The weather forecast today did not promise much, but there was talk of storms over to the east. There was high cloud to the west but quite a long way away.
First of all we had a meeting of the protest committee, with resolved in favour of the the protesting pilot. I hope they make the rules clearer for the next comptetition organisers. Then there was the task setting committee, and the safety committee. Despite all the meetings we managed to get things moving on time.
The task committee set two tasks, an A and a B. As the soaring conditions were slow to get going on the grid, we changed to the shorter B task which was Edgeroi 30km Keera 40km, Rangari 20km with a time of 3 hours. Launching proceeded slowly in the terrible heat, no one had much energy, and gliders were not climbing out very well. The Sports class task was further modified to 2.5 hours. It was difficult to communicate these changes to the pilots as they were not in their gliders but in cars trying to keep cool. Jim Staniforth our launch marshal was sick today, Vic stood in for him directing tugs, Laurie Murray did the record keeping and Trevor stood in for Vic. Luckily we had Geoff Sim, Peter Shiels and Ian Barraclough helping.
We eventually launched them all and were able to rest in the shade until they came back. Geoff Sims weather station recorded 42.5 degrees.
A few gliders landed back and decided not to go again, and a few decided not to fly at all.
It was a difficult day, but only three gliders landed out, though one or two flew back early. Two landed out at Brigalow ag strip and were able to be aerotow retrieved. It was difficult for the tug to take off to get them with all the gliders coming in. The second glider came back with the tug at about a quarter of an hour before last light. The third glider had a long trailer retrieve - 3 hours drive away. He is not back yet. Darian Thom (tuggie) had done his paddock rating yesterday and put it into practice today by doing the retrieve from Brigalow.
As I was walking out to the tie down area to check on who was back and who was missing I passed Garry Speight and asked him if he had had a good day, expecting a negative reply. However he smiled and said he and Mary had had a good day! They left at about 5500ft and flew northward, getting gradually higher all the time until they got to cloudbase over Mt Kaputar. Then they turned eastwards to the Keera circle where it was a bit grey, and difficult so they just clipped the circle and headed back. Garry said they saw Paul Mander heading west, and followed him. He was trying to get away from the high ground and make up some distance in the Rangari circle. Garry said that he thought he had done better than he otherwise would have by following.
This evening there was a pilot's meeting in the hangar. I had had enough of pilots, so I had a shower and cooled down instead of attending.
A big cu nimb built up over Tamworth, and another out to the west in the evening - the sky has clouded over so it will be a hot night.
Only one more day to go thank goodness, we are all getting worn out!
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