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The flight of the Jenni
When I purchased my PW-5 just over a year ago, I decided to name it after my wife, Jenni. After all, how many of us rely on the support and encouragement of our partners to be able to have the privilege of soaring.
And so, I dedicated my first OLC flight for the PW-5 Team to Jenni.
I've been a keen visitor to the World Class Soaring site for a while, and must confess I envy the PW-5 situation in the US, where you have enough of the type to hold competitions.
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I figure that while you are resting (feet up, in front of an open fire) in your off-season in the Northern Hemisphere it would be good to keep the PW-5 score ticking over with some Southern Hemisphere flights.
Weather here has been generally good for soaring, but winds have been uncommonly savage in our area recently, which is central Victoria in Australia. 20kt winds have been common, but making matters worse is that they have been changing direction dramatically, making flight planning difficult and also badly affecting thermals.
A friend, David, had acquired a Glasflugel Hornet only a couple of weeks ago, so after an improptu discussion he decided to make his first cross country flight accompanying me in the PW-5.
The first OLC flight I had planned was for a distance of just over 200 km, but almost immediately after I had launched I encountered problems with my GPS, so I decided to abbreviate the task slightly to areas I was reasonably familiar with and could navigate without the GPS.
The winch launch was to about 1300ft AGL, and after a considerable struggle and perhaps 15 minutes close to the field I finally found a decent thermal to 6000ft, so we departed northwards, towards the small township of Mitiamo (population 76) about 36km distant.
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Cumulus clouds were abundant, but the blue areas between the clouds seemed to be working better with thermals, so we stayed on track, deviating occasionally into lines of lift.
Our inter-thermal speed at this time was around 70kts. David's Hornet was in front and slightly to the left and interestingly at this speed the PW-5 did not lose any height to the Hornet.
Rounding our turnpoint we headed towards the larger town of Echuca, about 50 km away. During this leg the clouds started working better, so we flew in straight lines and picked up lift along the way, stopping to thermal when necessary.
Maintaining a height band of between 3500 and 7000ft, the dry brown fields drifted past below us, and eventually the river Murray dividing the states of Victoria and New South Wales appeared in front.
Spread out below us, next to the Murray River, Echuca was a lovely sight, equipped with an excellent airfield in the event we may need it, but there were plenty of cumulus around and rounding Echuca we picked up a thermal and climbed to cloud base of 7000ft in preparation for the final return leg of the journey of around 65km.
After travelling in a straight line, picking up occasional lift from clouds on the way, we decided on one last thermal to gain height for final glide.
We began final glide from a height of 7000ft at a distance of about 40km, and maintained a speed of 80kts all
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Thus ended the flight of the Jenni, a journey of something over 160km. Not a huge distance, I know, but it was a very pleasant afternoon's flight in the company of my Hornet friend.
So how did the PW-5 compare to the Hornet on this short cross country?
In thermalling, the PW-5 definitely went up quicker, at least on this day. The excellent responsiveness and ability to turn tightly into thermal cores allows the PW-5 to climb rapidly.
At speeds up to 70kts the PW-5 held its own against the Hornet. As the speed increased to 75-80 kts the Hornet came into its own and was able to maintain much better height. The Hornet certainly could have commenced final glide earlier and finished well ahead, but this wasn't a race, just a fun cross country.
The pleasing aspect for myself is that I feel I can fly the PW-5 in tandem with most Standard class ships without having to worry that I'm holding them back to any great degree.
Providing the weather behaves itself, this will hopefully this will be the first of many OLC flights this season!
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