Peter Miller. A Benalla Story and the 35 Year Silver C 2004

Ever since Bob Struthers and his varied retinue journeyed to Benalla fourteen years ago and enjoyed wonderful flying there, I'd always wanted to do the same, but no spare time and even less spare money ensured no visits to Benalla for me.  However, this season, pondering the reality of not many years left for active gliding, I decided to ignore the no spare time and even less money bit and booked a place on the Novex (novice to expert) course beginning on February 2nd.

I arrived at Benalla by train from Melbourne (I love trains) on the evening of January 31st and the next day, Sunday, I wandered up to the field to check the place out.  Weekends are club days at Benalla whilst the week days are given over to courses of various kinds.

Benalla is a town of some 10,000 people, styled as the Rosetown and the hometown of Australian war hero/surgeon, "Weary" Dunlop and incidentally NZ's first Labour Prime Minister, Michael Joseph Savage.  It is a service centre to the area, has some light industry, three supermarkets, a hospital, an art gallery and nearly all the shops are occupied, look tidy and in good shape.

The airfield, off the SE corner of the town is 500ft asl, was a WW2 navigational training field, is home to The Gliding Club of Victoria and is the State Gliding Centre.  The clubhouse is a large well-appointed building, built with civic involvement and includes offices, lounge, kitchen, bar, lecture room, computer room and a large dining/meeting/task planning/general purpose room.

The club itself is the largest one in Victoria and has been operating in the area for many years and was not slow to take the opportunity offered by a good airfield located in an area offering flat land and mountain soaring.  The 1971 World Gliding Championships were held there and John Williamson, a prominent British glider pilot was resident instructor/manager there for many years.  He was a major influence in the development of the club's flying programme.  On the Sunday some students were flying, pilots were away cross-country and a young couple were in the midst of a day flight package.  The club has no hang-ups about trial flights and has established a satellite operation at Lillydale, close to the Melbourne market expressly for trial flights.  The office was open Sunday through Sunday, the office manager is Rhonda Gelletly, a volunteer fire fighter in her spare time and her assistant is Jan Robinson, wife of the club CFI.  Understandably, fire fighting is taken pretty seriously over there.  Rhonda told me of a character whose brand new ute had caught fire near Violet-town over the weekend.  He managed to unhook the trailer complete with boat but the vehicle was completely burnt out and the fire went through the local cemetery and into an adjoining paddock.  "Quite spoilt his day," said Rhonda.

The hangars are some distance away, two adjoining with no internal wall, one houses six singles - two Juniors, a Mosquito, a Hornet and two LS7.  Providing a sense of history, a Primary glider nestles in one corner.  In the other are three IS28 twins and a Duo Discus.  All gliders are pushed in straight backwards, though the Duo at 20 metres has the outboard tips removed.  All gliders are washed and covered on return to the hangar.  Two Ferguson tractors are used to tow the club gliders out.  Alongside these hangars is the club's glider workshop and next in line is yet another hangar with three Pawnee towplanes in residence.

Hitching a ride down to the launchpoint, I enquired as to the chances of getting a flight.  "Could be awhile" was the reply, "but stick around".  All three IS 28's were there but with varying weight limitations, so, like Goldilocks, I had to find one that was "just right".  A fair description of an IS28 would be a Blanik with armour plate.  They fly all right, thermal well and fall like a rock during a spin.  It was only just, considering the totally abysmal summer back in NZ, that the first Aussie thermal took us to 6500 feet in the latter stages of a classic looking sky.  After some stalls, spins this way and that and a tiki tour around during which the munitions factory was pointed out, "2500 feet clearance please" (would make a never to be forgotten thermal), back onto circuit and landing on vector 26.  Incidentally, runway 26 and its reciprocal, both have asphalt strips, about four metres wide and one hundred metres long specifically for glider launching.  The Duo landed soon after, having roared around a 300k triangle at better than 100kph.  One of the pilots was Clive Thomas, our instructor for the week to come.  Clive (pictured giving a morning briefing) is a professional gliding instructor, based at Lasham, England.  He has three diamonds, is an instructor, a top pilot and a hell of a nice guy.  Nothing comes without effort and preparing for morning briefings he was on the job each day at 7am, collecting data from several sources, so as to give us information.  Most of those gathered there were UK nationals some out in Benalla for up to three months at a time, having containered their aircraft out there, which was cheaper than extended hire of local gliders.  At the first briefing I met up with Dave Farmer, an engineering rep with Rolls Royce, based in Kuala Lumpur, who wanted to start to get back into gliding after a gap of several years.  He'd been fifteen or so years with the RAF and had enjoyed airtime in his Dad's syndicate Ash-25.

After briefing we adjourned with Clive up to the lecture room where we talked about our gliding experience and what we wanted to achieve.  We both wanted to complete our Silver badges and learn more.  We were allocated the two Juniors available.  Dave went of to get checked out in the IS-28 and I hung around the Club house until he had returned.  Collecting (and signing for) our parachutes from the parachute room, we went out over to collect, DI and tow our gliders out to the launch point.  With a light southerly blowing we were using the cross runway.

I didn't really enjoy the tow - new glider - low tow and whacking through thermals on the way up.  Also, in the low tow, on release, the tow rope appears to sit just above the canopy until the tug draws away.  However, the thermals were there and I slowly came to grips with the glider and the sometimes boisterous Aussie thermals, landing two and three quarter hours later.

During my gliding career there have always been people about to help shift gliders around.  Today, I was on my own and had to get the tractor and get the glider and myself back to the hangar.  A large caravan, known as the "pie cart" - which it once was - stays at the launch point.  It contains all the things needed for a gliding club launch point, plus water and cooking facilities, mallet and tie down pegs.  On Tuesday we were despatched to Locksley gliding airfield where we were to be given paddock-landing techniques in a Motor Falke.  Locksley is an hours drive away down the Hume highway.  I had seen the airfield from the train on Saturday but did not recognise it as a glider airfield - I was on the other side of the carriage!  We had time for a cup of tea and a yarn with Peter Johnson, the CFI there, until our instructor, Vern Rosenfeldt turned up.  A slightly-built unassuming man, he knows his stuff and how to put it across.  What followed was one of the best instructional flights I have ever had.  The photo shows Vern with Dave Farmer (r) having just landed back in the Motor Falke.

A feature of cross-country flying in Australia is the emphasis on recognising the hazard presented by SWER lines - Single Wire Earth Return.  These snake all over the place.  A rugged looking stranded cable and it is mounted on fifty-foot high posts or trees.  The poles are sometimes five hundred metres apart and landing through a row of trees could be very bad for your health.  In short, check, check and check again.  Vern okayed my paddock selections and I landed the aircraft back at Locksley.  Some lunch and it was David's turn for an hour.

Locksley is primarily a winching club, well set up with hangars, clubhouse, ablution/toilet block, huts and caravans.  It has been put together in four years after the club moved off the Mangalore Airfield.  It too, draws members from Melbourne and there appears to be substantial member cash input to the facilities there.  Two Pawnee towplanes in a hangar, but apparently little demand for them, as there appears to be good heights obtained off the wire.  The gliders I saw in the main hangars did not indicate a strong cross-country focus.

The next day it was my chance for a flight in the Duo-Discus.  This twenty metre twin appears to be syndicate owned, possibly some club involvement, but it is online for club use.  On removing it from the hangar the wing tips were clipped on, taped up, the aircraft washed and then DI'd.  After a cup of tea we towed it out to the launch point.  I had tried to read the Manual up in the briefing room, where incidentally, there is a clock face which says RTFM and on shifting this a bit, one sees, “Read the F***ing Manual”.  Well, I tried, but we had to get going.

It was not a totally blue day as we towed off, and we were soon in lift.  The purpose of the flight was a navigational exercise as much as anything.  Plus instruction on how to hit the thermals and whether to just pull up and continue or to circle.  We headed North along the track I was to take the next day, identifying the villages as we passed overhead and noting how the railway line veered towards Yarrawonga.  Inter-thermal speed was 70 to 80 knots and we were working a height band of 4500 to 6500 feet.  Slower than most to get used to new gliders, I nonetheless got the hang of it and was soon doing okay.  We flew north of the Murray for about 20km and then turned East and over to Oil Tree Lagoon (pictured), a feature that John Tullett knows well.  On to Balldale, then down the Warbys, a low range of hills to the North and East of Benalla.  Hardly any need to circle at times, just kept going. 50:1 L/D is to be highly recommended.  Past Glenrowan, Ned Kelly's last stand, on towards Moyhu then a probe towards Lake Eildon, though we flagged that as it looked a bit too blue out that way, it may have been sea air incursion.  Picked up more height and headed off over to Violet Town, 20 km West of Benalla.  All the while, Clive was regularly interrogating the flight director, noting distance from Benalla, wind direction, height needed to get back, and even "bugs" on the wings.  These were not necessarily sand flies, flies or locusts, but dust and bits of dried grass carried up in thermals.  Back home shedding height over the town, landing and the long tow back to the hangar.  We'd covered nearly 320 km and in a bit over 3 hours, and we weren't hurrying!

Thursday, February the 5th was the big day for me.  To complete my Silver C badge, I needed to do 50kms and my five hour duration.  Clive set me an out and return to Yarrawonga, a town on the shore of Lake Mulwala, which is a large irrigation storage lake on the Murray river and which can play havoc with final glides back to Benalla.  There and back would be 120 kms and Clive said it would be a blue day, all day.  He would be away with Dave Farmer in the Duo.

So, feeling anything but confident, I was towed off into the surly blue yonder.  Despite my misgivings, I found lift and was soon into my comfort zone of 4500 feet and climbing.  The task co-ordinates had been fed into the flight recorder (Volkslogger) that now sat on top of the instrument panel effectively hiding the compass, but who needs a compass when you can see fifty miles in any direction?  The Benalla startpoint is the airfield toilet block, succinctly described as "BOG"!  So, after a bit of indecision but with plenty of height, I lined up the toilet block with the general direction of Yarrawonga and set off.  The idea was to keep to the right of the road and railway line that led there, ticking off the various villages on the way, as I passed overhead.  The photo taken looking towards Benalla from the west.

So there I was, on track and heading for thermals whose whereabouts were unknown which is character building stuff.  I'd seen the Duo roaring off on track and they'd not come back so there must have been something useful out there.  One pilot reckoned that blue days should count as double whilst another said that he had no problems at all with blue days.  The oft quoted technique for blue day flying is that its like a blind man running through a forest and if he keeps running straight, sooner or later he will hit a tree.  Likewise, flying straight on a blue day, sooner or later you should run into a thermal.  But it wasn't long before I found myself flying along a line of sink with the averager reading 4.5 knots DOWN!  If I kept doing this, I would hit a real tree!  So, as we had discussed this situation the previous day and putting the remedy into practice, I changed course 45 degrees.  Almost immediately the situation changed for the better.  Firstly reduced and then zero sink, followed by the tell-tale signs of a nearby thermal which I accepted and worked to 6500 feet.  Incidentally, the signs of an Aussie thermal appear to be so much more positive than back in NZ.

Continuing on, tippy-toeing along, hugging thermals instead of trees a good practice to follow, meandering past St James, then Tungamah where the railway line veered towards Yarrawonga and Lake Mulwala gleaming blue in the distance. Maybe I was getting better, for the distance seemed to melt away and I was overhead the town and the grain silos which were the official turnpoint.  Looking down at the lake, I could see tiny white arcs as a brace of water skiers enjoyed their sport.  Admiring the view, I was loath to leave and flew on, over the Murray and into New South Wales.  Just as well I did, more on that later.

Yarrawonga from the Duo Discus.

Now the task changed to getting back home again and to complete my five hours so I turned for Benalla, aiming for the gap in the hills south of the town.  However I took a different course back, more the Sunday tourist than a real pilot, looking down at the farmland beneath, fascinated by the sight of a fire blackened paddock and how the fire had gone through the homestead grounds with a great tongue of black ranging out into the adjacent paddock.  In contrast to the general straw coloured countryside, several areas almost glowed a vivid green showing the effects of irrigation.  At one stage, I spotted another glider, busily thermalling and a bit later, a flurry of transmissions as Benalla Ground tried to contact the other Junior, supposedly in my general area.  But he must have had his radio off, for there was no reply.

Not far from Benalla a most generous thermal took me to 7800 feet and it was with as much relief as triumph that I radioed to advise that I was entering the Benalla CTAF from the north and I scoffed a banana to celebrate.  Past the BOG but no relief for me there for I still had more time to do.  Wander around, get high, stay high, a "well done" call from Clive, but somehow I found myself down to 2000 feet agl, problems and still thirty minutes to go.  Back across to the forest just outside the town and a thermal that I worked oh so carefully to 5500 feet and some peace of mind.  More lift here and there as time dragged on and then the insurance margin of another fifteen minutes.

All done, time was up, a series of dashes this way and that, losing height, back into the circuit and land onto a deserted runway.  Hitch up the tractor, the long tow back, glider washed and covered and the grins and thumbs up from the others sitting around, drinking their beer.  Pictured is my glider, a PZL Junior, VH-XOB.

The next day on analysing the flight recorder data, we found that I'd just gotten into the sector at Yarrawonga and had flown for five hours and twenty-eight minutes.

With this flight I completed my Silver badge, a journey that had begun thirty-five years earlier when I, along with the late Bob Struthers, Harry Smith and Clive Sherman all achieved silver height in wave flying the Olympia 463, DJ, out of New Plymouth airport.  Not unreasonably, there is for me, a lot of sentiment surrounding this badge, the journey far longer than the years and more difficult than the requirements suggest.

Feeling happy but pretty damn tired, I stood myself down from flying the next day and slept most of the afternoon.  Dave Farmer did his 50kms and there was no more flying until the next Thursday because of high cloud and not enough heating but the weekend's heatwave ensured much use of the motel air conditioning.

I'd been ringing home each evening and was kept informed how much rain everyone was having and that there was nary a fine day to be had.  I must confess that any pangs of guilt about coming over to Benalla vanished along with any wishes to be trundling the circuit at my home field at Stratford.  Even though there was no flying this weekend for me either, it was just nice to relax and look forward to my wife Lynn and our daughter Louise arriving the next Tuesday.

Not a Benalla instructor, but the imposing figure of Ned Kelly.

They arrived OK, having driven up the splendid Hume highway but diverting off and going a bit more cross-country.  Wednesday being another duff day we went tiki touring, checking out local essential amenities like vineyards, gourmet cheese factories and a mustard shop, which had a HAZCHEM sign leaning up against the back door!!  I thought that sign told me more than I needed to know.  Much is made of one of the areas more notorious sons and I felt that the shops now make more money out of him than he ever did robbing banks.  Benalla is rightly proud though, of "Weary" Dunlop, a war hero surgeon and famous in peacetime too, epitomising all that is good about a dinkum Aussie.

Flying was possible again on Thursday and Dave was going for his five hours and Clive set us each a triangle.  Mine was Benalla/Badaginnie/St James/Benalla, about 60kms.  Once again armed with the flight logger and "see through cumulus" marking the thermal tops, I set off.  It would have paid to read the map more thoroughly for I missed both turnpoints by about five km, not recognising my position in relation to what was on the ground.  I will have to do a lot better with that sort of thing and achieving a higher cross-country speed as well. 

So on my return to the Benalla area, I busied myself practising finding and hitting thermals, climbing and then dashing off to find another and repeat the process.  Best height achieved was 8200 feet, which I decided to use by flying south until I was 20kms from Benalla and then turn and fly back which I did, covering more than 40kms in two straight glides for the loss of about 3500 feet.

Above..8100 feet on the clock!

Below.. Heading south from Benalla towards Lake Eildon.

Quite instructive really. A disconcerting feature of that flight was encountering windshear at about 4500 feet where the glider seemed to get a great shunt from the rear, the airspeed would drop, so would the nose along with my state of blissful comfort and well being.  A small quibble really, I enjoyed this flight, rounding off my Benalla stay and coming to be at one with the glider, thinking that it flew better in the direction of along if the airspeed was closer to sixty knots, at my weight and all.  A lesson learned at the launchpoint was watching a LS4 swing on takeoff (slight tailwind) and damage a leading edge on an airfield marker and that was the end of his day.

Lynn and Louise were on their way back after a shopping spree in nearby towns so it was time to come home which I did, landing, doing the chores and returning the flight recorder and parachute and signing off the issue book.

I'd flown at Benalla, received some top instruction, had some wonderful flying, completed my silver badge, met some fine people and had finally graduated from the 1991 Matamata cross-country course.  It was a good trip.

The ubiquitous Ferguson tractor.  Lynn and Louise are in the car, patiently waiting.

Peter Miller

March 28th 2004