Again this year I'm playing the role of Executive Director of the
Forbes Flatlands Hang Gliding Championships, essentially a part time meet
director position. I get to deal with rule changes, the weather and encouraging
the task committee. It's been a good time so far.
We've got a bee hive of a task committee - Gerolf, Jonny, and Attila. I put John
Smith on the Protest Committee given all his experience with legal matters.
Grant Heaney is back with us, and I immediately put him on the protest
committee. Swiss Nick, Enda, and Dave May on Safety. Kathryn as the alternate on
the Protest Committee.
I got in to headquarters around 8 AM to setup for the task committee at 9 AM,
projecting on the screen the weather from the local NSW RASP, and the task as
the task committee came up with it. It's great just to let them do their work
without interference. Those three can work it out best as they all have
conflicting ideas and conflicting weather forecasts from their own computers. I
love it when the guys bring in their own familiarity with the technology (XCSkies,
RASP, BOM, etc.)
The weather forecast looked dangerous. Lots of good lift but a 16 mph wind out
of the west (that was my RASP forecast), and then dramatically no lift after 3
PM while there was strong lift just outside the areas of no lift. The cumulus
cloud cover forecast didn't show over development. And the CAPE didn't show
thunderstorms near us, but that is sure what it looked like from the forecast
for lift and top of the lift (zero and zero) near Forbes. There is no forecast
in the NSW RASP (or XCSkies) for overdevelopment potential.
Given the forecast for no lift after 3 PM but good lift to the north, we
decided to get going early and start launch at noon and start the task at 1:30
PM.
That line of clouds off to the southeast in the satellite photo above was just
south west of Forbes in the morning. We could see the embedded cu-nimb in it
maybe 50 km away when we got to the airfield at 11 AM. The forecast was for high
temperatures, 38 degrees, and it was sunny and warm where we were.
After a nice little bike ride to the airfield setup went smoothly for me and
every one else. We were ready to go quickly and given that there was a
threatening cloud bearing down on us, pilots were motivated. We starting
launching soon after noon (which is quite early for here).
I was fourth off in row one and found light lift over a shaded launch field at
the airport right above the launch lines. It looked like lift would be sparse as
the shadow from the cu-nimb and the cu's in front of it was coming, so I took
what I could get and climbed out as the lift much got better to 7,700' getting
to the top of the stack with Curt nearby.
A few pilots headed north, northwest, which was a bit up wind, so I followed
when the lift ran out. We found weak lift at the edge of the start circle. Since
we had an hour and a half from the time launch opened to the first start time
there was still a long time to wait before the first start clock. It was looking
very dicey.
With the shade getting deeper and the lift averaging 125 fpm, I headed off at
7,300' with half a dozen other pilots at two minutes to one, a little over half
an hour before the first start time. That would just roll back our start time to
2 PM.
Pushing ahead and leaving weak lift I soon found myself alone and in the lead. I
found 300 fpm just before the first 10 Km radius turnpoint at Bogan Field, and
then 400 fpm average on the northeast quadrant of that turnpoint heading toward
the north northeast to a turnpoint at the race track at Tomingley, 70 km away.
While the ticket would have been to just tick the east side of the 10 km Bogan
turnpoint, the strong wind out of the west meant that pilots needed to stay
upwind of the course line.
Climbing to 8,700' I pulled out of the thermal well below cloud base and put on
the speed to escape the cloud suck. To my west the rain was pouring out of one
section of the clouds and soon there would be many more sections of rain. But I
was in the blue under light and fluffy cu's and it was mostly blue with a few
cu's ahead to mark the lift. I could easily stay away from the overdevelopment
which was not moving very quickly from the west.
After a 15 km glide I again found 400 fpm and climbed back to 7,000' under some
small forming cu's. There were a couple of cu's ahead and then it was all blue.
It was black behind me to the southwest, but far enough away not to present a
problem. I had Belinda call Vicki and leave a message saying that the course was
safe and fine from where I was (half an hour early).
Soon Vicki sent out an SMS that the task had been stopped. Those pilots flying
in the regular time frame were near the lightning coming from the cu-nimb. I
headed from a small town 20 km south of the goal at Peak Hill just north of the
Parkes Radio antenna and unfortunately chose a thistle field to land in. All
this rain has encouraged the weeds.
Larry Bunner came and landed next to me in a field without thorns as I gave him
a warning and we were soon packed up. We got everything in the car before the
rain started.
The task didn't count as the task has to last an hour after the first start time
to count. Carl Wallbank, who got delay in Dubai, got to the field in time for
the last start time (2:15 PM) but already saw that it was too late. A few
minutes later the task was stopped.
I had a great time being out in front and on my own. It was a hard decision to
go out and leave the start circle so early, but the cu-nimb was very
threatening, and still the majority of the pilots were on the ground.
