The flight/task .You can view the flight in Google Earth also from this URL.


The results:
http://www.moyes.com.au/Forbes2007/Results.aspx.


The competition organization improved a thousand percent as first the three
lines were cut back to two lines, concentrating ground resources, secondly setup
areas  were designated (I kept pushing hard for that and somebody else must
have agreed), third, the staging lines and launch lines were very clearly marked
with rope and cones, fourth there were launch personnel acting in launch marshal
capacity to get everyone in the staging line correctly. It was great to see such
a turn around in just one day. Congratulations to Vicki, Drew, Lee and others
who were using their thinking caps!


The launch system worked as it was supposed to with those pilots wishing to
launch right away getting into the launch line when the horn blew twice, and we
were immediately off to the races. It is such a good idea to separate staging
from launching. This gives the priority pilots (those who do well cumulatively)
the opportunity to get to the front of the staging line without having to
actually be in the launch line and then waiting around holding everyone else up.
Bravo to Steve Kroop and others for coming up with this systems years ago. It is
so great to see it being adopted here.


The task committee called a 234 km task with one minor turnpoint, just 18 km
short of the record for competition task distance set in Texas and South
Australia. It turned out that that distance would have been very easy to break.


The sky was filled with perfect looking cu's starting at 11 AM. The weather
forecast called for lift to 9000' AGL. There was a moderate breeze out of the
northeast which turned more northerly as the day progresses. It looked like a
perfect day for racing hang gliders.





Photo by Belinda Boulter showing the cu's.


It was a race start for the top thirty pilots at 2:15 PM. I pinned off at 900'
AGL in light lift as the tug was barely climbing (except when it hit this lift)
and I climbed out to 7,000' AGL. Then it was time to hang out at cloud base and
waited for the start clock.


I lost a couple of thousand feet after hanging out for a while but then climbed
back to cloud base now at 7,300' AGL just before the start clock opened. Twenty
or thirty of my closest hang gliding friends were there with me just under the
wispy curls of the clouds as we waited the final ten minutes before the start
time.


That was when Jeff O'Brien got on the radio and told us that a pilot has just
separated from a glider near him. Jeff saw the pilot falling, pulling his chute,
the chute opening, the chute yanking the pilot around, then the chute separating
from the harness and the pilot falling to the ground from 5,000'. This did not
start things off well for Jeff. Later it was learned that the pilot's main had
been cut, perhaps by the flying wires after he ticked and tumbled (not witnessed
by Jeff). When I know more about the cause of the pilot's death and what we can
learn from it I will report on that. At the moment I don't have the pilot's
name.


At 2:15 the race was on. I'm not quite up to speed on how to get the glider to
go fast, only able to get it to 41 mph. I'll be working on that today. Got to do
some adjustments to my harness also to make sure it rocks down right. The guys
who didn't have this problem raced out ahead.


The lift proved to be quite strong and cloud base rose during the day so that we
were able to get to 9,000' AGL under lift that was clearly marked by emerging
clouds. I had a great time, even if I couldn't go as fast on glide as I was used
to in my AIR ATOS VR. (I'll be writing an article on my impressions of my Moyes
Litespeed soon.)


51 pilots made goal at Lockhart to the southwest of Forbes between Wagga Wagga
and Narandara. Obviously too short a task if over half the field made it there.