Conrad Loten, Glen McFarland and Trent Brown were the task
committee today. I've been asking various pilots to be on the task committee one
day at a time so as not to over burden any three pilots for the whole meet. Many
pilots will not serve on the task committee (it is a lot of work and you get
little or no reward). So it comes down to having the same people calling the
same type of tasks, which may or may not be appropriate for the long term
success of the competition. Also I noted that some pilots were concerned that
certain tasks were called by certain pilots to match their skills as opposed to
what was best for the competition. I'm sure that they had good reasons for this.

My input to the task committee consists of the weather. I have little or no
influence on the actual task, other than to find skilled and opinioned pilots
who are willing to be on the task committee. On the second day I proposed a
possible task as I had a few minutes extra before the task committee meets (I
get there to the bowling club an hour early to go over the weather), and it was
rejected immediately. I didn't propose any before and have not since.

The forecast was for 15 knot southwestern wind, lift to 9,000' to 10,000' and
better lift than the day before. A good day it appeared. No cu's, of course.

The task committee called a task to the northeast given the winds, but there are
limited options (waypoints) in that direction. One possibility was to go
straight line 200 kilometers to Dunedoo, but that seemed too easy and a long
ways back, especially on New Years night. Glen or Conrad (I don't remember
which) proposed a zig zag in the middle of the course to make it more difficult
and sent us back to Wellington airfield.

The task guidelines are to set the most difficult part of the task as the last
leg, not the second or middle leg, but as I said they felt that there were
limited options in that direction. We could have gone straight to Gulgong
airfield, as another possibility which was discussed by the task committee.

Here is that task they decided on:

As you can see it goes right through Parkes airspace, which we can do with our
VHF AM (airband) radios. The first turnpoint at Yeoval and the second at Cumnoc
have five kilometer radii to reduce the cross wind leg. The task is 158
kilometers long.

The wind was out of the southeast when we got to Bill's tow paddock next to the
airfield. This would have made it quite difficult to accomplish the task. But
just as we started launching it swung around.

I was twelfth in the right line and pinned off at 1,000' AGL in light lift. I
finally found the core and the lift was as forecast. I was soon over 7,000' and
cold because I didn't listen to my own weather forecast calling for eight
degrees Celsius at the top of lift and hadn't worn enough clothes.

Almost all pilots headed northwest toward the edge of the ten kilometer start
circle like we did yesterday, but I didn't think that that was a great idea. The
first leg of the task today was much further to the east and I wanted to leave
the start cylinder closer to the course line. I got near the northeast extent of
the start cylinder but didn't find any good lift along the way so had to drift
three kilometers outside it before I got up, back over 7,000'. I then headed
back inside the start cylinder into a 21 mph head wind to take the second clock,
not high (5,200'), but high enough.

Running down the course line I found some nice lift and looking ahead saw Paris
was five other gliders very low racing way down below and just in front of me. I
checked their progress until I saw Paris turning and then went over to them to
find strong lift to 7,000'. Instead of leaving them when I was high above, I
waited until they caught up so that I could fly with them. Paris, Conrad and I
took off together toward the town of Parkes.

Sixteen kilometers later we were down to below 3,500'. I kept shading to the
east (right) toward the airfield (no commercial jets would be landing on this
day). They got lower and lower again as I found good lift and watched half a
dozen pilots work their way back up again. When they found a good core I joined
up with them high.

The next thermal was much better and a dozen of us climbed to 7,800' before the
range that we needed to cross to head toward Yeoval. We were just six kilometers
south of the Parkes dish (radio antenna).

 I didn't think much of the lift just on the west edge of the range so went
to the left of Jonny out in front to see what was on the other side. I found
400+ and then 500 fpm in much better thermals. I was freezing now and shivering
at 8,800'.

Getting the turnpoint at Yeoval was easy and then the big turn into the 17 mph
direct cross wind went well as I stayed high and found 450+ fpm to 8,100'. I
could see Conrad way below.

Racing out of that thermal Rod Flockhart caught me and flying at 55 mph he
pulled ahead (I was doing 45 mph) as we quickly made the Cumnoc turnpoint and
headed to the northeast.

There was a 350 fpm thermal waiting for us and a bunch of us got up right away
to 7,900'. It was beginning to feel warm. There was a range right along our
course line just ahead and I went for it. The wind would be flowing along the
ridge line.

I glided for sixteen kilometers right over the ridge and didn't find any lift. I
had to turn out to the valley to the west as Jonas Lobitz came scooting by and
Paris Williams came 500' over us. With the sixteen mph tail wind Jonas was going
fast but getting awfully low as was I. Finally at 1,100' AGL he found something
and I joined him. We were in survival mode and drifting very quickly down the
course line.

We worked 100 to 200 fpm for eight kilometers climbing 2,500' in seventeen
minutes. This saved us but really slowed us down. We then found 600 fpm eighteen
kilometers from goal and that got us in.

Task 4:

Cumulative: