The perfect wave: What it's like to glide the Morning Glory

For sailors, there's finding the perfect broad reach; for surfers, it's the tube of their dreams; for skiers, it's hitting the freshest powder at top speed; and for glider pilots, it's the Morning Glory.

This week, a very small number of pilots in northern Australia experienced the holy grail of the gliding world. Picture a giant wave but instead of breaking in the ocean, it's 200 metres off the ground. And instead of water, it's a dense tubular cloud that looks like infinite furrows of smooth cotton candy.

As glider pilot Garrett Russell tells Day 6 host Brent Bambury, finding the glory is rare and flying it is humbling.

"It feels like a shrimp approaching the jawbone of a giant whale," he says. "You're out at daybreak, flying above a wide expanse of water that's known for the size of its crocodiles and sharks, and you see a bit of a shimmer on the horizon and that is the wave that's heading your way."
 

It's like a tsunami in the sky

Russell is vice president of the Caboolture Gliding Club in Queensland, Australia. He's made a few trips to the Gulf of Carpenteria but says it's still relatively unknown, even in Australia where it forms after dawn for about two months a year.

"Because it was so remote and because it was only discovered by glider pilots in the 1980s, I would say with absolute certainty that there are fewer people who have flown on the Morning Glory than there are people who have climbed to the top of Mount Everest," Russell says.

Finding glory in the sky

The Morning Glory has been called one of the world's most spectacular meteorological phenomena and like many special events, it's rare.

"You never know if it's going to be there in the morning or not," Russell says. "But we know humidity is an important factor."

Russell and the dozen or so glider pilots who move into Burketown (pop. 180) for glory season use the bar fridge as an indicator.

"At the Burketown Pub, on any given night, you've got all these guys looking at the glass door of the fridge where we keep the beer cold. If there's a lot of condensation coming down that glass, then there's not a lot of beer going to be consumed that night."

He says they turn in early because they're keen to get on the cloud the next morning.