We're here in Gulgong at the Henry Lawson Caravan Park (and poetry reading) to take part in the 2007 Gulgong Classic. Scott Barrett is on board with us. The meet is filling up and we had a sweet day of practice as we avoided the cu-nimbs in the area.

There have been local cu-nimbs for the past two days late in the afternoons, but they seem very mild and have not been of any great concern. Cloud base yesterday was about 5,000' AGL. Temperatures are in the thirties and there are plenty of cu's with little to no winds.

I'm flying an Airborne C4-13.5 this season, having flown a Moyes Litespeed RS4 last season. I trade Oz Report ad space for the use of the glider while I am in Oz. My initial impression of the glider is that it felt big on the ground. I've been flying a Wills Wing Sport 2 - 154 and a T2 -144 previously, so that forms the basis for comparison. In the air it was easy to turn so it didn't handle as though it was "big."

On my first tow it wanged a bit, which is my usual start when first towing here in Oz, but I relaxed my hold on the control bar before it got out of control. This meant that I was a bit high on the tow for the first one hundred feet or so, but that seemed to be fine with the tug pilot. After the initial wiggling around it was steady.

I got off at a little less than 500' AGL when we hit some strong lift. This was perhaps a bit premature given that I was flying a new to me glider with my first flight using the Flytec 6030 vario, which turned out to be set to a one second averager. Still I found the core and slowly worked my way up learning how to thermal with the new glider.

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