2010 Forbes Flatlands - 9th day
The weather forecasting models were contradicting each other. The
BOM said 41 in Forbes. The GFS/XCSkies and RASP said 35. A rather significant
difference. But maybe they were both right. RASP showed no clouds, no chance of
over development, low top of the lift.
The winds forecasts may have been contradicting each other also, but the BOM
forecast is for too large an area to be sure. RASP showed the winds going from
north to west later in the day, and slowing down (in Forbes).
The task committee called a dogleg task first 65 kilometers to the east to
Toogong, and then 104 km to the north east to the airport past Wellington on the
east side of the ridge. The best chance for lift was in the hills that we would
be going over to get to the first turnpoint.
It was completely blue at the airfield as we towed up. Larry reported lift to
7,000', but he soon found himself down to 2,200' and no one was finding any good
lift and no one was getting over about 5,400'. The thermals were quite weak and
there continued to be no clouds. It looked like the RASP model was right and the
BOM was wrong.
As the last start time approached (and we were all waiting for it as conditions
were so weak), we waited in weak lift over Forbes, the town itself, at the edge
of the start circle. Things were congested as we just couldn't climb.
Just as the start window was about to open we found strong lift. This meant that
we would stay there and climb well to 7,100'. I was with Zippy and resolved to
stay with him. He started later than the others (maybe three minutes behind the
start clock) as we were still climbing. I was just above him.
I found that the right leading edge of the Airborne REV at the tip was broken
this morning when I tried to put in the tip wand. I had noticed the night before
that the tip wand seemed a bit high. I hadn't thought much about it as I've had
perfect landings every flight. Did I mention that the REV is super easy to land?
The Moyes folks were around and Vicki and Jonny were happy to let me fly Jonny's
RedBull glider, an RS 4, with a well worn sail, a glider that had been looped
many times. It was a bit different to fly, and on the first fast glide I
couldn't control the glider as I hadn't had a chance to retrain my reflexes and
timing. After the first glide I had the timing back.
Also the bar position was different than what I had just gotten used to on the
REV. I had to get used to that also. It took about an hour and a half to
straighten all my reactions out.
As we headed east toward Toogong, there were clouds about another ten kilometers
along the course line (after the first ten of the start cylinder). I was now far
below Zippy as I couldn't control the glider at first, but we got into the same
strong thermal and I climbed to over 8,500'. The day was much better now that we
were in the hills and under the clouds.
A twenty kilometer glide and I was down to 2,500' again, but I found good lift
just before the clouds again. Moving over to a better position under the cu's
and over the hill sides after I gained a couple of thousand feet it was 700 fpm
to cloud base at 9,980'. That was a smooth powerful thermal.
It was a quick run to the turnpoint, then back under the clouds to cloud
base at 9,950'. I had to race to the blue to get away from the cloud suck. I
was running away from the clouds, but they continued north for an another ten or
twenty kilometers. Unfortunately, the task was to the north east and the clouds
would start soon to be twenty kilometers off the course line. At some point we
had to go out into the blue, which looked even worse than the tow paddock. There
was a strong inversion.
I headed back to the clouds first but then left with 6,500' out into the blue. I
was able to take 200 fpm to 5,000' in the first thermals gaggling up with about
ten pilots. The wind was out of the north northwest, so our progress was impeded
by the winds, the light lift, and the very low top of lift.
Coming in south of the village of Cumnock I worked 90 fpm to 3,800' while I
watched five guys head out and essentially commit suicide, one after the other
all landing in the same field on the south side of the town. Trent Brown wanted
to stay with me and not commit suicide, so we hung in there. The next thermal
averaged seven fpm.
We headed ninety degrees away from the village to get away from where those guys
landed. We were able to take a couple more thermals and get about five kilometers
into a head wind on those guys before landing.
Larry had landed previously just to the north of Cumnock. Jeff's radio wasn't
working, but we found out that he had landed north of us twenty kilometers as he
could radio Zippy after he landed.
Zippy hung in there and was able to get 2.4 km from goal to win the day. Check
the results.
http://OzReport.com/1263218038
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