Looked like an OK day, but with some clouds moving in from the west. We got a short 113km task to Peak Hill, via 2 TP. I got in line and towed up in the middle of the pack. By then the cloud were shading the start area, and we could see further development to the north. I got a less than average climb in the start circle, and had to take the first start gate quite low at 1400 meters, with a group of 5-6 other pilots.

After taking a climb on the edge of the next clouds it started to rain, and we glided through some light rain to get the first TP, and then continued out to the edge of the clouds and sunny ground. Looking back I realized we had just passed under a towering CU, quickly becoming a nimbus, and within a few minutes we had the first lightning strikes just a few km away. I turned an went on a long glide to get away from the OD, it was not moving that fast, but I do not like to play with cu-nimbs.

I suspected the task would be cancelled, but I decided to fly the task at least to the last TP as that would take me away from the storm. Conditions were OK, and at the last TP I got a nice 3 m thermal so I could take a final glide back south under the shade to goal. The air was very unstable by now, and I had a hard time getting down on the glide.

Today looks OK, but there are some development already at 08:30 so it will be interesting to see what happens.

Today we saw 42 degrees at the Airport, it was much nicer to be flying in the cooler air. I flew a short 100km out&return, while Olav flew locally to check out his glider after Gerolf  had been very nice and spent some time helping him out to get better handling from his RS4.

It was a very blue day, but good smooth lift up to 2200 meters, it probably went higher later in the day, I landed just before 16:00 after a nice final glide.

The forecast for the next days looks promising, with very warm days.

I picked up Olav at the airport late Monday night and we drove through pouring rain to the Blue Mountains, and slept there before doing the rest of  the trip to Forbes on Tuesday morning. The weather gradually got better as we got closer to Forbes, and Olav got a flight there in really good conditions in the afternoon.

This morning I got up at 04:30 and drove back to Sydney to get my glider out of customs. That went without a hitch, and i got a rather beat up looking glider box out of the freight company warehouse. Luckily I could not see any damage when I met Steve Moyeas at the factory and unpacked it. So around 12 hours in the car today, and tomorrow lookks like a good day for XC flying. I will get up early (Which is no problem because of jetlag), and have a test flight in the morning to make sure glider is OK, and that my new harness is all good.

On the road again;

Here’s something new at the airport in Forbes, there’s standing water! Olav said the area around the airport had lots of new small lakes. It will probably dry out over the coming days, and some of hte pilots said the thermals were much smoother than earlier years.