"Horsham CTAF, this is Golf Victor Echo calling final glide, 24km out, 5000ft." "Horsham CTAF, Victor Echo acknowledged"; came the reply. With the Cirrus pegged at just under VNE and with some furtive glances to check that I wasn’t about to be rear-ended by other aircraft, I kept my airspeed and heading steady, and sweated buckets. Peering into the inversion I worried that I could not see the airfield despite being pretty close according to Simon’s L-NAV.

After a minute or so I spotted the runway and cursed softly. Making a mental note to obtain a final glide computer, I realised I was going to make it easily, having burned up valuable time to make one last climb. Such is the irony of competition gliding.

Horsham Week was a storm of activity that left my head spinning most of the time. I chased aircraft across the sky and spiralled among the thermal gaggles, lost my way and regained it when the GPS wasn’t working, cruised loftily overhead as I watched other guys outland and conversely found myself later scratching around in the same position. And I loved every minute of it.

I shot up to Horsham late on Friday night, picking up Pili as passenger and blazing across the country in the dark hoping there weren’t any animals or police about. Having pinched a few days off work on the grounds I had to move house, I had little time to spare. After seeking directions in the street from one of the Horsham locals (who was probably surprised to be accosted out of a car window by a young Spanish girl at 1am) we found the airfield and pitched tents. To be woken at 3am by a red-eye flight taking off over the camp and at 4am by a rainstorm. At least it won’t be dusty, I thought. Uh Huh.

Thankfully I wasn’t flying Saturday as with lack of sleep I was in no condition to. That didn’t matter, as there was plenty to do as Crew Chief for Jarek Mosiejewski on a plane neither of us had seen before arriving in Horsham. The Cirrus had come across from the Gawler comp, and we had no idea what equipment it had. Unfortunately it didn’t have a camera or camera mount, which I made on the flight line from a scrap piece of aluminium while Jarek went spare trying to find a parachute. In desperation after snapping one of Wayne’s hacksaw blades, I continued the job with my bare hands. Watching Jarek rise from the ground I punched the air and did a Woop and understood how the Spitfire mechanics felt after working under fire to get their charges flying. Then I sprinted out of the way to avoid being run down by the next competitor.

Jarek circled among the gaggle of gliders and quickly disappeared. It was too hot to sleep so I waited and waited. And waited some more. Eventually at 7pm news came through that Jarek had landed at Wail, 20kms short of Horsham against a pretty hefty headwind. The Cirrus was left in the paddock overnight, as we could not contact the farmer and we were on a stubble paddock with a fire risk. Wayne advised me that a ploughed paddock would have been a better alternative in the dry heat.

So on my first flying day I went off with Wayne and Jarek and derigged the Cirrus, which we re-rigged before start time so I could compete.

Originally I was to take a test ride in the Janus with Haidyn Dunn to show me the ropes. Unfortunately the Janus didn’t show and Haidyn wasn’t able to either, so I went straight in Cold Turkey. Within the first five minutes I was in trouble, fighting sink only a few kilometres away until joining a gaggle of gliders and realising with a shock that the "join at the bottom" rule doesn’t apply in competitions. In fact, holding your nerve while another guy charges headlong into your circle to pull up not much more than a wingspan away is something I’m unlikely to forget.

After finding and photographing the start point I ignored the directions of the GPS ("Bill Johnston - Task to Gawler, 250kms") and went like stink for Donald, 90kms away. At 4,500 ft, Johnston in GDH, tailed by another glider, streaked overhead.

The Hell with that, I thought, and pursued them for 70kms until I decided I could not keep up with them and stay aloft as well. As it turned out, neither could they. Bill outlanded at Donald, but by then I’d lost sight of him and had problems of my own.

I scratched along between 1500-3000 ft in narrow, violent lift coupled with bad sink and a hefty wind. My GPS trace showed the story as I was blown off course. Once the Cirrus’ airspeed rocketed as I hit a tight thermal, and as I turned into it, the ASI plummeted - followed by the Cirrus. I kicked hard rudder and shoved the stick forward, but the Cirrus would have none of it and proceeded to spin. It was just as well there was no voice recorder in the cockpit to catch my torrential language. Unperturbed, the plane levelled out as if to say: "Ha Ha, Only playing with you." I was rewarded later with a thermal to 5,500 ft, turned at Donald and cruised to photograph Jeparit, near Lake Hindmarsh, where I observed VMFG’s Janus parked next to another glider, and a couple of others scratching for height below me. About 40 minutes later I thought I was to join them, but hit another thermal as I circuited a paddock at 700 ft, having just put my wheel down.

Cautious, I left it down and circled gently while I gained some more height, and then retracted it once I was climbing away. My opinion of the Cirrus went up 500 percent.

Elated, I streaked over Dimboola, mindful that the day was dying and so was the lift, and I still had the wind to contend with. It was not to be however, and I found myself circling over patches of lift close to Horsham but unable to push forward any further. Beaten, but happy with my effort, I swept around the main road, selecting a suitable paddock while the occupants of a parked car watched me with binoculars. Landing in a stubble paddock, (sorry Wayne) I got out and waved to them. The car drove off. Mindful that there were instructions not to land within 5km of the Wail overpass due to a hostile farmer, I wondered if the car belonged to the property owner, gone to get his gun. Fortunately neither car nor gun materialised, and it was then that I realised I’d landed in a paddock within sight of the one Jarek had gone in yesterday.

Mobile phones are marvellous. After a call to Wimmera Soaring Club, Jarek and Mike came to pick me up, and we de-rigged the Cirrus in the failing light as we’d forgotten to bring a torch. The first time I ever thought there was an advantage to H’otelier couplings: In the dark it makes no difference because you can’t see them in daylight anyway.

My next day in the Cirrus was an absolute disaster. Well, not absolutely. Had I taken off and crashed, then it would have been an absolute disaster. Several of the gliders needed to be rigged before the comp, including the Cirrus, Mike’s Libelle and the LS4 for Ian Davies. Somewhere in the confusion of putting things together with a number of people, we managed to rotate one of the trailing edge wing pin sockets. In order to catch the briefing, we left the D.I for shortly before take-off. Imagine my horror when during the D.I Jarek pointed out that while filling the water ballast, he thought the wing root felt loose. A bevy of experts from all clubs descended on the Cirrus. Most diagnosed a broken wing pin, or at best, a missing wing socket. Either way it was grounded, as I didn’t expect our new Ornithopter to be declared airworthy today or any other day. In the boiling heat we rolled it off the field and Jarek, John Ashford and I pulled it apart again. It was the wing socket, rotated and fallen out of its mounting. I’d had no idea it could do that and others said it was almost unheard-of as a rigging problem. As the Toyota ad says, B****R. And a few other things. By the time the Cirrus was together, it was late in the day and some aircraft were already landing, so I declared a no-show and Jarek, John and I sat in the clubrooms and sank some beers.

Some of the pilots came in grumbling they’d given up on the task - with one fellow out of the VMFG Janus vowing to change the name to the "Victorian Flightless Motorless Group" after his effort.

Jarek and I later went to Warracknabeal and recovered Mike and the Libelle, and I was most impressed how this pretty little aircraft came apart and could be carried around without a hernia taking place.

I also got some welcome news from my fiancee Jill - our house settlement had gone through and we had possession of the keys. Slightly guilty I had not been there to help, (But then, it was Horsham Week) I decided it wasn’t such a bad day and tomorrow would be better.

The next day dawned after a good sleep and the happy knowledge I didn’t need to rig the Cirrus. We helped the others though, and after learning of the task, waited expectantly for take-off.

Before too long I was ready to go, and as if by magic, the Cu-nims started popping above us. (Up until then I’d always thought this was a myth perpetuated by old glider pilots.) With an absolute boot-full of rudder to keep the Cirrus straight (and mindful of the water ballast I could hear sloshing around in the wings) I was off. Again, the pattern of the first day repeated itself until I got settled and dived into a thermal with about 1/2 dozen other flying nuts.

The thermal was a good one, carrying us up from 2000ft to 9,500 ft, and taking us directly over the starting gate on the way. This was bliss, and set the pattern for the rest of the day.

Concentrating mainly on making it around the course, I went conservatively for the first turning point, Warracknabeal. I followed a couple of guys most of the way, then thermalled with them over Warracknabeal to just under could base at 11,000ft. With that we screeched off for Donald, where I threw caution to the wind and soon lost them, managing 115 knots and belting past the turn point so fast I thought I must have missed it with the camera. Then it was off back to Horsham, again flat out. About half way home from Donald to Horsham I was greeted by the final glide calls of the leaders, including Roger Kreuger of VMFG who said he was tracking off to do the task a second time. Show-off !

At about 3000 ft close to Horsham I hit some sink dumped half my water to climb away. Within minutes however I was on final glide flat out again, and shot over the finish and zoomed away into a thermal at the other end of the field to watch the others come in. Presently I brought the Cirrus down to find Jarek dancing from one foot to the other, impatient to take GVE up himself. We packed him in and off he went, to fly around until almost nightfall.

The next day was declared unflyable, and with my time up, I went home to my new home and dragging furniture into moving vans. Did I enjoy Horsham Week ? Absolutely.