It seems from this vantage point (and during the competition also)
that the 2007 Forbes Flatlands was the best Australian hang gliding competition
ever and perhaps one of the best hang gliding competitions ever held. I reported
yesterday on the high task distances and the high percentage at goal which
speaks to the issue of great flying conditions and excellent task calling (we
should have Attila, Gerolf and Jonny (who represent three different countries)
on the task committee for the Worlds in Big Spring).


The weather conditions at Forbes were excellent. Every day the ground
temperatures were in the low to mid thirties (80 to 96 degree Fahrenheit). This
made for comfortable conditions on the ground as well as excellent temperature
and lift conditions in the air. We had one day with high winds when a front came
through and we did not fly on that day. The day with the best cloud development
was on the day we did not fly after it was canceled due to Andreas Orgler's
death.


We had blue days and days with lots of clouds, and we flew well with and without
clouds. The climb rates were excellent and the thermal spacing was such that you
could fly fast and not be so concerned about getting too low (with a few
exceptions).


When the winds were strong they were not so strong as to break up the thermals,
and with down wind tasks on those days it was easy to drift in light thermals if
necessary. When the winds were light it was easy to do out and returns.


The airport was a good venue for the meet, only seven km from town. It had a
hangar for the tugs, and a bigger hangar for the trikes. It was a short drive in
the field to the setup area.


There was a sandwich trailer and a tent setup by the aeroclub each day to pilots
to eat and have shade (No air conditioned lounge, unfortunately). There was
water and drinks available.


The town and town businesses supported the meet. The headquarters was the
Vandenberg hotel (a pub) where some pilots stayed and which provided access to
good meals every night. They are wireless internet access, a big meeting room,
an outdoor patio for the presentation, and a bar for drinks. The hotel doors
were open by 7 AM and it stayed open late.


We had ready access to Tim Cummings and the organizers would stayed up till 3 AM
to do the scoring when necessary. The results were posted in a timely fashion
and soon available on the internet in two locations. All the tracklogs were
available quickly for analysis as was the alternative FTV scoring system.


Speaking of scoring, Tim Cummings did a great job. He didn't use CompeGPS. He
used his java based track log and task validation software (runs on Mac and
Windows) and GPSDump  to create IGC files. The scoring was done in Race
using OzGAP 2005. This seems like a very workable system.


Tim also set up the scoring rules in a perfectly reasonable and pilot friendly
fashion, a manner that I would hope other scorekeepers emulate. With his
software it was easy to move pilots who started before the first clock to the
first clock, so that pilots could start early and not have the goal completion
times affect others. So you got no penalty for starting earlier (other than the
fact that you were often on your own). Pilots were flying in basically the same
air as those who started earlier, as they were restricted by the launch opening
window.


This can work easily if you use OzGAP 2005 and something other than CompeGPS and
don't use CompeGPS to integrate the flights into Race. Perhaps Tim can say more
about this.


The organizers provided three free dinners and the dinner on the presentation
night was excellent, served quickly and at the perfect time. A well fed pilots
is a happy pilot.


The meet was inexpensive, $200 AUD entry fee and only $300 AUD for towing. This
compares with a towing fee of $400-$500 normally and $700 that we paid at the
pre-Worlds in 1997. This was no doubt a big encouragement to the pilots to come
to this meet. I hope that the meet organizers broke even at least.


Vicki Moyes and all her crew, including the meet director, Drew Cooper, the tug
pilots, the ground crew, Tim Cummings, the score keeper, Bill Moyes, Bob Bailey,
and all the folks that helped did an excellent job. The first day was a little
disorganized regarding the waypoints and the staging lines and setup area, but
the organizers learned very quickly and were flexible, so they quickly improved
things. I highly commend them for this as meet directors and organizer can often
very rigid (they get scared when under pressure) .


Vicki and then Drew adopted the Quest Air system for towing, staging, and
launching. One area for tugs landing, two staging lines, two launch lines. This
is a very big improvement over former Australian aerotow only meets. This allows
the organizers to concentrate their scarce resource, their ground crew, to keep
things moving on the ground, making sure pilots are ready. I did see instances
where pilots needed to have better bridles to reduce the time it took to hook
them up. These will not be tolerated at the Worlds. 


Bill and Bobby went one further, they setup a separate launch area away from the
main launch, which was for the pilots that needed extra help on tow, with the
tow masters giving them gentle and forgiving tows. This is something that is
hard to do at Quest Air (given the limitations of the space) and leads to a lot
of frustration on the part of the crew and organizers with pilots who have poor
towing skills. There was a lot of room at the Forbes airport to run this type of
operation.


I will be encouraging Vicki to continue with the Forbes Flatlands. I believe
that it can be a stellar attraction to bring pilots from Japan, Europe, and the
US to Australia during their northern hemisphere winter. Previously pilots have
complained about the harsh conditions in the tow paddocks in January in
Australia (with good reason). This meet showed that that doesn't have to be the
case. You can enjoy some of the very best in hang gliding competition in the air
without having to suffer for it on the ground.


The 2007 Forbes Flatlands combined magical flying with superior organization and
friendly surroundings. I wish to thank all those involved in making this meet so
successful and I hope that it serves as a model to others on how meets can be
run successfully and how Australian meets can attract many international pilots.