It rained here on Wednesday and Thursday and the forecast was for northeast winds light with over development on Friday afternoon. It looked scuzzy in the morning but cleared up quickly. I got out to the air field by 11 AM and set up for a noon launch. The clouds started developing around 10 AM and by noon they were thick.

Got off early behind Armand in a Bailey-Moyes Dragonfly and climbed to cloud base just under 4,000', quite low for here, and headed down wind for a 230 km task to Googowi on the Newell highway. I headed southwest crossing the Lachlan river and jumping onto the north south Jemalong ridge 15 km west of the air field. There were cu's every where (and a good chance of over development) and lift every where. It was too easy going down wind.

It was so easy that by 30 km out I was getting bored and after a bit of hesitation decided to head back toward Forbes. Less wear and tear on the driver that way. I jumped back to Jemalong ridge and thought I'd see if I could ride it north back to the Lachlan Valley highway without circling, just pushing out in thermals. There was an east wind at about 9 mph, and there were lots of thermals, and I wanted to try something that might be difficult.

I almost made it from the Newell Highway to the Lachlan Valley Way, but getting down below ridge height (about 500' above the paddocks below) I tried to work weak lift to get back up again, but that failed after a while. Still it was interesting.

A few more pilots showed up in the afternoon and were flying (with cu-nimbs all around us but nice conditions here) and we should have a bunch tonight. I'll have to set a task and make it a race to keep it interesting.