.

Steve McCarthy keeps sending out emails announcing that he'll be towing at Forbes (this last weekend and two weekends from now). There continues to be a lot of interest from pilots wanting to tow up and fly big cross country flights from Forbes.

Bill Moyes started leaving a Dragonfly or two out there two years ago and last year pilots finally figured this out and made arrangements for getting towed up. Now there is more demand than ever, while there was little demand for towing from Rylstone where Bill normally keeps his tugs.

Forbes Video

Nick Purcell <<email>> sends

On the last day of the Forbes Flatlands after the task was stopped, I came over
the sailplane field where I spotted Lenny on the ground with 4,000' AGL. It took
forever to get down and I wanted to get down before the rain or gust front came.



The actual field was a mixture of some cropped land and landing area for
sailplanes, and I caught a glimpse of a fence at the edge of the cropped lands,
so I decided to land in the huge field next to the sailplane port going into the
wind which was showing on the windsock next to the fence between this field and

Organisers defend hang-gliding safety - Organisers of the Forbes Flatlands Hang-gliding Championships say the sport is getting safer, despite two deaths at the event in the past three years. [ABC News - Forbes]

The Day started look fabulous, but as soon as the inversion broke, and the race started, the sky was also competing.

The results.



The flight and task.



Similar forecast to the day before. We are looking for OD later in the day, with
isolated thunderstorms. The day starts with a blue sky and it stays that way
until a few clouds appear near noon. Very dangerous as it is an inviting sky
with the prognosis for dangerous conditions later.

The forecast was for storms at the begging of the start gate yesterday. They were right on cue. Here is the team I have been flying with.

The results.



The day is blessed with light winds and plenty of cumulus clouds. A good day for
a triangle or out and return task after many days of substantial winds. Plenty
of people were doing out and returns. Scott said that he found 600 fpm to 1000'
with lift streets. You could fly 5 km and lose 300 to 600'.



Leroy got caught by a dust devil on the ground and it flipped the tug. He saw it
coming at the last minute but couldn't fly away as he had pulled the tug over to

Yesterday we were supposed to have a 350km task, but he weather did not turn out as good as forecasted. The day was blue, with quite strong winds. The task was 260 something km to the NNE. I started towing early as third pilot off. We had 1 hour and 30 minutes of waiting in the start circle, and with the strong winds and weak lift it was a struggle at times, but it got better gradually.