Alphen aan den Rijn      MONDAY January 2 2012

A bit earlier then normal ,but I wanted to share the whole letter from Benjamin with you. Otherwise the Wednesday blog would be TOO long and you would get tired from reading and that would be a pity as it is an interesting story.

Of course I congratulated Benjamin with his great flight. Here is his letter back. So here we go! Take a chair and enjoy!!!

 The lake Benjamin talks about in this letter.

Dear Ritz,

Thank you very much and have a happy year 2012!!

It was an awesome flight yesterday. Absolutely spectacular.
The last weather cycle (bringing the trough with 43 deg and too much clouds today) was very predictable so that three days ago, we were totally sure about the 1000km-chance on the 1st. It turned out to be my turn flying the discus (the day before, Fabian had flown an impressive 700 km), but even if it wouldn´t have been my day, Fabian would have given me the glider for my 1000 km chance. He´s a real sportsman.
My plan was to copy Fabian´s flight, but to go further north on the first leg to decrease the amount of YoYo flying.
I launched on the winch at 11 am, but there was no real movement in the air so that I had to land again. It wasn´t until 11:30 that the first dust devils evolved and made me launch once again, already pretty late in the schedule. I spent the next 40 minutes circling around the airfield in 500 – 600 m AGL, until at 12:15 I caught the first real thermal up to 6000 ft. From now on, I would have to average 130 kph to achieve the 1000 km. It seemed impossible but I headed on course, just in case a wonder was going to happen.
An hour later I found myself 130 km further north, having followed an awesome street in the blue and hardly ever turned to climb. Now I could see the first clouds popping up on the northern horizon, and damn! they looked high up. I had a little trouble staying in touch with the lift system, but the blue climbs averaged 4 m/s and brought me to 10000, later 12000 ft. With 200 kph ground speed, I now bashed under the first good looking cloud near Wilpena Pound, just to find a lift between 5 and 7 m/s (14 knots) beneath it. It fired me up to just over 4000 m (14000 ft). The plan had worked.
From then on, I only turned when expecting 6 m/s or more, working the rest by pulling up and diving down. The big salty Lake Torrens appeared on my left, the Flinders Ranges on my right. I raced to the last cloud on course and wanted to turn, 370 km away from home, when something told me to behold the clouds over the Flinders. Some 30 degrees off my course, leading even further away from home, the most exciting street I had seen for a long time swam around in 14000 ft, and thermals were booming everywhere around. But who would ever fly so far away into unknown desert-like terrain, abandoning the original plan? I was still more than an hour behind the 1000 km schedule, so could this be the ONE chance to catch up? The wonder I had hoped to meet out on course? Damn, it´s creepy to be so far out…
It was the decision of my life. It took me at least a minute to figure out what this could mean, and what could go wrong. I did a lot of crazy calculations and figured out some emergency airstips in the GPS, then concentrated on nothing but the number ONE THOUSAND and turned 30 degrees right.
The average speed of the next 60 minutes, according to SeeYou, was 170 kph. Forcing myself not to look at the desert mountains below but only to maintain that god damn speed, I flew the fastest hour of my career. At the last cloud in the north, 426 km away from base, I turned. Maintain that speed, and everything will work out. Fly, Yankee Bravo, fly.

Reaching landable terrain half an hour later, back near Lake Torrent, I tried to work out the fastest way south. Some clouds, but lots of blue passages, lift and sink both exceeding 5 m/s. Light wind in the back. My mobile phone beeped: Message from Fabian: “Du packst das” – you´re going to make it.
The 400 km leg south back to Adelaide CTR passed away pretty fast with 146 kph. Having done the maths, I knew that with the first turnpoint at 370 and the second at 425 km, I would only have to go back north for some 60 km to make it a thousand. The last three hours had been so incredibly fast that now I wasn´t at all behind, but even ahead of the time/distance schedule. It was now only a matter of keeping cool and doing what was left to to. I turned north again, having figured the best way under the few clouds that were left. It was half past six by now: I had at least two hours of thermals ahead, which still averaged some 2 m/s and felt pretty reliable. Now I could take my time and had to do nothing but establish final glide height. At seven o´clock, with the clouds getting thinner and lift getting weaker, I patiently sat on 1,5 m/s to almost 4000 m. After turning a little further north, it was 105 km to go and 3500 m: There was not much usable lift left here, but this could really be  enough.

At five past eight, I reached the Aerodrome to find everybody gathered outside, waiting. After a low pass, I landed with the sun in the back, just to see Fabian running towards me with beer in both hands. He had been watching the SPOT Tracking all day.

We are going to be in Stonefield for some three weeks now, there will be some customers we´ll have to deal with, but maybe there will be some more good flying.
Fabian is out right now, he seems to have gotten as far as Wilpena, but the way back seems tricky because of the trough arriving (too) quickly. We´ll see how this goes.

Now I have written much more than you wanted to know, and much more than I had planned.

I attached a photo of Lake Torrent, which will also appear in the OLC News tomorrow – I´m afraid I was too busy worrying about the race against the clock, so I didn´t take more pictures.

Yours,
Benjamin
P/S I´d like to add something else:
I have learned two things about 1000 km flying yesterday:
1st it is not so much a game of flying long hours from morning til evening, but much more a game of flying REALLY FAST in the best hours of the day. This is what matters much more, because 20 kph more average in the afternoon give you more distance than creeping along weak and low for two hours in the morning.
2nd one thousand km flights in thermals are, to put it simple, the art of being in the right place at the right time for long enough. That´s it.

As you see…I used it all! See you on Wednesday!

cheers Ritz