Well five days in a row of flying. We are doing much better than
we did this year at Forbes (during the competition). The weather today was again
quite nice with a strong north wind that died later in the day, lots of working
cu's and good lift. With the observed winds on the mountain sites showing strong
north (20+ knots at Mt. Hotham) and the forecast for seven to nine knots north,
it looked like a pretty good bet that would in fact be north, so we went to
Mystic.

I constructed a task that had us start at Mt. Porepunkah (after launching at
Mystic) with a five kilometer exit circle. Then head for the Ovens intersection
south of Myrtleford with a ten kilometer radius allowing pilots to go deep into
Myrtleford hill and further north if they like. The start point at Porepunkah
was to allow pilots to get high there on the ridge without having to slow down
before they start getting above the ridgeline.

The next turnpoint was the Gundowring Launch with a fifteen kilometer radius
which would allow for various strategies (which is one of the points of AAT),
getting from Myrtleford hill and then getting to goal at Mt. Beauty airfield.
One could take the northern side of the Happy Valley or go way north of Happy
Valley and jump onto the hills east of Mudgeegonga that should provide good lift
to any where that you would want to go into the Kiewa Valley. Then you could
choose to come down the east or west side of the Kiewa or jump  back to Mt.
Porepunkah and come home that way. Lots and lots of options and the requirement
that pilots actually think about what would be the best way to go.

I launched first and fell like a rock to the bomb out. Franco Rinaldi who hasn't
been flying for the first four days because of a head cold, launched next a bit
later even though he had never flown here before. He went up and the rest of the
competition pilots joined him.

Belinda got me back to launch quickly and I was off again at 2 PM. This time I
bombed in Baker's Gulch, a place that even paraglider pilots don't want to land
in. Maybe because the field was full of blackberries. I was a bit of a bloody
mess.

We could hear Scott getting toward Myrtleford hill , but the north wind was
strong and it was tough going. The sky was full of nice looking cu's, so up the
hill we went again with Belinda's help.

I was launched this time at 4 PM (I wasn't even sure I was going up again). This
time there was a hang glider pilot (Patrick) out in front climbing, so I just
went over to him. I found the good lift above launch to the left and climbed out
in very smooth lift at 700 fpm.

Scott was in the Happy Valley having penetrated deep into the turnpoint at
Ovens. He was heading for the fifteen kilometer second turnpoint with the idea
of just clipping the southwest edge. Kari and Andrew were out in front of him.

With cloud base at over 2,300 meters (I was using Scott's 5030 as I had left my
6030 at the motel). It was easy to get over to Mt. Porepunkah and climb up under
more dark bottomed cus'. I started the task at 4:40 PM at 2,200 meters (Scott
had a audio vario in his helmet and a Garmin 76 for guidance around the course).

Kari and Andy struggled in the Kancoona valley and landed after getting the
second turnpoint. Scott saw this and headed west to the hills leading up to Mt.
Porepunkah, far off a direct line to the airfield in Mt. Beauty, but a area with
more cu's and hopefully better lift.

It was a very quick run down the ridgeline (twenty minutes) to Myrtleford hill
where I came in under great looking cu's and climbed out at 700 fpm. The hill is
about half logged so there is plenty of bare dry ground below. It was easy to
get back to cloudbase after 5 PM.

I saw good looking cu's to the north down a ridgeline toward Mudgeegonga and it
looked to me that I could get the northeastern side of the ten kilometer radius,
get under a nice cu, and then run to the hills to the east to get under even
better looking cu's. I headed north but the cu's didn't work for me, so when I
got to the last of them I turned east and headed for the hills hoping to get
there high enough to get under the cu's.

It was not to be. I worked weak lift at 1000' AGL, but nothing came of it and I
landed in some huge fields near the pavement. Meanwhile Scott had found good
lift at Mt. Porepunkah, got up and headed into goal for a 2:45 minute task to
win the day.