South Africa.....

[AlastairW]

South Africa Trip

The Group.

In total there were ten of us in the group… Jocky and Bernie Kelly as guides, then eight students, all of whom were good pilots, able to launch as a group and fly in a gaggle. Bernie is a brilliant pilot who has flown regularily in the PWC, and been involved in an attempt at the XC record in November, hoping to fly over 400k. He also has loads of local knowledge, having flown the Porterville valley for over 300 hours.

The Weather

One word sums it up……. WEIRD! We would get up for breakfast at 8am to find the wind howling…. Certainly blowing over 25mph. The kind of wind that in the UK would make you write the day off and go back to bed. But come 10am the wind would start to drop, and by 11 would be flyable. BUT you only had a fairly small launch window, say 11:30 until 1, by which time the wind would have gone from W to Southerly, and start picking up again. By evening time the wind would again be howling.
The reason is apparently to do with the valley bottom being warmed by the sun, thermals forming, and forming a barrier to the meteo wind, which was diverted over the top of the valley. Then in the afternoon the sea breeze would kick in, and the wind would again pick up. There were certainly a couple of days where we went through the shear layer at about 6000ft and it was f*****g ROUGH! Enough to make you look longingly at the ground as you try to keep your glider inflated over your head.
Most of the days were completely blue, with no cloud markers for thermals. Only on the last day did we have a glorious fluffly sky.

Flying.

There were two different take offs that we used in the valley. Koringberg Hill was only a few minutes away from where we were staying, and was a small hill, no bigger than East Hill…. About 700ft top to bottom. No dynamic wind, so it was a question of launching at the right time, flying out in front and finding a thermal before landing. It worked - most of the time! I did have a couple of days where I was retrieved from the bottom landing field……
But when it worked it worked good! Bitty climbs from the bottom strengthening and smoothing out with height, until you got to about 4000 ft, where there generally seemed to be an inversion.
From Koringberg it was flatland flying for at least 25k. As you can see from th pics all of the corn had been recently cut, and you were left with a wonderful selection of fields to pick as triggers. It was even possible to check out the ground features from the air, as the fields were all planted at right angles to the slope, to prevent erosion. The lines of stubble would therefore form a contour map of the hills on the ground.
Koringberg is a new site, just created by virtue of the mobile phone industry, who installed a transmitter on top of the hill, and created an access road to it. The site record was set by a local pilot when we were there. At 74k. My best flight was actually 61k to Renosterhoek. But 100k plus is definitely on from that site.
The other take off was at Porterville…. Dasklip Pass. It was on a ridge running North South, extending 50k North, and 40k South. And before everyone rushes in and shouts "ridge run", there is absolutley no dynamic lift generated. Often the meteo wind is blowing along the face of the ridge, rather than up it. It was therefore a question of looking for thermal sources out in the flats, and looking for trigger points on the ridge.
High points were flying over a troop of Baboons, and hearing them chattering away. Landing in a field of Ostriches…… which I later found out was not a good thing to do. Landing beside a very regimented little village, with the houses lined up very regularily, and a single road leading to it with a line of trees down either side, only to discover on landing that I had actually landed in the grounds of a prison……

The Country.

I have to confess that I had never ever thought I would go to South Africa. Having been I have fallen in love with the place. The countryside is beautiful, they drive on the left, the cost of living is incredibly cheap, and the people incredibly friendly. Security may be an issue in Cape Town, but out in the sticks no one even bothers to lock their doors. And the flying is brilliant. You can fly from Newcastle to Cape Town for under £500, and a weeks flying with Birdman paragliding will cost you about £300 all in, including transfers, food and accomodation. Anyone fancy a club trip to SA next year??