HGFA Skysailor Magazine

6 SKY SAILOR March | April 2018 the lonely few gliders on course line. With two large radius turnpoints along the way, there was quite a split of pilots along the course line. Josh Woods won the day, closely followed by Jonny Durand and Atilla Bertok, all had taken the second start. Day 4: Task 3 The ever-reliable south-west wind returned for Day 4 and a 195.2km task to Gulgong airstrip was set. In this wind direction we get a cooler air mass and even better flying conditions. There was talk of reaching heights over 10,000ft today, so we were reminded at pilot briefing about the effects and dangers of hypoxia. Straight off the tow, it was obvious today was much stronger. Already by 12:30 we were getting close to 10,000ft with climbs in excess of 1000ft/ min. Almost everyone took the first start today and a good strong gaggle made the first 50km look easy! Niki Longshore was once again one of the top pilots pushing the gaggle and was on glide heading for climbing gliders ahead when she was hit by a incredibly strong patch of rough air, sending her glider pointing straight up to the sky with no airspeed left to recover. She very quickly pulled her parachute and was on descent through a gaggle of gliders from 8,000ft! Niki did an incredible job to stop the rotation before being placed quite perfectly in a paddock with road access and access to the shade of trees! Jonny Durand was first on scene after seeing Niki pull her chute, he descended with her side by side and landed in the field within seconds of her arrival. Many pilots stayed in the area to make sure everything was okay before heading back on course. Unfortunately, Niki’s competition was over after she had made such a strong and dominating start, and Jonny received his day score based on the average of his future total. First into the Gulgong goal, once again, was Atilla Bertok, closely followed by Tyler Borradaile and Josh Woods. Day 5: Task 4 Waking up on the morning of 2 January, we were greeted by our competition Whatsapp group with a message of: “Briefing 10am, be here ready to fly!” There had been talk of going big today, the south wind was still blowing, slightly stronger today and with even higher bases than the previous day, so it looked like the task committee was planning a big one! In 2014, the distance to goal record in a competition task was set at 368km, flying from Forbes to a small town north called Wallygett, we had a slight west component to the wind and were to fly 389km to another flying site – Manilla! To make this new record task, pilots had to take off much earlier than on previous days, so the first start was 12:00 just one and a half hours after briefing in town! For many pilots, this could be a personal best flight and nearly everyone took the first start to get on their way as soon as possible. Even at midday, there were good cumulus clouds and pilots reporting climbs to over 11,000ft. A lot of pilots had Niki’s accident in their minds for a while, glides were noticeably slower for the first part of the course. Two main routes were taken, a few pilots took the direct course line route, others headed further west off course to follow a line of mountains, hoping to use them as triggers. Only five hours later, the first pilot called final glide, Ollie Chitty (GB) was first in goal with a time of 05:18:23, just ahead of Jonny Durand with 05:19:27 and Tyler Borradaile in third place a few seconds later. Eventually, we saw 16 pilots make the record task. Many PBs were broken with smiles all round, except for the retrieve drivers who made an over 1000km total round trip – they were the real heroes of the day! Sash took an earlybird launch and flew 10km into the headwind to a declared starting point with an attempt at breaking another Women’s World record, extending her flight to over 409km! We’re 2018 Forbes Flatlands