| Sumit
A couple of years ago, a wild man wearing a turban did 4 flights with us and ran off to Goa where, under the tutelage of the Flying Dutchman, he learned to fly wearing only a turban. During his first week at Goa he spent 12 hours in the air and one hour in a tree. So when you visit us at Virar and find one of the boys sitting in a small tamarind tree you know it is because they hope to spend 12 hours..., but to get on with the tale; It was just the beginning of a brilliant flying career. From Kamshet to Manali to Billing, Surd is now a well known IFO (identified flying object). He leads a charmed life, is a self taught pilot and a genuine certified nut. Of late, he has been living in the sky and lands only when he's hungry. |
On one of those rare occassions when he was earthbound, Surd suggested, in a manner of speaking, that we make use of something he had written earlier in lieu of his webpage, and considering how rare it is for Surd to write anything in the first place, well .. this is his page. |
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haha....Sidney, don't know if this works but here's a piece I've written. can it be considered a substitute for my page?i also have a few pix that I can send. am sending one right now so as to not clog your mailbox.
ho ho...Surd of course you can ... here it is.
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Reaching Bir on Saturday morning after a 12 hour bus ride, it is disappointing , if not surprising at this time of the year, to find an overcast sky. What used to be beautiful weather in the mountains --all that green against the Grey--has started to disappoint me ever since I started flying. On Sunday afternoon, waiting to catch the bus back to Delhi, I try to console myself that it was a nice quiet weekend in beautiful Bir, even if there was no flying. And then, a strong wind starts to blow from the west, and in a matter of one hour, the clouds blow away, and for the first time, I can see the snow covered Dhauladhars which had been covered until now. |
| Billing, which is a meadow 1000 meters above Bir looks inviting as ever from Andy's window. Andy has a strategically located window in his little cottage in Bir, which gives us a view of billing and the weather conditions. And so, after an hour of struggling with "I have to get back to work" and "to miss tomorrow's flying would be criminal", shall I stay shall I go SHALL I STAY SHALL I GO shallIstayshalligo SHALLISTAYSHALLIGO, I of course skip the bus and spend the rest of the evening praying the weather holds and looking anxiously in all directions to ensure that no clouds are coming. |
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Itıs a beautiful starlit night when we go to bed, and I'm too excited by the prospect of a good flight to sleep for a long time. I wake up, and in that instant between waking and sleep, utter a short intense prayer. For, as every flier knows, many a starlit night has not brought a blue sky. But this one has. And while the cumulus clouds that are building up don't look anywhere close to a magical 4000 meters that would be ideal for a nice long cross country flight (Andy and I were fantasizing about 5000m cloudbase and a flight to manali) , it looks like nice flying conditions anyway. And so, we're off from Bir for the 45 minute drive to billing. And at 10, when we reach billing, the clouds are starting to develop and some of the snow covered peaks are already disappearing behind the clouds. |
| Its still too early to take off by normal standards but then, this is not normal flying weather. The sun's already been heating the slopes for a good 5 hours and we expect that it'll get only stronger. Our composure can't hide Andy's or my nervous energies.or the state of our minds shall I take off shall I wait, SHALL I TAKE OFF SHALL I WAIT shallitakeoffshalliwait SHALLITAKEOFFSHALLIWAIT as if to make up our minds for us, the tail wind stops, and then after a few minutes a west wind begins. The frequency and strength of the thermic gusts increases even as Andy and I unpack our bags. The local pilots, who've come with their tandems wait patiently for us to take off: |
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its nice to see where the lift is and where the sink and the first launch, the wind dummy's, is always watched with lots of interest.Shit! she's going down. Okay, he found somethingS..hmmmS..WOWS did you see that lift? Must have been at least 10m/sS.let's take offS.so Andy goes, and finds some nice lift over "thermal devta"( so named by "mad Steve" for the regularity with which you can find thermals above the temple that is halfway down the eastern spur running down to BirS.many a time did Steve bum out in sinky valley before being saved by the thermal there. Even the locals refer to it as thermal devta now. And so, its traditional when you come to Bir, to stopover on your way upto fly and get the devta's blessings, and yes, even the skeptics change their mind here, don't ask me why )S..by the time I'm ready to take off, Andy's at three-one-two-two (the highest point of the western spur running down from billing to Bir, and 3122m above sea level). |
| We've planned to try and fly to Dharamsala even though cloudbase seems fixed at 2700-3000m and shows no signs of rising. It looks like he's waiting for me, so I break a cardinal rule of thermalling(spiral to the top, as the song goes) and get out of a nice strong thermal above the devta and head for 3122. I'm already in the shadowy valley by the time I reach 3122, having sunk about 400m in the transition. I scratch my way around trying to look for thermals in all the likely places, but there's nothing to be found and I can see that I might be landing if I don't get some lift soon. |
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Its really unusual not to find anything even after scratching around for 20 minutes, and scared that I'm going to go down, I take the unusual step of turning back to thermal devta to get back up again. I'm just above the trees when I reach the devta but as soon as I'm over, praying feverishly for some lift, I hit a really strong thermal, and it feels like a huge fist grabs my wing and pulls me up a 100.the wing's getting pulled in one direction and I'm going in the other, and I remember Gill's line" there are only two choices.either you can be aggressed by the thermal or you can aggress it." I weight shift to the left, pull the left brake, and find my self in the core of the thermal going up at 6m/s. after the first two turns which are turbulent, I've nicely in the thermal and making smooth circles each of which takes me up 50-60m. at 2800m, I'm in the lower wispy clouds. |
Its really unusual not to find anything even after scratching around for 20 minutes, and scared that I'm going to go down, I take the unusual step of turning back to thermal devta to get back up again. I'm just above the trees when I reach the devta but as soon as I'm over, praying feverishly for some lift, I hit a really strong thermal, and it feels like a huge fist grabs my wing and pulls me up a 100.the wing's getting pulled in one direction and I'm going in the other, and I remember Gill's line" there are only two choices.either you can be aggressed by the thermal or you can aggress it." I weight shift to the left, pull the left brake, and find my self in the core of the thermal going up at 6m/s. after the first two turns which are turbulent, I've nicely in the thermal and making smooth circles each of which takes me up 50-60m. at 2800m, I'm in the lower wispy clouds.
As I enter the cloud, I become conscious of the wind speed, because I can see the cloud moving rapidly against the ground. and then its all white. I hold the turn but after a few seconds its impossible to tell where I am, which direction I'm going or how fast I'm moving. Its just complete whiteness and all I can hear is the wind whistling through my helmet. I'm not sure how far up the cumulous clouds are or how big, and its really disorienting to not know where you are. How do I head out now? Shit, I should have got that compass. Anyway, since I'm at 3000m and higher than most of the ridges close by, I let go the brake and glide, hoping that I'm going to come out of the cloud before I hit a mountain. There's also some lift and suddenly, I'm popping out of the top of the cloud, and wowS..on my left, I see what fliers call a glory. The sun's overhead to my right and it casts a shadow of my glider on the clouds with a halo around it in rainbow tints. A beautiful sight. "For pilots eyes only."
| I head towards 3122. ,meanwhile Andy's disappeared. From up there, it must have looked like I'd bummed out, so he's probably decided to go on. The same thing repeats itself. I'm low below 3122 in the valley, and getting thumped around in the turbulence and so once again, I head back to thermal devta. |
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This is keenness. If you have to head back for a third time, its surely not weather to fly cross country, but I decide to give it another go. By the time I'm high up over thermal devta, the lower layer of clouds has moved towards the big mountains that run from east to west, and the cumulus over the spurs running down from them give me some good lift and I find myself a 100m over 3122 in a short time. Its now been 1 hour since I took off and I've only made the first transition. There are some 15 odd ridges going down to the valley between here and dharamsala. My mind is buzzing as I glide from 3122 to the next ridge. Itıs a short transition and the next ridge has some strong sun on it and the wind's coming bang on, and I'm quickly at 3200m and approaching cloudbase again. This time, its too dangerous to get into the clouds without a compass, so I have to exit the thermal and glide on. I make the next couple of transitions easily because I'm staying along the big mountains rather than flying over the valleys between the ridges. But then the clouds come close again and I have to head out away from the big mountains. |
The next valley is broad and I press down on the speed bar for full speed, and sinking quickly, make the transition, seeing Bir on my left slowly disappearing. By the time I approach the next ridge I'm already at 2200m or so, below the ridge line. The question now is whether to brave the leeside thermals or head out towards the valley and try to cross the ridge at a lower point. The risk of heading out in the valley is that at that height if you don't quickly find a thermal, you'll have to get out the valley quick and land. I pray and keep going straight. By the time I actually get to the ridge, I'm just a few meters over the heads of some villagers who've stepped out of the clump of houses to watch.
They 're whistling and screaming but I'm concentrating much too hard to respond by even waving. I stand on my speed bar and push against the harness. Itıs a psychological thing about speed, though my standing up is probably increasing the wind resistance and making me slower. I'm just a few meters from the ground and from the edge of the ridge, and its very very turbulent.the spur faces the wind and there is a strong rotor on the leeside. My wing is tossing about, losing pressure, swinging from one side to the other and the few seconds it takes to reach the edge of the ridge seem like a long time. But at the edge, I enter the thermal at its core and zoom vertically upwards while the villagers below watch open mouthed.
Now, in the thermal, and going up, my mind is working feverishly trying to understand what's happening. The couple of times that I've flown this way before, by the time you make the 2nd or 3rd transition, the pattern is in your head. You know where the thermals are going to be. And because the sun heats the east-facing slopes first, normally the thermals are coming off these slopes. Because we're flying east to west, its easy when you catch a thermal on the eastern side of the ridge, climb and crossover the ridge, and make the transition across the valley.
The transitions are sinky but its pleasant to arrive at the next ridge, and as you get closer your vario starts to beep intermittently. And then after half a minute you hit a nice core and S..but this time, the thermals seem to be coming off the western side of the slope (I'm trying to figure out why, but at this time, all my "understanding the sky" is out of my head. To complicate matters further, there's a strong wind, and because the cloudbase is low, I can't even get up and away from the ridges and over the big mountains. the top of Jalsu peak is hidden by the clouds and it would not be pleasant o be in the clouds close to the peak. So I have to stick to the middle of the spurs and scratch my way to dharamsala. But its going good as of now so I go on. The same choice between leeside thermals and going out to the valley at the risk of sinking out comes up towards the end of the next transition.
This time, I'm a little higher so I head straight with a little more confidence. But I'm sinking like a stone as I get close. The rate at which I'm sinking makes me think that I'm unable to penetrate the thermal and am in the heavy sink on its leeside. This time I'm too far away from the ridge line to make it, so I have to turn and head out of the valley, encountering major turbulence and sink as I do so.
By the time I reach the ridgeline, I'm at 1800m just400m above the ground at the edge of the valley. Not good! The strong wind generates some lift off the ridge though and I beat around the ridge making sharp turns and flying really close to the trees. After 10 minutes I've not managed to get any height, but am thankful to not lose it. I continue to soar the ridge, and then a cloud passes and the sun hits the slope, and 2 minutes later it probably triggers a thermal and I'm going up again. I bank tightly, and hang on to the thermal and a few minutes later I'm up at 2800m again. All the way up, I'm screaming along with my varioS..yes!yes! this time I was almost down. There is only one thing better than getting high, and that is getting low first.
I can see Palampur on my left as I make the next transition. The next few valleys are narrow I cross them without incident. Standard routine: climb to cloudbase, full speedbar across the valley. Flying cross country even in ideal conditions involves great concentration. Its one of the joys of flyingS when you land, it feels like you've just re-entered the world. And in conditions like this, every muscle of your body, mind is focussedS where's the next thermal, where's the sun, what direction is the wind coming from, did its speed changeSS But now I'm gliding across the valley with nice height, and I look at the view for the first time.
Through a hole in the clouds, I see the snows of Jalsu. Below me, a few wild mares have stopped drinking water and are looking at this big bird flying above them. find a thermal, climb to cloudbase. Its not exactly relaxing, since the thermals aren't everywhere and the size of football fields as they usually are but after a couple of hours of scratching, I'm at least able to look around at the view as I glide across the valleys. The sky is developing quickly and I can see Dharamsala. beyond the next two spurs. And I spot Andy at the top of the next spur. He's thermalling over the top, and I'm so excited at seeing him, that once again, I skip out of the thermal and full speed down the valley, to of course, end up at the bottom of the east side of the mountain.
I have to head out to the valley and cross over to the west side of the slope and now I'm really low. There's a wind and I soar the ridge, neither losing height nor gaining any. I'm ready to give up and just head out of the valley and land and take a jeep upto Bhagsu. Andy of course must already be drinking the lovely lemon tea at sky pie café, just below Bhagsu Nath and above the Dalai lama's retreat. Soaring along the ridge is relaxing after a while and I forget about making goal and just enjoy the smooth wind, shouting back to the villagers who're only a few metres below me as I soar over their heads. Its drama plays out for maybe half an hour and by now I've been in the air more than 3 hours.
Its probably the longest stretch of active flying that I've ever done, but I'm not really physically tired, just a little disappointed to not make it to goal. But it ain't over till the fat lady sings. And so along comes a big griffin vulture, flies over my wing, and then looks disdainfully down at me before he turns around as if to say " follow me". Who am I to argue with the king of the skies? I turn and feel my heart pump as I watch him go up and make a smooth turn in the thermal. I follow and soon we're thermalling in tandem to the top. In each circle, there's a point where we';re facing each other and I swear he's laughing at my excitement!! I've been in thermals with birds before but its rare when you go up in tandem. Normally they just zoom up with their tightly banked circles around the core. But this time, its like he's waiting for me. He takes me up to2800 metres and then disappears into the clouds while I turn and head across to the last ridge before dharamsala.
The rest of the ride passes without incident and I land
in the valley, close to the road at the foot of Bhagsu.
| Bullshetty | Bhavin | Chanakya | Chetan | Clotie | Divyank | Eric | Florian | Keith | Latha | Monish | Oldcock | Prema | |
| Rajesh | Shahrukh | Samit | Sheena | Steve | Sumit | Suneel | Trupti | Uday | Vanita | Vivek | Venu | Zohar |