Tim Ettridge <timothyettridge> writes:

Lenny Paton, Guy Hubbard, and Yulia Kucherenko took advantage of
perfect weather at Forbes on Saturday to attempt a declared goal to a paddock
just outside Hay; a distance of 313K.

As I sat in Lenny's car in Hay that evening, I heard him radio in, "Crossing
goal at 10,000 ft." A discussion between Lenny, Guy and myself ensued on the
radio about what to do next. They'd lost track of Yulia and weren't sure where
she was. After I assured them I'd be willing to extend the retrieve to wherever
they went, they chose to follow the highway below the river to the west of town,
which was in general alignment with their previous direction of flight.

Yulia, taking the task as a race, had already burned off all her altitude diving
down to the goal well ahead of the other two. When she reappeared on the radio,
I exhorted her to keep on flying to see what distance she could attain. She was
surprised to learn you could fly beyond a declared goal and have the record
attempt still be valid but, once convinced that she could, she begin to look for
lift again.

The previous day Yulia had flown 270K, a personal best by a large margin. She'd
already surpassed that once she reached Hay and still had another hour or so of
daylight to extend it even further.  She drifted in weak lift coming off the
highway and extended her flight to 330K before turning back to land by a stream
for a swim. Unfortunately I showed up only minutes later so she never got the
chance to get wet.

As Yulia packed up, Guy called in on the radio to say that he was 44K past the
goal and had about 4k of glide left, so we should look for him on the side of
the road at around 48K past goal. A few minutes later he called back in with a
report of weak lift, then wasn't heard from again.

Perhaps twenty minutes later, just as the sun set, Yulia and I reached the 48K
point past goal but did not find Guy there, nor anywhere over the next 30k as we
drove on to where Lenny had landed at 403K from Forbes.  As Yulia and I got out
of the car and expressed our concern to Lenny about finding Guy in the growing
darkness with the likelihood of no mobile coverage that far out of Hay, we heard
someone shouting. We looked up to see Guy's silhouette flying over us at about
200m in the rapidly dimming sky. He made it to 406K from Forbes.

It's a personal best for all three and an Australian Distance to Goal record for
Lenny and Guy. For Yulia, it's not only a Russian Distance to Goal record for
either man or woman, but Open Distance record as well.

Trent Brown and Andrew Barnes departed Forbes later than the other three but
also made it to the Hay goal. They landed at the airport.

Pete Dall also took advantage of the conditions at Forbes that day and flew 162K
in a Malibu.