PARAGLIDING IN SA  |   FLYING SITES  |   REVIEWS  |   AIRLORE  |   STORIES  |   GALLERY |   CARTOONS DE AAR a preview from the Fresh Air Site Guide Copyright © Greg Hamerton GRADING : BASIC GPS : +- S30º41.5’ E24º01.5’ ALTITUDE : 1260m (ASL), narrow airspace route runs SW-NE at 4700m (ASL), elsewhere there is no ceiling. Expect big height gains. DESCRIPTION : A rare gem, centrally situated and full of possibility. There are graded runways (clear of town) with a good road network stretching out over the Karoo from De Aar. A superb place to attempt record-breaking cross-country flights, with more trigger points than Kuruman. Flying in early summer is brilliant! WIND : all directions. LAUNCH : Fly de Aar offers a winching service. Hard-packed dirt runway. LANDING : Anywhere. The Karoo-bush is great for catching lines in strong wind. Land near a road. Cell phone reception is generally good. CAUTIONS : refer to the Fresh Air Site Guide. DIRECTIONS : N1 from Cape Town to Hanover, at Hanover follow signs to De Aar. Once in De Aar follow signs to Potties B&B and report in before flying. PERMISSION : No flying will be allowed without first checking in with Arnold & Des Pansi at Fly de Aar (082 340 0477 or 084 690 1804). R10 p/day site fee. ACCOMMODATION : Fly de Aar, www.pottiesbnb.co.za, +27 (0)53 631 1555. RECORDS : 434km SE (started 100km to west and overflew De Aar) by the Valic brothers (2006). 344km SE = SA RECORD (Martin Bacsak, Dec 2005). DHV 1-2 World Record = 304km (Alfredo Studer, Dec 2005, Swing Mistral4). 5500m ASL best. SA Tandem Record 223km. German, Irish and French (ladies) open distance records. XC FLYING IN DE AAR What are the conditions like normally? Is it strong wind? Strong thermals? Ridges? How long can you normally fly? Do you normally fly straight line or out-return or triangle? Well, there are RECORD DAYS (crazy strong wind) and XC DAYS (good thermals, medium basewind). RECORD DAYS : Normally there is a strong wind by the time it is good for xc. It is hard to get away and keep going early in the morning, so the guys usually wait until 11am at least before going for record flights. By then the wind is blowing. The guys are winch towing with 30km/h basewind + thermic gusts. It can get quite wild, but because it's all flat around the runway, pilots get used to flying in such marginal conditions. It is quite normal to fly going backwards, sometimes they even winch going backwards or with zero penetration. Just about every record set from there is in conditions where on average you are going backwards on trim with 10 to 20kmh during flying. The tandem record guys report 120km.h GPS speed on downwind legs. No matter how fast your wing is, that's going backwards if you try to land. Now this is a gamble, you're rolling the dice to get big distance. IF you drop out in the wrong place, it is hard to avoid getting pinned against a ridge or being pushed over into bad landing country. XC DAYS : On most days you get a very good wind gradient though, so you get the high speeds at 1000m + above the ground, and often the wind on the last 50m before landing is a lot less than higher up. This has been a welcome relief on some of my landings, where I thought I was going to be dragged. I usually stop flying when I am going backwards. You can pick your days to fly. If the wind starts at 30kmh it is likely to be blowing stronger than that later in the day. There can be some nice days where the basewind is 20-25kmh, and then De Aar is fantastic. You get so high, you go so far, and it feels safe because you can land almost anywhere. The road system is good, there is usually cellphone reception. I definitely recommend having a harness that is easy to clip out of, like the Gin Genie or similar harnesses with only two quick-out buckles and a V shaped leg/cheststrap combination. Either that or quick-release carabiners are well worth it. This can save you from being dragged in scary winds. LANDSCAPE: The landscape is flat, flat, flat, with small bushes everywhere that grab your wing if it falls down. There is no ridge soaring, no mountain flying. BUT it's actually not that flat, in many places there are odd-shaped ridges that can cause turbulence if you are low down, which makes flying in strong strong wind really risky. ALTITUDE: Typically the guys are flying at 4000m + so some oxygen is recommended. But I have never needed it, I don't fly with oxygen. I have gone to 4300m without oxygen and been quite happy, but a friend of mine went to 5500m without oxygen shortly followed by a stupid decision to ridge soar a very big mountain in 70kmh winds. He crashed. So I wouldn't go higher than 4500m. FLIGHTS: Out and returns, and triangles at De Aar? Good luck to you. If you can go upwind with a 50kmh wind blowing, there must be something special about your paraglider. Normally moderate length flights, from 12noon till 5pm. Normal xc is 100-150km. 5hours x 60kmh average speeds = 300km. That's probably a 40km.h basewind, so bigger flights mean more wind and very seldom mean longer airtime. The big flights from De Aar are stopped by flying into an afternoon seabreeze front from the SE. THERMALS : Strongish thermals, but I've never been scared by them, it gets worse at Porterville on a bad day. The thermals are nice and big and were between 1 and 6m/s last time I was there in summer. But there are dust-devils on most days when it gets hot .. very strong thermals, very gusty, dangerous for landing. 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