John Broderick [GautengPG] Great weekend at the dam - My recipe for a great flight. Hi Everyone Sunday at the dam was fantastic. Quite a few pilots flew their personal bests, me being one of them. Jaques Breytenbach and Greg Barns flew 155 km. It is rumored that Greg was still high when Jaques landed but spiraled down to join him as he had organized recovery. Louis flew 107, I flew 100.7 and Leon flew 94 km. Fourie Grobler, Nicky Smith and Werner Dillman all flew in the high 70's . Mark Samuelson flew to Carousell and even though he flew through whirlies on the way there he claims the recovery by Theuns and Trevor was scarier. There are probably others that had great flights too that I didn't hear about. I am sure the others have great stories to tell, but in the mean time I thought I would share a bit about my flight. 1) You can't have a great flight if your not at the sight. As Ulf pointed out in an e-mail I only read on monday, SA Weather under predicted the thermal strengths for the day. Strong winds were also predicted. This may possibly be the reason that some hot shot pilots went sailing on the Dam instead of flying that day. 2) You've gotta fly to get high. I was at the launch quite early and Theuns was ridge Soaring. Big John was getting ready to take a base jumper for a drop from his tandem and the ramp was blocked. (By the way it was an amazing site to see the base jumper bail so close to Tera firma.) Another pilot commented that Theuns was not getting up and that he had done enough ridge soaring in his life so he was probably going to go home. Luckily he hung around and flew later. I decided to fly as soon as possible and launched from the Hang Glider ramp. (I have a little rule I try to follow about flying south side at the dam - launch as soon as possible and if you sink out come up again, if you stay up you have much more chance of making use of any thermals coming through). Leon launched soon afterwards. 3) Patience is a virtue The three of us ridged for about half an hour trying to work any little thing that came through (I don't know how long Theuns was patient for as he had already been in the air when we arrived). Leon with his sharp eyes spotted a vulture gliding in towards the school and bee lined for him. Later we joined Leon in this thermal and were off towards Brits after a climb to ceiling (or in my case about 80 below ceiling). Unfortunately that was the last real thermal Leon and I saw on that flight. 4) Trust your instincts, not your instruments. While we were on glide the wind had shifted much more westerly and Leon noticed this instinctively but believed his Galileo which was still telling him the wind was South. He was way ahead of me and I just blindly followed. Only when I saw him sinking out in big sink did I change my game plan and head more easterly. This only succeeded in me getting a very small very high drift climb close to the ground just as Leon landed. I didn't gain much by this, only drifting a bit further to the next road before falling out after a small collapse and landing. Leon had already called Andrew and offered to come and fetch me. While waiting on the side of the road I saw many other pilots flying over my head heading off to the NE. How frustrating. 5) Don't give up. Both Leon and I are pilots that really like to fly so even though we thought it might be too late we headed up the mountain again. Many other pilots would have gone straight to the bar. When we got there Big John was on the ramp again and there were quite a few frustrated pilots waiting to launch from the ramp. I decided to try Hang Glider ramp again. Even there I had to wait as Big John had launched and lots of spectators were clustering around the ramp to watch the crazy base jumper and even crazier tandem pilot do their stuff. Someone commented that he looked like Marinus at Barbeton. Anyway we managed to launch by ten past two (14h10) and not long afterwards Fourie, Leon and myself were on our way to Ceiling. 6) Biggest climbs aren't alway best. We were spread out on glide, Leon the most west and Fourie quite far to the east. Leon was also ahead and in large sink and decided to push more east . I for some unknown reason pushed more west and find a nice solid 2.5 up. The others were too east to join me. I climbed to ceiling quickly and had to push forward to get to 1700m ceiling leaving the lift. Not much later I was really low over Garankuwa and the others who had got their climb later and closer to the 1700m ceiling came over my head very high. 7) And again I say "Don't give up" I never could catch the others and most of the time I was scratching along in small climbs. Luckily the drift was good and I was clocking up the K's even when climbing slowly or just maintaining. 8) Wet green fields work in the late afternoon. I got the heighest for the day (1500m ATO) above a wet green field North of the Carousell at 5pm . 9) Your flight isn't over till your feet are on the ground. I worked every scrap of lift and stayed in the zeros for as long as possible. When on glide I used speed to fly principles to get the best glide I could to just sneek me over the 100k mark at 5:30pm. 10) Sometimes you really get lucky. When I landed I had a message from Leon offering to fetch me. I packed, walked to the road and got picked up by Werner, Louis, Nicky and two lovely ladies driving recovery for them. I hope I haven't bored you guys. Oh, yea, I almost forgot. It was an absolute pleasure flying my new pod harness.(Ava Sport Scandal Supplied by James Braid) It kept me warm, was extremely comfortable and I am convinced my glide was just that little bit better. See you guys on the hill. John