Hi Clint - sorry to hear you ended in the fields. I nearly joined you
yesterday.

I can second that - Sunday included scratching away from a different
Free State farmers field. Loads of strong thermals but some huge areas
of 4-5m/s sink.

Those don't even make a dangerous rating, but from FL105 to 1000" above
a field in a few short minutes sure is exciting enough for me. The climb
away was excruciatingly slow and sweaty. Then it started to rain, just
to add insult to injury...

No thoughts of 300 kms etc, just out for a nice flight, got home in one
piece, and did 159km but it was rough enough that I landed before 16:00.


As Bill said - sink happens, and when it's going up at 5m/s here, it's
going down just as fast somewhere nearby.

Bill Daniels wrote:

BTW, what was your McCready STF in that sink? 200+ MPH? Like the bumper
sticker says, "Sink Happens".

Bill Daniels

"Clint" wrote in message
m...

Bruce Greeff wrote in message

...

AHem - sorry about not being explicit on the non-imperial nature of our
weather reporting system. The thermals are pretty good at present with
cloudbase last weekend at 20,000 foot MSL (15,300"AGL)

One club member recorded a 13kt thermal in an L13, pity he had to
abandon it to let his nauseous passenger disembark...


Last Saturday - I launched into the South African Free State sky with
the expectation of reaching 18000 ft. Oxygen on - the whole works.
Released straight into lift and thought - this is it - gold height
stuff - tentatively planned a 300km - the whole works. Promptly lost
the thermal and five minutes later was sitting in a farmer’s
field happy to be in one piece. Coupled to the incredible lift was the
most vicious sink I have ever experienced. It felt as if I had no
control of the glider as it was falling from the sky. I am just
thankful that my glider is as solid as a T61 tank and could take the
pounding of a poorly selected landing field, as I had no choice in
where I was going down. Luckily the wind/sink subsided sufficiently
that I could at least land with the ploughed channels at the last
minute. There was a thread recently on RAS about gliding not being an
adrenalin junkie sport - well the extreme lift/sink at this time of
the year in this part of the world makes one wish for a little less
adrenalin at times.

Clinton
LAK 12