Had a marvelous flying adventure recently – two soaring flights on the magnificent, breathtaking, Morning Glory of Northern Australia.
Morning Glories can be hundreds of miles long. They are the rarest of five types of soaring and only happen reliably in Northern Australia.(1) Pilots are often understandably addicted to soaring them for their majesty, beauty, and near magical smoothness. Notably, after communicating with the few world Morning Glory academic experts, in my opinion only two people can reasonably explain how they work. The best is a terrific pilot from Cairns named Geoff.
This is my view under my right wing as dawn first peeks over the tallest Morning Glory wave cloud which is hundreds of miles long. It is swooshing towards me from ocean over the Gulf of Carpentaria. I soared this one for some 40 miles – over Crocodile Dundee outback – and Giant Saltwater Crocodiles.
The view of the cloud from the top (my favorite), was heart-filling.
Apparently, according to Morning Glory experts, I was only the 15th Hang Glider pilot to fly the Morning Glory. Which is kinda cool, though I don’t think its official.
(In a related vein, I was fairly clearly the first hang glider pilot to fly in the country of Andorra when I was hired to teach hang gliding on one of their ski slopes. However, after I analyzed flying there, I realized all wind near the surface of snow is going downhill – the exact opposite of safe flying for beginners. So I cancelled the lesson.)
Down below (the real Australian “Outback”), all the rivers, and even the ocean shores, are solidly infested with our world’s biggest, fiercest Crocodiles called “Salties !” (Meaning Saltwater Crocodiles)
I didn’t have the pleasure of seeing one up close, but the locals strongly advised us not to go to the beaches with – “We haven’t had an incident since the 1980’s” !!!
You might laugh, but this is a deadly serious concern. Sadly, a local woman was eaten by a Saltie not far from where we were flying – only a week after we left.
For more on my flying adventure see my new Flickr page
Here’s something that might inspire you —
HIGH FLIGHT
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth and danced in skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds –
and done a hundred things you have not dreamed of.
Wheeled and soared and swung high in the sunlit silence.
Hov’ring there I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and
Flung my eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace where never lark, or even eagle flew –
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve soared
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of magnificence.
–by Pilot Officer Gillespie Magee, No 412 squadron, RCAF
# # #
Notes:
- There are five major types of soaring: Ridge Lift, Thermals, Waves, Convergences and Morning Glories. Few pilots have even heard of Morning Glories. Only a handful of people have soared them, with a tinier few academics who have tried to understand them. They most definitely are not wave clouds as Wikipedia asserts.
Backwards to what I expected, Morning Glories do not “roll” like a cylinder across a floor. They do the reverse: the bottom of a Morning Glory sweeps forward in the same direction the cloud is moving, and the top rolls backward to the clouds direction.I had heard that when a Morning Glory is coming everything will be covered with Dew. I was not prepared for the deeply drenched soaking everything outside got the morning before one shows up.
