http://www.forbesflatlands.com/results2011.php

http://www.jonnydurand.blogspot.com/

http://kathryn.typepad.com/

http://naughtylawyertravels.blogspot.com/

http://twitter.com/flyingtrent

http://www.flockhartrod.blogspot.com/

http://twitter.com/warrenwindsport

The task committee does it again. We had an iffy forecast which showed weak lift
in the afternoon which I attributed to the cu's shading out the ground. There
was no chance of over development and thunderstorms according to the CAPE
forecast, and the winds that were fairly strong in the morning were supposed to
die down by noon (launch time).

The cloud base was supposed to start low, around 5,000' then maybe get over
7,000' later in the day. The lift was forecasted to be dead by 6 PM.

The task committee didn't pay any attention to that. They called a 186 kilometer
to the southwest to Grong Grong, near Narrandera, with a turnpoint at Barmedman
to keep us out of the West Wyalong restricted airspace.

As I rode the bike out to the airfield at 10:30 AM there were smatterings of mid
level clouds about with a few lower level cu's. It looks like a very mixed day
for clouds. As we set up at the airfield the sky fills up with cu's and there is
also shading from mid level clouds. By the time the launch opens no one in our
launch lines wants to go as the field and all the fields for miles around the
airfield are shaded.

Pilots from the other line launch and finally a few of our boys get in line and
there are five pilots on tow for a long time searching for lift. Three out of
the five land back at the launch line. The tug pilot takes me to a nice thermal,
having surveyed the sky on the first couple of tows, and I climb out to cloud
base at 6,000'at 275 fpm on average. Now the task is to stay out of the clouds,
as their base is so low and they are every where with few breaks. It is a
struggle.

The sky not only is filled with cu's and the ground shaded but soon the sky is
filled with hang glider pilots almost all of them at cloudbase and everyone
trying to avoid hitting each other and escaping the clouds. There are no blue
holes between the cu's, just mid level clouds which mix with the cu's and make
it hard to know where the edges are.

A few seconds before the 1:20 PM start time we were just outside the 10
kilometer radius start cylinder and had to go back to get the first start time
at 1:20:33. The race was on and I was at 6,500', so the race was looking good.

We stopped for some weak lift one and a half kilometer outside the start
cylinder but then went on a 13 kilometer glide to where I found lift right at
the northern edge of the ridge line that stops at the gap where the road goes
through to Forbes. Half the fields along the way were under water, but this
small rocky outcropping was working as were the fields that were drier to the
west.

The lift went from 100 fpm at the outcropping to 300 fpm in the fields to 460
fpm further southwest to 6,700'. Not high, but again at cloud base. I had about
half a dozen pilots around and was flying with Larry Bunner, so we were in close
radio contact.

We started connecting the dots as they became more like dots with actual sun on
the ground and blue sky above. Still a very congested sky, but not totally
blocked out like at Forbes. We went on a fifteen kilometer glide down to 1,500'
AGL with me the low man on the totem pole, but the guy who found the best lift.
The guys that were higher and out in front had to come back below us.

A few more dots connected, one where we had to go back to get better lift and in
a little over two hours we had covered 100 km to the first turnpoint, a pretty
fair clip for a day with a 6 mph tail wind and what appeared to be at first very
iffy lift conditions. But as we approached the turnpoint at Barmedman, I could
see that shaded conditions lay ahead and told Larry to be careful as it looked
awfully weak out there.

The first thermal was good at 370 fpm and then Larry dove out into the shaded
areas to the southwest. I headed further south along the highway with a few
spots of sunlight and found weak sink with spots of weak lift, nothing worth
turning in. Larry got lower and lower and then found weak lift. I stayed high
and worked weak lift getting to the town of Ariah Park where  I worked 170
fpm and told Larry where I was. He came in way low below me.

Fifteen minutes later I left with 6,400' and headed from a cu in front of me and
a forest in the sun beyond that. I didn't get anything under the cu and it was a
fourteen kilometer glide to the forest. I could see one glider turning over it
high so I went in and caught the lift. Larry had worked up to 6,000' and came
and joined me coming in low over the forest.

There had been four pilots who joined me not including Larry at the Ariah Park
weak thermal. One was now above me at the forest and three had taken a path to
the west and climbed high under a cu'. I climbed to 7,200' at the forest as
Larry worked up below me but lost the lift and left early. I was telling him
that I found 700 fpm to his north, but he didn't come to get it.

Larry went on glide low into another shaded area and soon landed. I went to a cu
that had three pilot circling up under and didn't find anything. I searched
around for better. I was able to climb from 5,000' to 6,300' before heading on
in 140 fpm broken lift.

It looked shaded ahead where Larry had gone down, but further west there was
sunlight and some dark cu's that while they shaded most of the ground looked
like they were working. There were sunlit fields on the edges of the shading.

I decided to head for an east west slice of sunlight and if that didn't work go
to the sunlit areas on the west side of the elongated east west cu (two cu's
mashed together). The slice of sunlight about disappeared during the ten
kilometer glide, so as I looked at the mashed up cu's I decided to go under them
over the shaded ground and see if I caught anything before hitting the sunlit
fields further to the southwest.

In the middle on the shaded area I found 180 fpm from 2,000' AGL. Unlike the
last area of lift, this was a well formed core that allowed me to turn in lift
throughout each circle. I was twenty five kilometers from goal, so I just stuck
with what the day offered and climbed up slowly to 6,300'. Three other pilots
came in under me and joined in the fun.

With the 6030 telling me that I had goal well and truly made, I went on glide
and was able to stuff the bar going over 60 mph over the ground with a slight
tail wind.

There were a few pilots at goal, a number of them who had been with me at Ariah
Park and got a better line. Jonny won the day substantially. We'll know more
when the results are up (see above).

The flight on the
HOLC, on
XContest, on
Leonardo