Jason Reid <<email>> writes:

Saturday, moderate easterly blowing, sun and cu’s popping at 8am. Paddocks were still soft but drying fast and there was a lot of water on the side of the road and in every low point.

Cam launched first at around noon, but had a weak link break at 200ft and came back to the launch point for another go. Smokey towed me next and put me in a ripper over the hospital where I easily climbed to base of 5000asl. I didn’t want to hang around for another spanking by the dump wedgie so headed down the Chinchilla road as soon as I hit base. Bruce towed next (borrowed my C2 Lite), then Cam and Nick, all made it to base and started towards Chinchilla.

I found the day very easy to pick the lift and the glides were pretty good with a decent tail cross wind now ENE. I found that average climbs under 3500asl were 400up and over 3500 increased to 500-800. The cu's were well defined and well spaced (base went up to 6000asl) until Chinchilla where it all turned a bit ratty with over development.

I flew in under the OD and found a steady climb of 200up in light rain, so hung in there for 20mins before deciding to head for Condamine (50kms to the WSW of Chinchilla). The day had changed a fair bit out past Chinchilla as we had reached the edge of the weather to the east. I could see that the clouds were now setting up across the wind almost like roll over cloud associated with wave. I stuffed up and pushed in under some of this cloud a little lower than I should have and didn’t connect with the light lift higher up and ended up landing in the shade 20kms to the NNE of Condamine for a total direct distance of 108kms back to Dalby.

After I landed I took a couple of photos of the sky looking west. It would have been nice to have worked out the change in weather and somehow made it past the OD to those big clouds, but landing ended up being a good thing as Cam had decked it south of the road past Macalister, Bruce was landing just before the Chinchilla airport and Nick also landed just past Chinchilla. Karen had arranged for Annie to drive my vehicle for the retrieve so they could get back to Brisbane… thanks Annie.

All in all it was a good fun day considering how soon we were flying after the flood like rain the week before.

Sunday started with a strong cool easterly and a few light showers coming from a dark sky. By 10:45am the cloud was breaking up and sun was on the ground. Nick and others had already pulled the pin on the day, but Smokey and Blaino were there to tow if I was motivated to fly.  I didn’t bother as I didn’t want to burden anyone with a retrieve so packed up and went home at noon. The day looked like an easy one to get to Chinchilla, but looked like OD past that again.

Big thanks again to Smokey for spending his time towing and looking after the paddocks... we would be completely lost without your help mate. Also to Blaino, Bruce, Annie and Karen… we salute you for your dedication and effort to keeping this brilliant club operating.

This weekend is shaping up to be a good one so if anyone wants some practice before the Big Air then let me know or organize the weekend and let us all know.

Forecast at this stage looks good for Dalby this coming weekend… light to moderate S-SW breeze and 35 degrees on Saturday (sounds like a good day to head up north of Kingaroy. Then Sunday light winds and chance of late storm… maybe nice fly home, or down to Canungra.

Jamie wants to come out early Saturday to continue his aero tow training (after missing last weekend… sounded messy Friday night)… I am keen to go out given the forecast so for those who are not going to Manilla, come on out to Dalby… let me know.