushed down onto the runway without any drama what-so-ever.

So that was it, under my belt, my first ever landing and takeoff at a new airfield. I was very chuffed with myself, though totally exhausted and somewhat concerned with my body's apparent inability to deal with this thin air. The cost, 522.80ZAR including 360.00ZAR for the tow.