Monica Barrett, first time meet organizer/director, has been doing a bang up job
here (with help from Cameron Turnbull) at the NSW Titles in Manilla. She has
wisely relied heavily on her task and safety committees to define the meet. It
is my experience that the most successful meets occur when the meet director
doesn't take the reigns themselves but allows the pilots to determine the
direction of the meet through their own committees.


Monica has been downloading the pilots GPSes, doing the scoring, running the
pilot meetings, running the committees, and organizing the launches. She's had a
great attitude the whole time and has been solicitous of pilot input. Today she
got really tested.


As we started up the hill from Godfrey's it started to rain. There was a small
rain cloud right over launch and it started to pour as we approached the grade
up the hill.


By the time we got to the top the rain cloud had been blown to the northeast and
the rain had stopped. There were cu's every where and a huge cu-nimb twenty
kilometers to our north. There were signs of cu-nimbs 100 to 200 km to our west
and south, and building vertical clouds closer in those directions.


I get my glider off the car and start setting up as almost everyone else leaves
their glider on their car roofs. There are scads of paraglider pilots around as
this is the weekend and the Worlds are coming. Hans Bausenwein and his wife are
here getting ready for the Cross Country Open, the paragliding meet with 150
participants before the Worlds.


It looks like there is a chance for a task out to Boggabri and back to the same
intersection 15 kilometers west of launch that we had as a goal yesterday. There
are no signs of over development in that direction. Just lots of nice looking
cu's.


It rained hard in the early morning this morning and the wind is mostly south
west, but we are still launching for the most part from the west launch. A few
paragliders launch and very slowly get up, with a few going down. The climbs are
just really slow.


Six hang glider pilots launch and half of them bomb out and the others including
Scott Barrett slowly climb out. No one else launched for a while. It looks very
iffy.


Tony Barton launches and sinks our. Cameron Turnbull launches and sinks out. A
tandem paraglider launches and stays up when doesn't get up. A few paraglider
pilots launch and start to climb out. One gets very low way off to the right,
but then hooks into a good thermal. It is switchy on launch.


We keep watching the low paraglider, but Jonny really keeps an eye on him.
Suddenly he is off by himself and takes a beeline to the paraglider pilot who is
now really climbing out. He sinks and sinks until he hits the core of the
paraglider pilot's thermal, his wings flash and he climbs out.


The tandem paraglider pilot hits a little bit of lift from low and starts to
climb. This is the sign for Jon Sr and me and two other hang glider pilots to
launch. We run straight to the tandem pilot and find the weak lift. It is better
than no lift. We slowly climb out.


I get a quick turn and catch just a little bit more lift than the others and
start climbing above them quickly. Soon I'm in 300 fpm as they are slowly
climbing below me.


Finally they quit climbing and all three of them go out and land. Also the
tandem paraglider and the couple of other paragliders who had run over to join
us are on the ground. I'm high enough to fade over to the top of the ridge under
a black cloud and climb to cloud base.


I climb up to the edge of the cloud and head out to take the 2:30 PM start time.
There is a cu-nimb about twenty kilometers to our north, but the southwest wind
in pushing that away from us (hopefully). There are plenty cu's out in front of
us, so it is no problem heading into the head wind toward the turnpoint.


I'm with four or five other pilots and we are finding good lift. The cu's are
nearby so it is easy to get to them. The air is smooth as usual.


We cross the gap and notice that there is a huge cell to the south west of our
course line. The top of the cell has exploded and there are upper cloud shading
the ground ten kilometers south of the course line. It is still sunny where we
are. There are white cu's over the shaded ground that stand out against the
black/grey background that stretches almost from horizon to horizon.


Unfortunately the cell is slowly moving toward the course line. I run toward it
to get under a good looking cloud that is still over the sunny ground. The sun
is on our right and the shade is on our left. The lift is smooth and the cloud
above me well formed. I keep looking at the shaded ground and black sky to the
south.


Belinda gets on the radio to tell me that Lukas has radioed in that he is
landing because of the cu-nimb that I'm looking at. Lukas was reluctant to get
going earlier given the cu-nimbs that we saw from the beginning of the day.


I report back that the cu-nimb is twenty kilometers away, but then later I
report that I can see mammatus clouds ten kilometers away from me to the south.
I had originally thought that this was just the fuzzy edge of the cu-nimb but
now it looks a lot more ominous. Belinda reports my findings to Monica.


I head out toward the turnpoint only ten kilometers away now and find strong
lift right in the middle of a blue area. This looks like lift associated with
the leading edge of a storm. Belinda calls back and says that the task has been
stopped. Which means that it was stopped ten minutes earlier at 3:30 PM.


I immediately turn and race back as fast as I can toward Manilla. After ten
kilometers I spot Bruce Wynn landing and I decide to spiral down from 2,000' AGL
to have someone to land next to. There is no wind on the ground.


We pack up quickly in the shade, but soon there is no need to be under the trees
to have any shade. The cell is over us as are the mammatus clouds.


We spot the wall of dust off to our south just as we finish getting everything
in the bag. The wind picks up and then grows quickly to over 60+km/h. Soon after
the initial gust the rain and then the hail begin along with winds gusting to
now only 50+ km/h. We are happy to be packed up and Belinda arrives soon after
the rain starts so we don't get too wet.


The whole sky is filled with dark clouds unlike on the previous days where the
storms cells were somewhat isolated. Seems like quite an end of meet show from
nature. A definite period.


More on the day and the results a bit later.