The results.



The
flight and task.



On day five (Wednesday) the winds died off in the afternoon but there were thick
clouds all day with intermittent rain. It was a good call not to go out to the
tow paddock. Pilots seemed to enjoy a day off. It rained steady in the evening.



On Wednesday the pilots voted for a "rest" day on Friday  o that pilots and
officials could attend Steve Elliot's funeral in Sydney (some were flying out
from Orange). We expected to do a long task on Thursday as we had a rest day on
Friday.



On Thursday morning the task committee looked at the weather and saw a dismal
picture. With a strong inversion the lift wasn't supposed to go over 6,000'
until about 200 km to the north. The lift looked reasonable at 550 fpm and the
winds were supposed to be moderately strong (14-16 knots) out of the south. It
would be a totally blue day until well north of Narromine.



I proposed Narromine at 129 km, but Gerolf thought I was out of my mind as the
task was too short. I was never sure just what task Gerolf wanted, but I know he
wanted a difficult task. The problem has been that the days have been so good
that it was hard to make a difficult task if we needed to go down wind (and we
went with quartering tail winds) because of the high wind velocity.



Attila though a long task would bring in a too large factor of luck. But still
he proposed a 267 km task north northeast to Coonamble, under the assumption
that we would not make it. The lift was supposed to drop off around 6 PM to 350
fpm (minus 200 fpm for your glider's sink rate) and the task would take about
four hours for the fast guys.



Gerolf was not happy about something and left the task committee meeting.



We started the day a half hour earlier hoping to get more time for better
conditions on the long task. We were worried that with all the rain the night
before and the forecast for light lift early that it might be weak at first. The
first launch time was noon and the first start clock at 1:30 PM.



The launch lines were orderly given the extra half hour for launching and I got
off at 12:17. There were a few gliders in the air not very high and not climbing
very fast. I joined them and we dribbled to the north northeast a couple of
kilometers.



The forecast turned out to be wildly optimistic. We could climb to 4,900' (maybe
the bottom of the hard inversion) and the lift was really weak, 220 fpm at most.
We had to keep coming back to the airport as we drifted quickly away from it, in
order to stay inside the start circle. Scott Barrett got low drifting out and
had to go back and relaunch. Another pilot got even lower and didn't make it
back having to walk his glider a good ways to get back in the launch line.



The sport and club class pilots waited until 2 PM to start their launch seeing
the poor conditions that we were in. Their task was 74 km to Peak Hill. We sent
the goalie to Peak Hill as we felt we might have beat him to the long goal if we
hadn't.



After going back and forth a few times and not getting very high there were a
few gaggles working slowly toward the edge of the start circle and just
concentrating on staying in the air. I joined up and did my best to climb up,
but was not all that successful getting as high as the top guys.



We drifted and drifted watching the minutes count down and the distance to the
edge shrink. We went past the start circle at five minutes to go but we had to
stay up so we stayed with the thermal. We saw a few pilots turning back by the
edge of the start circle and made our way back to them in time to get the first
start window in the start circle. We were still not high.



We headed out on a long (8 km) glide and pilots were fortunately spread out as I
saw the pilot to my right catch some lift. The guy to my left in front and low
landed. Numerous pilots were in another gaggle further to my right and others
had gone ahead. I was just trying to survive.



We hooked up with the bigger gaggle but I was on the bottom. I just ignored the
fact that it was too low to follow anyone out on course when they left and just
stayed thermaling in broken, small, and weak lift. What choice did I have?



There were enough pilots around that you did have a few thermal markers around
to help out. I hooked up with Julia and Warren and a few others and we worked
our way slowly to the north not ever finding a real solid core of lift. Pilots
were spread out and very hard to see when they were more than a few miles away.
The winds were about 16 mph.



After half a dozen thermal (which are more closely situated when the top of lift
is low) I lead out with Kenji in an Aeros Combat just above me and right behind
me. He wasn't spreading out at all.



Down to 1,000' AGL 105 kilometers from the start I was searching every where for
lift and Kenji was right next to me also looking. Finally down to 700' AGL six
minutes later we found a consistent core, but now he was 50' below me. We
started turning, me right above him and just working that thing as hard as we
could.



Ever so slowly I started pulling away from him. Then I started climbing faster
and faster in reasonable lift (it averaged over 300 fpm for 12 minutes). He
didn't and soon landed. The lift had finally improved a bit.



I headed toward some more pilots that I saw thermaling ahead and found myself in
a general area of lift southwest of Narromine with three different small
gaggles. It was nice to have the company.



Heading out I ran into 1000 fpm down. I took a 90 degree left turn and was
rewarded with less and less sink until I got into the lift line just south of
Michael Williams who I had seen just land. This lift got me up to over 5,800',
that was highest I would get all day.



My radio battery had died right away while I was in the start circle so I was
really concentrating on getting to goal so that I would have an easy retrieve.
We were out far away from paved roads so I didn't want to go down.



I was able to fly with a pilot or two now and then and flew to a couple of small
dust devils providing good lift. The lift was consistent although I was often
down to 2,500' AGL. The winds had picked up and were now 20 to 24 mph out of the
south southwest.



Fifty kilometers out I saw Peter Dall and Dave May very low behind me searching
back and forth. I was happy to see a paved road ahead and knew at least that I
was safe for a fast retrieval. I went on glide and I got down to 1,100' AGL by
the highway. There was a glider next to the road 30 kilometers out.



I headed for the edge of the forest hoping that it would be kicking off lift in
the strong winds. It was, very weak lift (averaged 77 fpm), but enough to keep
me up and drifting quickly toward the goal. I just stuck with it even when it
was zero.



At 2,800' AGL I headed down wind just happy to be within 23 km of goal. I found
another patch of weak lift and worked it to let the thermal drift me toward
goal. As my required glide ratio to goal got down to below 20:1 I worked weak
lift to get high enough to make it. At fifteen kilometers out I had enough
altitude and went on final glide getting there with plenty of altitude.



I arrived at the airport to find two glider coming in with me just a couple of
minutes head. I had not seen these pilots, Tony and Phil. There were no gliders
on the ground, and no cars at the airport. It looked like we were the first
three in.



In fact, Jonny had come in earlier and and landed away from the airport as it
was surrounded by a fence. Blay and Maxim also came in before us and landed off
the airport. Four other pilots ( Peter, Dave, Warren and Chris) landed later at
the goal with Chris Jones last. Chris had a reflight and was the last pilot to
tow and leave the airfield.



Everyone else went down before the goal. Robert, Gerolf, Attila, Fredrico,
Scott, Curt, the whole gang. This should have a big effect on the overall
results.



Task five:

 

#	Name	Nat	Glider	Time	Total
1	Jon Durand Jnr	AUS	Moyes Litespeed RS 3.5	04:30:45	997
2	Maxim Usachev	RUS	Aeros Combat L	04:33:35	970
3	Blay Olmos	ESP	Moyes Litespeed S 3.5	04:43:26	914
4	Phil Schroder	AUS	Airborne C4 13.5	04:52:34	874
5	Tony Lowrey	AUS	Moyes Litespeed RS 3.5	04:54:43	866
6	Davis Straub	USA	Moyes Litesport S 4	04:55:14	864
7	Dave May	AUS	Airborne C4 13.5	05:00:43	845
8	Warren Simonsen	NZL	Airborne	05:02:24	840
9	Chris Jones	AUS	Moyes Litespeed S 4	04:59:52	834
10	Peter Dall	AUS	ATOS D		669

Totals:

 

#	Name		Nat	Glider	Total
1	Blay Olmos	M	ESP	Moyes Litespeed S 3.5	4496
2	Jon Durand Jnr	M	AUS	Moyes Litespeed RS 3.5	4452
3	Attila Bertok	M	HUN	Moyes Litespeed S 5	3995
4	Michael Friesenbichler	M	AUT	Moyes Litespeed S 3.5	3836
5	Gerolf Heinrichs	M	AUT	Moyes Litespeed RS 4	3810
6	Lukas Bader	M	DEU	Moyes Litespeed RS 4	3772
7	Chris Jones	M	AUS	Moyes Litespeed S 4	3762
8	Pedro Luis Garicia Morelli	M	ESP	Aeros Combat L 13.7	3473
9	Davis Straub	M	USA	Moyes Litesport S 4	3421
10	Maxim Usachev	M	RUS	Aeros Combat L	3362

The father and son team of Tim and Keith Howells were the only pilots to make goal in the sport and club
class. A few days earlier they both made goal for the first time for each of
them.



Friday is the funeral/rest day. It looks flyable but we are all happy for the
rest after the long drive.

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