RSSHEADLINES SKYSPORTS

Blue and windy conditions on day 6, late briefing and start due to the long task the day before, many pilots were not home until 4am. The task was 144km dogleg via Tomingley to Wellington, first downwind then crosswind.

Again there was no time for us back in the line to get up to take the first start, the first start clock passed as I lifted off the dolly on tow. The yellow tug I towed behind was misfiring and spitting black smoke while towing, I was a bit worried but hung on as I did not want a retow , it would be way to late.

At around 300m the tug stopped, I thought it just hit some sink at first and I dived down to stay in position, but soon there was some frantic waving from the pilot and I realized what happened and released. It was a major struggle to get up from that low, drifting away from the airport I found a few other pilots at the edge of the start circle as we took the third start clock 30 min after the main field.

From there I was alone again, and had 3 low saves with my harness open ready to land. I did get up again and found a nice 4 m/s lift just before the first TP and got to almost 2300m. Taking the TP and heading into crosswind it was quite late and I only found a couple of weak thermals and then had to glide downwind again to stay over landable terrain. I decked it around 40km from goal in the same paddock as Noma, and Olav was just a few km back so retrieve was quick and easy.

The post Forbes Flatlands 2018, day 6 appeared first on Norwegian Hanggliding .