The Dusty Demons turn out for the weekend consisted of Trent, Dave, Geoff, Pete D, Ed, Phil, Pete L, Barnsy and myself.  Trent and I turned up on Friday and enjoyed a nice flight running under a cloud street which we later worked out was probably a front that was passing through the region.  We climbed up in a climb underneath it averaging 500-600ft/min.  Once at base we went on glide east flying on the southern side of the street.

After 10km or so on glide Trent nabbed a slow climb from low when I came in underneath too low to hang on and had to land.  Trent went on to fly another 10km.  That evening when we thought about our flight we worked out that we would have probably found a lot of lift at the north (front) edge of the cloud street.  Next time this is exactly what I am going to do and yet another lesson learned in the awesome world of free flight!!!

Saturday saw the arrival of the rest of the Canberra crew along with some Newcastle boys and countless others.  The day started off slow with everyone waiting for someone to get up and test the air.  Not to be shy I hooked in and went up for a tow.  I managed to stay up for around 20min before landing.  My flight did however get every one keen and the towing commenced.  Many managed to get short XC flights in with Trent and Dave outdoing us all by flying around 80km (can’t recall exact km’s).

Sunday saw awesome conditions.  Towing started around lunch time and we were all treated to 200-400ft/min climbs to 4000-4500ft.  I was about 5th in the tow line and once in the air thermalled around the airport for about an hour.  The final climb over the airport was had with about 6 people before Pete D, Geoff, Barnsy, Phil and I went on glide heading south from the airport.  Four of us arrived at the Newell hwy low with Phil behind us in a climb.  Geoff and Barnsy arrived higher than Pete and I and thermalled up nicely with Pete and myself having to scratch to get back up.  The four of us managed to climb to the top and again went on glide.  In the end Pete and I landed 30km from the airfield with Barnsy and Geoff managing another 10-15km beyond us.  Phil had a great flight landing somewhere along the Newell hwy – I think we now have Phil keen to come out for many more Forbes weekends .  In the mean time, Trent and Dave who had towed before us all had flown around 40km.

Many left on Sunday night in order to get to work on Monday.  Nic came up on Sunday night to join Curt Warren on Monday morning to begin his aero tow endorsement.  Unfortunately the weather was not the nicest and Nic only managed to snag a tandem flight and some theory.  Hopefully we will all see Nic very soon out towing with us.  Curt was out at Forbes for the whole weekend with around 5 or 6 students learning to aero tow.  It was good to see a number of newbie’s entering the world of aero towing.  I obtained my endorsement a year ago and for me it opened up a whole new world of free flying as I am sure it will for those who join me in taking the next step to free flight.

All in all a great weekend out at Forbes as per usual.  Thanks to all who were there to enjoy this great sport.  A special thankyou goes out firstly to our Tug Master Steve who’s enthusiasm and dedication to towing us up time and time again is outstanding.  He must have made over 100 tows for the weekend!!!  Thankyou also to Trish and Terry for providing the Dusties with accommodation and for their awesome hospitality and last but not least I would like to thank Curt Warren for providing the ACTHPA with a clinic night on thermalling on Thursday night on his way up to Forbes.  The clinic was great and Curt’s white board drawings are second to none .  Thanks again Curt.

We shall see you all at the next Forbes weekend which I can’t imagine will be far away.

Thief