I’m back in Forbes with blue skies, thermals are booming, and all is well. I met up with the rest of the Norwegian team who had spent a few days flying at Gulgong, they had good conditions and nice flying there, and now it’s time to get up in Forbes and be well prepared for the Worlds that start on Monday.

It’s stinking hot in the tow paddoc at the airport with 38 degrees today, and predicted 40 degrees tomorrow. Yesterday was quite windy and gusty, with dustdevils working their way through the gliders in the setup line. We waited to set up until most pilots had towed up, and was rewarded with an afternoon flight in windy but OK conditions.

Today we set a task out and return to Peak Hill, about 150km,  and in hindsight  we should have set a start time to get a small gaggle going into the blue conditions, instead of getting spread out from the start.

I was some km behind Olav Lien from the start and had a few good thermals until I pushed a little too hard hard upwind and started getting low in sink. I found some weak thermals and got up to around 1000 meters, but lost a nice 3 m/s core and could not find it again – searching through the 6 m/s sink soon had me looking for a landing again. I decked it around 35km from the TP at Peak hill, so it was a short flight for me today. Olav Lien seems to have done the whole task as I write this he’s still flying, while Olav Opsanger and Nils Aage landed on the way back between Peak Hill and Forbes. Johnny and Tormod flew locally at Forbes.