9th May : Racon tepe, Ankara

Özgün e-mailed on Friday "NW winds, above 2500 meters cloudbase. Coming to fly?". Turned into a great day - maybe my last at Racon. Yigit, Umut, and Basat were there, and the Hacattepe university club. Beautiful Ankara spring weather - cold, thermic air and a breeze. By early afternoon the thermals had organised themselves after being totally disorganized in the late morning and I got away with Özgün and Basat. It was turbulent higher up. I saw 4-5 collapses. I thought we were in an inversion. I didn't get a collapse for once. I landed about 20km away near Özgün. After getting back to Racon, we enjoyed some relaxing evening soaring.

April 25th - 26th: Ölü Deniz

First flying of the season - with Özgun and some Bilkent students (Cantekin, etc). METU pilots down there too, and Malissa (Yigit's sister), Umut (with new Mantra R), Samit (?)... Quite a crowd. On the Friday Mahoney and his passenger (cute girl) SATed into Emirhan (Bilkent student on first big flight), causing a mid-air catastrophy. Emirhan threw his reserve, and they were all going down together. Closer to the sea, Mahoney and passenger disengaged and flew to the beach. Emirhan was in the water, tangled in his lines, for 15 minutes before a boat came out to rescue him. Then two days of bad feeling and acrimony between Mahoney and the Bilkent pilots. Emirhan's (club) 1,500 Euro glider was beyond repair - huge split down the middle of the upper surface and tears all over. Who was going to pay for it?

The collision as it happened

Mahoney was certainly at fault here. With a start like this, will he last through the summer?

I had a good couple of flights on Sunday. In the morning I flew to Butterfly Valley, landing in the hope there would be a boat out. There was - and it was magic. I made a wish and threw a coin in 'lovers' cave' on the way. Transport up the mountain, without the Forestry fee (too early in the season) was 5 YTL. The boat back to Ölü was 10 YTL. Not bad for a trip to Butterfly Valley and back. In the afternoon (setting off in the truck at 3pm with Melissa and Tunci) I thermalled with Jocky Sanderson's group. First I was pinned down a bit on the lower ridge, and decided to cross over to the cliff between the 1700m take off and the top. I managed to get a thermal and soar over the top and then kept up high - 200m or more above the summit. I was flying like this for about an hour, before flying off to the mountain across Ölü, where there was no activity. Relative to another pilot on a performance wing who was on the same flight path across I noticed that my speed was good but sink rate bad - relatively. I tried some deep wing-overs, which rapidly became very energetic, ending in a big collapse. I've got to work on these with this glider. It builds up energy and speed very rapidly and I don't have full control over it.

24th August. Flew from the higher takeoff by the power station (?) above Kalkan. The wind was coming from the west, along the ridge, so it was into wind the whole way - no dynamic lift (or thermic lift). Nice seeing Kalkan (and the plateaus to the east) from the air - much, much smaller than Kas - the core of the town.

22nd August, Babadag

This was my second flight from Babadag this holiday. The first flight on the 19th was uneventful. I had hopes of flying cross country to dad's across the valley, but the conditions were totally unsuited. I was there on the 1700m take-off at 11.30am, all kitted up with fleece and flying suit, sweating. I waited and waited (annoying the tandem pilots), and when I finally took off, I just sank and sank and sank. I glided across Olu Deniz, revisiting the newly bulldozed take-off that I'd flown from with John Young a couple of months back. Absolutely nothing.

Today's flight was much better. Once again - although there were a couple of guys thermalling several hundred meters above the hill on the truck drive up (I was lying on the truck roof:) - once I was in the air it was all shutting down. I'm pretty sure that in these humid conditions, the best time to thermal at Babadag is in the late morning - say between 10-12am. After this time the sea breeze kills everything. Certainly seemed that way. I did thermal up 300m or so to over 2000m, straight from take-off, but at this height you got pinned down. The wind was quite strong, and the thermals were disorganized at all heights. There were frequent blasts of turbulence. At around 200m ATO, I had - and this was new - a cascade of collapses. First an asymmetric - wing somewhere far behind me. I expected it to surge forward and recover, but it didn't. It crossed my mind that I'd stalled the wing now. Then a surge, this time with the left tip cravatted! I was trying to pump it out and damp the dive at the same time. It all seemed like it was happening in slow motion. I was facing the ridge, above the 1700m take-off. I thought 'this is a cravat and it could be serious' as I gauged my distance fro the ridge. Then it released and I got a massive surge which I damped and then swung under, perhaps with 50-70m clearance.

So height is important in these conditions on my new wing. I spent the next 20 minutes or so continuing with my wrestling the air along the ridge between the 1700m take off and the top, not wanting to give up. Good practice, but also fairly dangerous on a 2-3. It wasn't working - no one was climbing (3 other bold tandem wings) - and I then headed over the sea with 1000m to play with. I practiced wing-overs, and spiral dives. Much more rapid build up of energy on this smaller and faster wing. I did a set of wing-overs where I really built the energy up pretty well, but ended up stalling it (right asymmetric). On another set I didn't build up the energy properly and they were crap. Spiral dives are much easier to do on this wing than the large Gangster. I didn't get the locked in totally flat leading edge, but I got close. I could feel my calf swelling as usual, and my insides being pulled by the g-force. When I landed I felt great. This flight was a real confidence building. Looking forward to practicing more wing-overs over Kas and next week at Olu Deniz.

20th August, Kas.

Annie had her first flight since last summer, over a year ago - before she was pregnant. She loved it, and good for her!

16-17th August. Cokelez, Denizli

A 30km and 25km flight from Cokelez, Denizli, the first in the company of Yurdaer Etike and some others - all of us landing in the same field. I thought this was an amazing coincidence, but the others - who I hadn't been flying with - had flown in formation. What an amazing cross country venue! (See pic below). On the 16th there was a strong inversion at around 3000m. I watched a glider right in front of me over 'big Cokelez' have a massive frontal followed by what looked for a moment like the guy falling out of the sky. A little later I had a violent asymmetric, dive and surge - a new experience on this Swing Cirrus 3 glider - which got my heart racing and put me in super alert 'defensive mode'. And then later on in the flight I had another big asymmetric, but I was getting used to it by now:) I was in 8up thermals at times. Overall it was a very satisfying experience, but it was challenging. The next day was smoother. I climbed to 3,500m to cloud base and then actually big-eared to lose some altitude. I shouldn't have done this, because I didn't make it to the next thermal on glide (!), but I did feel suddenly exposed up there at that height, vario screaming, watching a lone glider ahead of me climbing up the side of the cloud, with the wild scenery stretched out below me, looking unreal like a huge map.

What did I learn on those days? Patience is everything. Over flatlands particularly, make use of every zero and 0.5 up that you find. Work, work, work the lift. Being an impatient sort, I bombed out earlier on both days because of this - flying through lift expecting better further ahead. And I have to get used to flying in and around clouds at huge altitudes (above 3,500m).

A good time socially over the weekend, chatting, having a laugh, etc, with some of the more dedicated xc pilots in Turkey. I need to learn to play Backgammon without having to count. Interesting talking to Ahmet (retired) on the last night at the Artemis Yoruk hotel, about Turkish politics, the army, etc. He says beatings in the Army are routine - they are actually built into the program! And recruits often die it's so brutal. Ahmet doubted that 'terrorist of the sky' Mahonie had been a Kurdish terrorist. Not beyond the odd porky I know, but surely that dent in his skull was made by a Turkish soldier's bullet?

METU West hill

Two hours waiting on top of West hill (just made this name up!) on virtually zero wind paid off. Lots of swallows (?) appeared, thermalling in front of the hill, over a wide area. They didn't drift over the hill as I was expecting, but actually moved further away from the hill. It was obviously good all over the valley, in both directions - left and right. I launched and was up and away, thermalling in a big gentle thermal, over 100 feet over the hill, then off over the buildings which seemed to generate a lot of lift, soaring and circling over the ridge, then off to the dirt track on the other side of the valley, clearing the electric cables by 15 ft or so and landing on the field opposite the lojmanlar. It was very satisfying flying. That ONE wave of thermic activity - the best of the afternoon by far - and I was in it! Timing (and patience) is everything.

Amusing - I just saw this entry on Paragliding Forum's Leonardo:

9th July, Racon. Pilot 'ert' (?). Distance 16.7km. Yiğit knows who it is. He flew pretty well exactly the same flight I did - the same mega thermal - except he was obviously not wearning shorts since he got to 3,875m asl. If he was he was hardcore. He landed almost exactly at the spot I landed. He was flying on a Swing too and probably experienced the same sort of physical forces under the wing. Maybe he also had a tea and a chicken kebab at the petrol station there? And maybe he had to keep a watch out for flying stones, churned up by lorries, as he tried to get a hitch on the road-side back to Racon?

a thermal - just ONE that stretched on for miles

For more heroic news, Basat Okay flew 180km from Rajon this last Sunday. Now this METU pilot is obviously experienced, having over 500 hours, etc, but looking at the altimeter-trace it just shows what's possible from Racon. Or MAYBE from just up the hill here in the METU grounds? I'm more motivated to risk getting electrocuted by the pylon cables than ever now - just to catch that perfect thermal to get away and on to Konya.

disappointing not to have reached Konya

notice how our thermal was actually bigger than any of his

Fantastic day soaring in METU today with Ozgun - first at the N site at the top of the hill, and then on the N closest to the apartment. It was a NNW I think, and the weather report Ozgun looked at said 17 kph and dropping in the evening. We went up there at 6pm, and later evening conditions (7.30-8pm) were possibly better. Both Ozgun and I had quite a hard time at the top - getting blown back at points. I had to do a C line landing. I also did a Mitsos launch, which I want to practice given the experience from the other day of getting dragged. Here were the soundings for 12pm today. (Looks like it would have been a good xc day for Racon - but no chance of that right now with summer school and baby duties.)

Definitely my best day's flying in METU today. On the closer site I couldn't get down over the bowl and had to do lots of wingovers to lose height! And the air was smooth. Wonderful.