Bob Struthers. 1976

 A 300km Out and Return at Gawler, South Australia: 1976


While Pat and I were visiting our daughter in Adelaide recently, I took the opportunity of doing some flying with the Adelaide Soaring Club at Gawler and was successful with the 300km attempt. Here is a brief account of the flight.

Tuesday 24th February was fine with a temperature of about 34C at Gawler airfield. Cu with base at about 5000ft, stretched northwards as far as the eye could see and an out and return to Jamestown (310km) was on. The CFI. Gordon Redway, gave the OK and I soon had formalities completed and all gear aboard one of the club’s two Libelles. But the unresolved problem was to find an Aussie with a towbar on his car and who was willing to retrieve me. I found a starter at 11.30am and at 12 noon, released at 2000ft over the airfield.

The first hour was hot hard work with thermals weak and hard to find. The sweat literally poured down my back. I passed over Clare, 86km out at 2pm – at this rate I’d be finishing in the dark!! The country below me was flat and featureless. I spent quite a lot of time studying the map and identifying the occasional township, railway line or lake. Relying more on a compass course, I covered the remaining 69km to Jamestown in an hour – cloudbase had lifted to 7000ft and thermals were strong. Rounding the turning point, I ran into an eight knotter, which carried me up to 8000ft. I banged off three photos just to make sure.

At Spalding, about 30km along the homeward journey, I elected to veer east to avoid an ominous black-based buildup, which was moving slowly inland from the Gulf of St Vincent. The mass began to rain over a large area of country. Pushing southwards along its leading edge, thermals became very few and far between and I became resigned to an outlanding a few kilometres west of Burra. I had just run into rain when the audio gave a stutter and after a couple of turns, it had settled into a steady five-knot whistle. Still in light rain, I climbed back up to 7000ft. Then realising that I was in frontal lift, I straightened up onto a southerly heading and kept climbing. I cleared the rain belt west of Eudunda at 8000ft and set off on what was to be my final glide to Gawler some 56km distant. One more thermal would have made it a certainty but the best I could find was the odd patch of zero sink. My nail biting proved to unnecessary as I arrived over the airfield at 2000ft at 6pm.

Bob Struthers.