Southern Soaring Highlights

by Fred Hermanspann

As in previous years (see the Dec. 09/ Jan. 10 Towline) the high season for soaring on the southern hemisphere is already over and has seen some spectacular achievements.  And as usual by now, the main destination for European soaring pilots has been southern Africa with its fantastic soaring conditions, starting towards the middle of November and ending just 2 months later.  According to the OLC, a total of 271 flights of over 1000 km were made between Nov.19, 2010 and Jan. 16, 2011 from 3 airfields in Namibia (Bitterwasser, Pokweni and Kiribatib) and one in South Africa (Gariep Dam); 109 of these flights were made in 5 days (Dec. 7 to 11)!  With 2 or 3 exceptions, all these flights were achieved with sailplanes that had at least 18 m span and an OLC index of at least 120.  Strong desert lift conditions over a large area, 18,000 ft cloud bases and very few ATC restrictions make this a perfect winter season for serious European soaring pilots.  Only 2 American pilots (Kenzo Umetani and Ralph Woodward) joined this 1000 km frenzy.  For comparison, so far no 1000 km flights have been recorded in Australia and New Zealand for this OLC season.

And as usual by now, a small but driven group of fearless pilots go to South America to do battle with the awe inspiring Andes waves.  Klaus Ohlmann , who has set now over 40 world records – all in the Andes waves, answered any criticism that he can only fly straight north and south along the primary waves, by flying the first 1500 km FAI triangle solely in wave using a number of downwind wave systems.  And if this wasn’t enough, he followed this just 3 weeks later with the first ever 1750 km FAI triangle – a hard 15 hour flight, again in wave only (and another 3 world records).  Meanwhile John Williams (UK) and Sebastian Kawa (PL) also took on the Andes and joined the exclusive ranks of 2000+ km soaring pilots.

While the vast majority of XC soaring is done on the northern hemisphere, there are no thermal or wave soaring areas comparable to the above 2 areas on the southern hemisphere (unless there are still some undiscovered areas in Asia).  And as a consequence one can already state with some confidence that Klaus Ohlmann is the 2011 OLC champion, both for distance and speed.   This is based on the 6 best flights for any pilot.  This is somewhat discouraging for pilots that fly only on the northern hemisphere and whose soaring season has yet to start; it has already led to calls to have separate northern and southern OLC champions.  For us pilots in the Northwest who are still waiting for the first 1000 km flight in this area this may not be of any immediate concern.   But it makes wonderful reading during our off season.