On Saturday, January 13, 2018 at 9:54:23 AM UTC-8, Nick Kennedy wrote:
A couple of weeks ago Australia had a period of really good soaring weather. Watching the flight on the OLC there were alot of 1000 k triangles made..
Also during the Forbes Hang Gliding contest the longest Hang Gliding task was called and 16 pilots made it! 389 KM straight to goal task. Also on this day a Russian Gal declared a 407 KM open distance to goal record and made it. She took off from Forbes, flew the opposite way a few KM to her start and flew the course.
Congratulations to everyone who made it. Here is a recap from the days winner Ollie Chitty from Great Britain.

Day 5 Task 4

Waking up on the morning of the 2nd of January we are greeted by our competition Whattsapp group with a message of “Briefing 10am, be here ready to fly.”

There had been talks of going big today, the south wind was still blowing but slightly stronger today and even higher bases than yesterday so it looks like the task committee was planning a big one. In 2014 the distance to goal record in a competition task was set at 368km flying from Forbes to Wallygett. Today we have a slight west component to the wind and will be flying 389km to another flying site, Manila.

To make this new record task pilots had to be taking off much earlier than previous days so the first start was 12:00 just 1:30 hours after briefing in town. For many pilots this would be a personal best flight and nearly everyone took the 1st start getting on their way as soon as possible. Even at mid day there were good cumulus clouds and pilots reporting climbs to over 11,000'. A lot of pilots had Niki’s accident on their minds for a while. Glides were noticeably slower for the first portion of the course.

There seemed to be two main routes taken. A few pilots took the direct course line route when other pilots headed further west of course line and followed a line of mountains hoping to use them as triggers. 5 hours later the first pilot called on final glide. Ollie Chitty from Great Britain was first in goal with a time of 05:18:23 just ahead of Jonny Durand with a time of 05:19:27. Tyler Borradaile took 3rd place just a few seconds later. Eventually we would see 16 pilots make the record task with many personal bests broken and smiles all round, except for the retrieve drives who had over a 1000km total journey, the real hero’s of the day.

Sasha took an early bird launch and quickly flew 10km south into the head wind to a declared starting point for her an attempt at breaking the distance to goal woman’s world record, extending her flight to over 407km.

Recent HG and sailplane flights in New South Wales have been tremendous.
I watched Keepit and Narromine during that good run of weather. A few 1000km flights from NRM including triangles and Mac Ichikawa's Japanese O/R record attempt, yet to be confirmed. Jenny Ganderton and Kerrie Claffey got their 1000s.
One amazing flight was Jason Kath's declared 750km triangle out of Keepit in his Speed Astir. Jason also came seventh on that big Forbes Flatlands task, while fellow Keepitarian Attila atypically didn't make goal.
Unfortunately the Waikerie Nationals is not getting the big weather.
Jim