Day five Task 4
Task: Dalby – 45km – Kumbar – 175 – Surat Total 221Km
Weather :SE 20 – 25km hour
With a beautiful sky building above Dalby aerodrome the day
was building to a fantastic one and would sort out the men from the boys. Due to the fresh wind there were no start gates and time would be taken on Elapsed Time.
To put the course across the narrowest part of the forest, the first leg was cross wind, and for those who did not keep left of the course line the punch into wind at WPT1 could be fatal. Towing up at Dalby in windy conditions was made even more difficult with strong thermals coming through at times and a few pilots broke weak links and had to re tow. Once off tow good thermals could be found to get you quickly to cloud base.
Out on course a few pilots found the conditions hard to deal with as thermals were not always strong and having to run down wind to find the next one, should you get low, was not a good option and quite a few landed along the first leg.
Fantastic looking cloud streets to goal made dolphin flying a good option and a strong tailwind component 100km ground speeds was easy to reach.
The going was not always easy and flying over country with no roads, landing was not a good option. Cloud base went from 5500ft to 8000ft and with twenty one pilots in goal the day was another Classic Dalby Day.
Paris Williams won the day with Smithy second in, Hagen and Cris Lawry the other
kiwis in goal.
