Sunshine!

Yesterday was another cancelled day (more downpours), but today dawned blue and sunny so we knew we’d be flying today! It looked like the winds were a bit high according to the clouds, but once on launch it was light and variable winds, which made picking a launch very difficult. The briefing was held on the west launch for a 60 km task, out to Tarpoly, back to the Chickensheds, over to Namoi Park, and finally to the Manilla East sportsfields. This time there were 3 start gates instead of individual elapsed time, or a mass race start, to allow for people to bombout and get back up in time for a relaunch (or multiple relaunches, like some people had to do!).

When the launch window opened (1:30 pm, kinda late for Borah) nobody was really launching since none of the launches were showing up-cycles. It was dead calm everywhere. The wind dummies had taken forever to get over launch and above, so nobody wanted to be in that, struggling with 150 other pilots (Lee, the co-owner of Rivergums, and not a pilot, said it was quite obvious that pilots were struggling to get up). People were laying out on the west, south, and east launches, and nothing was happening. Most people had congregated on the east launch, and apparently it was “officially a cluster” (according to Will) since people were laid out and not launching since the cycles weren’t reversible and they didn’t want to forward launch. The launch queuing system wasn’t in place on any launch (since no one launch was obviously better than another) so those of us with priority launching didn’t get to take advantage of it (and I was looking forward to that!). It was kinda annoying actually that after all the discussion about a proper queuing system, it wasn’t used. I was still on the top of the mountain and decided to head to the north launch with Bill since it looked to be blowing up over there and that launch was still pretty deserted.

Once over there Bill launched and promptly sunk out to the east bombout. He was retrieved (relaunches are OK); there were dozens of people bombing out all over the place. I heard one pilot say he was on relaunch #3!

Eventually the north launch sucked (no thermals out front, and then it started blowing over the back) and I got Dave to take me to the west launch where it was blowing in quite nicely. But nobody was getting up over on the west side, so when I launched I flew over to the south launch, past to the east launch, and over to the north launch! Over the north launch I found a nice thermal which was good, since I was really too low to make the east bombout at that point and I would have landed in the “short east bombout” instead. In fact the Borah Basher was down there getting bombed-out pilots all day.

By this time most pilots had launched (from the east, south, north, and west launches) and I was mostly by myself (a tactical mistake, I will admit). Had I been with other people the next job would have been much easier, but I had the sky to myself on the way to Tarpoly. Tagged that TP and the returning gaggle (who had already gotten it) passed beneath me, back to the ridge). But by the time I tagged the TP that particular thermal was gone and it was scratching on the ridge down into a paddock on the east side of the ridge (the easy-to-retrieve side of the ridge!). On the way down to my paddock I got to fly over some kangaroos who were dozing under some trees on the ridge, and scared them into hopping away from my shadow as I passed overhead.

A nice short hike to the nearby farmhouse (I got to see some amazing huge ant nests on the hike out, with the stinging type of ants, so no stopping for me!), where Dave was waiting for me, and then off to pick up Will, who had landed short of the 2nd TP at the Chickensheds. After that it was to the goal field to pick up Keith (who had made goal) and see the hoopla. Josh and Tom had also made goal from the USA team.

It was very scratchy around the last TP, and many pilots didn’t make the goal field, landing either a couple fields short, or just a few meters short! A lot of disappointed faces from those who landed 50-100 m short. It looked like not that many people in goal (compared to the 1st task) and lots of people were scattered throughout the course. As 6:30 pm rolled around (the task end time) we could see the last group trying to make the goal field, but they were too low and didn’t make it.

Even though I didn’t make goal I still had a nice flight. But it was very Brazil-like flying (blech), with very soft and gentle thermals, and if you left the thermal thinking there must be something better, you were wrong! It was definitely not typical Manilla flying! With all the rain from the previous days the fields are very soaked and greening up (the area got ¼ of their annual rainfall in the past 2-3 days), and the thermals just don’t have the punch they had a couple weeks ago. We are hoping the fields dry out soon so the thermals are more Manilla-like!

Tomorrow is a weekend day so the public crowds on launch should be quite large. It is predicted to be hot and sunny (36 C) for the next 2 days so it will probably be quite flyable (hopefully not windy, we haven’t had that yet). Now that both Keith and I have made goal at this comp, it’s Will’s turn tomorrow!

New photos at http://mclearn.ca/gallery/

Nicole