Australia is HOT, but Not Everywhere! New Dutch Records from Gariep Dam

Picture courtesy Jörgen Thomsen.

Now the top season is nearly over in Africa; Gariep Dam, however, still shows great flights. All our eyes are fixed upon the great flights still flown in Australia. The weather has divided Australia as rain and flooding raked Queensland and parts of NSW badly last week, but the S. and W. remained glorious.
Still long flights from Corowa: 1000 km in ASG 29/18m, and Tocumwal with 775 in an LS4.
January weather is really superb in Australia this year.
From experience I know that long flights as a 1000 still can be possible in mid-February.
This morning a very difficult decision was made to move due to this bad weather, the 50th multi-class competition from Narromine to Tocumwal. More about this competition in next week’s blog.

Interesting as well this week, was to read that Gariep gliding is looking out for more, and most probably, even better soaring circumstances. Upington, which has a huge field [4900 m runway], was visited and as some said, “It will be explored further as first impressions were very good.”
Gariep has a nice long season. Two of our Dutch pilots are chasing new national records flown in Africa from Gariep. They flew a declared 600 km task with a speed of 141 km/h–a new Dutch record–and a declared 800 km with speed 147 km/h, also a new record. Both tasks were flown in a Nimbus 4DM.

With Stonefield [Australia] as a new soaring spot on the map after this season, it would be great to see even more great soaring places on the map. I know that Coober Pedy [ also in Australia and a pretty remote area] is, at this stage and still on a small scale, busy as well to create a new soaring venue.

Look for more news about last week at www.soaring.eu

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