Gust Fronts

By Sven Ericksen

Late in the afternoon of 22 March 2022 a thunderstorm front swept down the lower north island, which was recorded by the MetService rain radar, the WHGPC’s Holfuy weather station at Paekakariki, and in several dramatic photographs.

Prior to the storm hitting, the wind conditions were light, and if coming from the opposite direction would have been very pleasant for flying. Within a 15 minute window between 7:15pm and 7:30pm the wind gusts rose from the mid 20s (km/h) to 79 km/h before then dropping back to the mid 20s.

These images give a very dramatic representation as to why you should not be in the air when there is a thunderstorm around, as the gust fronts can be very strong.

Fronts like this can move in very rapidly and can be preceded by very turbulent air and very strong lifting air so it pays to land well before they get close. Once on the ground pack up quickly - the rain associated with the front can be drenching.

MetService rain radar

Paekakariki weather station on 22 March 2022

Right; Andy Maloney flying at Paekakariki in calmer conditions, with Kapiti Island in the distance.

Photo: Sven Ericksen

Below; Thunderstorm clouds near Linton. Photo: Sven Ericksen Above; Gust front over Kapiti Island at about 7:00pm

Photo: Fiona Gunter-Firth

Thunderstorm clouds near Linton, south of Palmerston North, at about 5pm. Photo: Sven Ericksen

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Forbes Flatlands 2022

We were determined not to cancel the Forbes Flatlands this year and it paid off in spades! Forbes was another great success with super flying conditions albeit with a much smaller flying group.

We had 13 pilots in the Open Class and 6 in the Sport Class with a pilot in each class joining the comp half way through.

We finished the comp with a total 21 pilots and were able to fly 8 of the 9 days including the practice day.

The Open Class flew over 1000 kms with some gaining over 39 airtime hours! The Sport Class had some challenging tasks flying over 400 kms.

We welcomed new pilots to competition and saw Richard McLeod flying daily PB’s and winning the Emma Martin Encouragement award.

All in all we had a great comp, it was so much fun to be back sharing the air with these great pilots.

With the smaller flying group we opted to hold the headquarters at the Forbes Aero Club and lots of pilots camped and used the clubs facilities.

We kept everyone up to date with daily social media posts utilising a different pilot writing up our day report.

As always a very special thank you to all the special people putting this event together.

Bill and Molly Moyes – Owning the 3 Dragonflys and the paddock!

Tug Pilots: Steve McCarthy, John Blaino Blain and Marco Carelli – Maintaining the paddock and the Dragonflys.

Officials: Wesley Hill, Greg Cain, Rob Van Der Klooster.

Volunteers: Alan Bond, Andrew Barnes, Louie Cain.

Master of Ceremonies: Jonny Durand.

Task Committee: Attila Bertok, Jonny Durand, Scott Barrett and Trent Brown.

Weather: Steve Blenkinsop.

Safety Committee: Craig Taylor, Guy Hubbard, Steve Docherty.

Vicki Cain reports

Top Photo; Launching on Day 7 Above; Michael Karmazin on task, day 4 Left; Ready to launch

Every year we have a land owner hamper to foster land owner relations.

This year’s winners were a lovely family from a farm in Peak Hill, nominated by Richard Hughes.

Attila was able to deliver the hamper passing through Peak Hill on his way home.

With news that our International borders will reopen in a few weeks we look forward to a bigger and better Forbes 2023!

How good is Forbes!!!! Task 1

This was a 126km triangle starting from BMIA (Bill Moyes International airport), first heading north for 50km before tagging the turn point “Mines” an outstanding visual reference point of bright white limestones mines.

Heading east for a much shorter leg of ~20km arriving at the rural town of Alectown stopping just short of the Goobang National Park, a final leg of 55km following the A39 bypassing the local airspace around Parkes, from here it’s a

straight race south back to BMIA!

Some competitors took the first start at 13:00 local time while others waited for the day to develop and risking a 30 minute delay attempting to catch the early birds before goal!

Provisional scores show Jon Durand to have taken a decisive win over Scott Barrett flying his Moyes Litespeed RX3.5 Pro.

The sports class are yet to score today after a 50km race to goal, heading NW of BMIA to the small town of trundle, there’s great landing opportunities all the way and an easy retrieve for any land outs or first cross countries! Task 2!

With the cobwebs blown away we set a slightly more challenging 145km crosswind task to Tallim (Tallimba town) with a first turnpoint to the west at “ootha”.

Winds in the paddock were a fairly consistent 10/15kmh E - ESE with cu’s showing a promising looking sky ahead.

Soon enough all competitors were in the air and seeing cloud base of around 7000ft (2100m) making the first turnpoint in good time with a reasonable tailwind, the task became more challenging as the pilots had to turn 90° heading SSW, on the plus side increasing cu’s to show the way but having to glide east of course line so as not to drift away from the optimised course line when thermalling.

We have a large radius around goal (17km) because we are not sure how the local area has been affected by the local floods, this gives competitors better options for landing fields but makes final glide a little trickier!

Scott Barrett takes the win on day 2 followed by Trent Brown around 5 minutes behind and Attila Bertok in 3rd place. Day 3, Task 3!

We are well underway for the last task of the year!

Task 3 sees a triangle task starting off from BMIA. We had a classic looking Forbes day, Cu’s forming from the early AM, slight breeze and beautiful temperatures!

The first leg of the task heads the competitors NNW to “Billa” a 400m radius turnpoint 74km away, arriving at the most northern point it’s time to hang a U-turn and head 35km SW for “Skulls” another 400m radii before heading east and into the slight head wind arriving at the goal “Bogan”.

Guy Hubbard reports the conditions today to be quite technical and punishing when low but great clouds and approximately 15/20% cloud cover, cloud base topping out around mid day of 8500ft!

Attila turns on the heat flying his Litespeed RX5 Pro taking today’s win by over 20 minutes followed by Scott Barrett and Jonny Durand rounding out the podium for the day!

The scores are compressing for the top spot and it’s all to play for on the final days! Day 4!

We are officially into the new year and we start things off with amazing conditions and a primo Forbes triangle task!

Today’s task starts at BMIA with a 5km exit cylinder, 1st turnpoint sends the competitors south west for 54km to “Caraga” with a 3km entry cylinder, next up is a 61km leg heading east to brush past the northern end of the Coninbla National Park with another 3km entry Radii, the final leg is an into wind push back to BMIA for another 50km.

With back to back 1000 point scores Attila takes another decisive win on his Moyes Litespeed RX5 pro, second was Jonnie Durand followed closely by Scott Barrett.

Attila’s round up of the day:

After a slow start unable to catch the forming gaggle in the start cylinder I was forced to take the start in a sub optimal position some 5-600m lower than the rest. Leaving the start we had very good clouds and it was very easy making it to the first turnpoint at Caraga. Linking clouds and flying fast, after the poor start I started to feel better about the task, heading to the second turnpoint I had great clouds again for about 3/4 of the 2nd leg, until I reached the turnpoint I was flying alone, unaware of where my competitors were.

Leaving the first turnpoint I manage to get a visual on some other pilots coming up from low, at this point I realised I had at least a 6km lead and at least a full climb ahead, a nice place to be.

Reaching the second turnpoint I was having to fight cloud suck, another good feeling! The clouds had started to disappear and by the time I had taken the turnpoint it was blue all the way home.

There were some slight caps in the inversion layer and the big climbs left some small whisps to navigate the way home. On the last leg I was a little slower than the previous 100km and actually flew back down course line to take my final climb, I left at around 8-1 as the climbs were good and plentiful, it was seemingly a perfect final glide until a monster 1000fpm climb threw me into orbit and ruined my goal line arrival style points!

Never the less a beautiful day in Forbes and another perfect score. Day 5!

It’s groundhog day! Today was a tough one!

The forecast had a few possibilities of rain with some fairly solid lines of showers predicted, this left the task committee a pretty hard job! They smashed it and got a perfect task between two lines of showers.

Today we start once again at BMIA and head NNE to our first turnpoint at “Alec” a small town on the A39 highway running reciprocal to the Goobang National Park, with a radii of 1km. Once tagging this turn point some 50km away from Forbes it’s time to run north following the range for just over 100km before arriving at goal with a radii of 2.5km at the town of Trangie (turnpoint “Trang”).

Our amazing ground crew got everyone off the deck within 30 minutes today with no-one needing a reflight! Great work in temperatures exceeding 37°C.

Jonnie Durand gives us today’s wrap up!

“Conditions were a little tricky around launch and 10 minutes to the start nearly everyone

Above; Wedgetail Eagle attack damage

Right; NZ’s Jonas Lobitz

Right; A thermic sky on the last day

was together and all did our own things with no one ending up with the perfect start.

First leg was good if you stayed high, I managed to pull away from most pilots after hitting some strong climbs. Once rounding Alectown we faced a 101kms cross tailwind leg to Trangie, the sky blued up on course line and I was forced to go more upwind, The lift became broken and I was never able to reach cloudbase again.

Atilla had a similar story to me whilst the day winner Trent claimed to have a good run getting 700fpm climbs and even a 1000fpm climb on the second leg. Both of them flew over me and Trent will beat Atilla by a couple of minutes with me 10 minutes behind Atilla.

Around 8 pilots in goal with Scott landing out. It was not the day to be low and trying to push and catch up.”

While Attila extends his lead the leader board takes a change for 2nd and 3rd places with pretty much all spots up for grabs! Day 6 task 6!

Today has been the hottest day of the competition so far and the temperatures in the paddock exceeded 40°C!

With the increase in temperatures we had no clouds for today’s task, a dogleg heading north to Trangie with a goal at Gilgandra for a total distance just over 200km!

With many pilots landing out today they’re all late returning home so no wrap up today! Maybe one in the morning, it looks like Attila and Jonas were the only 2 to make goal today after a whole gaggle landed within 5/10km of goal as the slower conditions and SE wind drifted them off course line. Attila will extend his lead but the mid field battle is hotting up!

Notable mention to Scotty Ireland for making goal in the Sports Class, unfortunately the two eagles that tried to help him along the way left their mark on his glider. Day 6, 3 Jan 2022

Today’s forecast was similar to yesterday with 20-30km/h winds from the south west, 6-700fpm climbs up to 9000ft with scattered cu’s and patchy lift in some areas. However, there wasn’t the approaching trough line from the west that we had to navigate yesterday.

The task committee called a 192km dogleg task to Gilgandra, to the North East of Forbes with a 20km turn point radius at Trangie to keep the field away from the Naromine and Dubbo airspace.

Launch at Bill Moyes International opened at 1pm. The lift was blue and patchy in the start gate and the thermal cores were moving around a lot. Essentially the entire field took the first start at 2pm just as clouds were starting to develop down the course line. Jonny Durand led the pack for the majority of the first leg, Trent Brown, Scott Barrett, Jonas Lobitz were closely on his heels.

The cu’s were lining up well on the way to the first turn point with tight and punchy cores up to 7-800fpm topping out over 8000ft as we sped down the course line with the strong tail wind. However, the clouds became more sparse about 30kms from the first turn point, we hit the blue and things slowed down with pilots having to stop in 3-400fpm climbs.

Most of the field including Atilla Bertok, Trent Brown, Scott Barrett, Craig Taylor, Steve Docherty, Jonas Lobitz amongst others converged just after the first turnpoint in the blue before climbing out under a developing cloud about 50kms from goal. From this position we were confident we’d make goal needing perhaps only one last climb before going out on final.

Trent Brown led the charge from cloud base as we dove out over the forest towards Gilgandra. There was a large patch of overdevelopment and a building to our east, making its way towards course line. Our glide numbers started falling as the overdevelopment encroached. The lift significantly weakened, and the wind switched round to the east, so the pilots now had a solid cross wind to battle.

Attila Bertok took a slightly different line further to the west and managed to avoid the worst of the sink crossing the finish line in first place while the rest of the field struggled low in weak 50-100fpm lift in the strong cross wind.

Jonas Lobitz was a little higher and hit a light climb 8kms out from goal which was just enough to make it into the 2km goal cylinder. The rest of the pilots landed several kms short. Day 7, Task 7 “The Rogallo”! The penultimate task! Today we have a great write up from Craig Taylor one of the lead pilots in today’s task:

Above; Dragonfly pilot and Forbes local, Marco Carelli, with the Cains

Above; Ready for action

Below; Day 1 in the paddock

Day 7 saw us flying our 7th consecutive task with light winds and blue skies. A closed quadrilateral course back to BMIA of 137km in the shape of a Rogallo wing was thought up by the clearly getting rather bored task committee. Strong climbs to 10,000 feet were promised, however it quickly became clear straight off the rope that the oppressive inversion would instead make the day a slow and tedious one.

With the field packed together like sardines under a 4000ft ceiling, and the flock jostling for position, the first start gate came and went with no takers, with the field moving off somewhat lethargically on the second at 2:30pm. Trent charged out ahead and found the climbs for much of the first leg, with the inversion slowly lifting to 5000ft.

After rounding Ktwo the first TP, Scott managed to find a boomer to 7 grand, quickly joined by the lead gaggle, whilst the rest continued to struggle under the inversion for much of leg 2. Those patient enough to hang in the 100-ups and doddle along course were finally and rather suddenly rewarded at the second turn with clouds, and the promised strong climbs to 10 grand.

Jonny picked a 9-up and skied out, with Atilla, Blenkie, Jonas and myself making up the lead gaggle. Finally we could pull in the bar, and the race was on! That feeling however was quickly dispensed as the third leg took us straight across a big blue hole and we were back to crappy lift and long, toe pointing glides.

Atilla, knowing that he’s got the trophy already all but bagged, became a passenger and let the rest of us do the hard work. Scott rejoined, and together we made a low save 12 kms out from the final turn point, providing the gaggle with some much needed beeps.

It was getting late however, and this would be one of our last climbs, topping out at a truly inadequate 4000ft. It was becoming apparent that reaching goal was becoming out of reach. We struggled on, turning in pretty much anything that wasn’t sinking, and gained a few more kilometres. I snagged a little bubble just big enough for one, and managed to top out at 5 grand 6 kms from the final turn.

Then the glide to the deck was on, landing well after 7pm for a long day in the saddle. Atilla won the day 10km short, me second, followed by Jonas, Blinkie, Scott, Jonny, Noma, and several others closely behind. It was a long hard day indeed. Today was a mammoth effort for everyone involved with some pilots flying for over 30 hours in the last 7 days

Unfortunately today Steve Docherty managed to meet up with the resident angry eagle and took some battle scars in flight! And that’s a wrap! Forbes 22 is done!

With the final day canned due to predicted overdevelopment and the safety committee pulling the pin, it was time for an air conditioned presentation at the Forbes Aero Club!

Results

Open class:1st; Attila Bertok - Moyes Litespeed RX5 Pro - 6710 points, 2nd; Jon Durand - Moyes Litespeed RX3.5 Pro - 5945 points, 3rd; Scott Barrett - Aeros Combat - 5620 points.

Results are at: http://xc.highcloud.net/ comp_overall.html?comPk=333 sports class: 1st; Richard Hughes - Moyes Gecko 155 - 4290 points. 2nd; Peter Garrone - Moyes Gecko 155 - 3583 points. 3rd; Richard Mcleod - Wills Wing Sport 2 - 2306 points.

Sports class results are at: http://xc.highcloud. net/comp_overall.html?comPk=334

The Emma Martin Award: Richard McLeod

An incredible week of flying here in Forbes and we would like to thank everyone for making it possible, we cannot wait to come back next year, and to welcome international pilots too!

Above; Jonny, Atilla and Scott

Right; The land owner hamper was delivered by Attila passing through Peak Hill on his way home!

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