18th – 26th January, 2023
Forbes 2023 didn't disappoint!
We arrive in Forbes to a cracker looking sky. The official practice day was a hot 36 degrees and only a few pilots chose to fly before the gust front arrived late afternoon and cooled things down.
We set the dates for this year's comp later than usual to entice International participation. Which in hindsight was a stroke of luck, as most of Forbes was under water with widespread flooding during November and December 2022.
Luckily, Bill's paddock and the hangar with 3 Dragonflys was spared from the rising water. The ground dried out surprisingly fast and by the time Steve McCarthy arrived a couple of weeks before the comp to prep the paddock and service the Dragonflys, the ground was already starting to crack!
The long grass made for slow mowing and Steve spent 13 hours on the tractor to give us a huge, clear launch arena.
The later dates didn't entice the International Pilots as we had hoped, so with only a small group of 30 pilots we were again using the Forbes Aeroclub as our Headquarters.
We set the briefings time later than usual, at 11am so everyone could come ready to fly and head out to the field directly after briefing.
We had various Whatsapp groups to stay in touch with everyone, Forbes Official, Forbes Unofficial and Drivers, so that the drivers could sign in once all their team were retrieved and we could directly contact the drivers of any safety concerns.
We were using the AirScore scoring system, so pilot could upload their own tracks or email to Wesley. Unfortunately, we didn't have trackers at this meet to keep everyone entertained!
Greg and I cooked Mexican at the Aeroclub with a host of helpers for the Welcome Party!
We selected our Committees:-
- Safety: Nils Vesk, Neale Halsal and Steve Crosby
- Protest: Trent Brown, Craig Taylor and Len Paton
- Weather: Sasha Serebrennikova
- Task: Attila Bertok, Oliver Chitty and Jonny Durand
Afterwards a big Welcome to all the pilots, 20 local and 10 International, 24 in the Open Class and 6 in the Sport Class
Let the games begin!
Task 1
From Jonny Durand - Forbes day 1 was a 130km cross tailwind task to Narromine in the north. Climbs to around 5,000ft and some wind made for a challenging flight. Attila took the day win with the earlier start with Rohan in 2nd and Guy in 3rd. I finished in 6th place after a 100m low save 15kms from goal. 7 more days to go so plenty of time to catch back up.
Task 1 had 9 pilots in goal in the open class. Attila Bertok - Hungary 1st with 1000 points, Rohan Taylor 2nd and Guy Hubbard 3rd. Corinna Schwiegershausen - Germany 1st in the Women's class and 7th overall.
Sport Class goal was 74.3 km to Peakhill. Stuart McElroy was the day winner.
Task 2
Cool temps with a very welcome max of 30 degrees! With winds from the east and problems with road closures from the floods to the west, a 158.7 km south-south-west task was set to Ardlethan. A string of early dust devils through the launch line caused some havoc, although settled for the next hour while the field got away.
Fantastic conditions from all accounts. There were 14 pilots in goal, Olav Opsanger - Norway with the day win, Attila Bertok – Hungary 2nd and Ollie Chitty - UK 3rd and Corinna Schwiegershausen – Germany 1st Woman.
Ollie Chitty reported a 30 km final from 9000 ft!
Sports class had 2 pilots with personal best flights, Magnus Rønningen from Norway flew 41.6 km on a Malibu and placed 2nd for the day and Akihiro Takeno from Japan with 35.42km. Richard Hughes joined the comp today after missing the first day and took the day win in Sports Class!
Day 3 is set, although with the chance of overdevelopment closing in on us. We set up to fly, but by 1.30pm there were towering cu's overhead. The day is cancelled before it starts with half the field still on the ground.
Day 4 is cancelled at 9 am because it's raining!
Task 3
After yesterday's rain, we have blue cu's and light winds and a triangle task.
The sky looks amazing for task 3, a 126.7 km triangle back to BMIA and a 51 km task to Trundle for the Sport Class
From Jonny Durand - A 126.7 km triangle today. I managed to get low when the first start went, so Ollie Chitty & I both waited the 20 mins for the 2nd start. We had a pretty good run for the first leg but struggled to get the good climbs on the headwind leg. Towards the end of the task, we were only 10kms behind, but the conditions got tricky on the last leg with many landing. We went off course to stay up and managed to make goal but not fast enough. Attila won the day ahead of Olav Opsanger and Trent. I placed 6th for the day and move up 1 place overall.
We set up our marquee at the back of Bill's paddock, with cold drinks, cold watermelon and waited for the pilots to come in!
Attila Bertok - Hungary 1st, Olav Opsanger - Norway 2nd, Trent Brown 3rd
Sasha Serebrennikova – Austria 1st Woman
We thought Sasha and Vic were last in goal just after 6 pm so we packed up and left the paddock. We only found out later, that 2 more warriors arrived after 7 pm. Congratulations to Neal Halsall and Bruce Wynne!
11 pilots in goal in the Open Class and Stuart McElroy the only pilot to make goal in the Sport Class.
Task 4
An earlier start today with the possibility of over development.
Open Class have a 155 km task to Wellington
Sport Class a 53 km task to Gooloogong
Amazing sky again!
Towing started early with everyone away in good time. A super task with all but 2 pilots in goal. Olav Opsanger - Norway 1st, Rohan Taylor 2nd and Attila Bertok – Hungary 3rd. With Sasha Serebrennikova – Austria 1st Woman. Peter Garrone was the only Sport class pilot to make goal with Stuart McElroy just 1 1/2 kms short!
From Jonny Durand - A classic Forbes day. A 155km dogleg task to Wellington. Everyone did the 1st start and soon the gaggle split to 3 different groups. I was heading more right of the course with Trent and we were maintaining the lead all the way to the 1st turn point. Rohan and Olav got a good climb behind and overtook us at the turn point. Then it seemed everyone caught up again and the race was on to goal. Olav Opsanger won the day ahead of Rohan Taylor 8 minutes in front of Attila and myself. All but 3 pilots made goal. Congratulations to Scott Ireland on his first Open class goal.
Task 5
The forecast is for strong west-north-west winds up high, a 145.2 km cross downwind task is set South-East to Boorowa. Towing was slow with weak lift in the blue and a few re-flights. The north wind didn't eventuate and stayed pretty much south-west proving to be a difficult start. Very different to yesterday!
Sport Class were all still to tow, so Wesley was able to do a task change for them with a downwind 39.4 km task to Eugowra. A Good call from Ollie and Wesley! Stuart McElroy in 1st with 1000 points and Richard Hughes in 2nd.
From Jonny Durand - Forbes brings a challenging 155km crosswind task in 30km/hr winds. I flew for nearly 2 hours before I could even reach the 10kms start radius. I managed the last start at 3:20pm with Ollie Chitty and caught the start in front on the first glide. We spent the next 4 hours battling the wind reaching 10,000ft once. Just after 7:30pm, we made goal along with 5 others. Guy Hubbard most likely won the day starting 1 hour before us, with Ollie in 2nd and me 3rd. One more day to go… Let's hope the weather holds up for a final task.
From Ollie Chitty -10'000ft in the flatlands, a gaggle with almost every pilot in the start and a final climb with a couple of eagles. Task 5 didn't disappoint! We had 30kmh cross headwind for 155km!
7 Pilots made this challenging task with all but the winner landing after 7pm. Guy Hubbard takes the day win! Ollie Chitty – UK 2nd and Lukas Bader – Germany 3rd. Corinna Schwiegershausen - Germany 1st Woman.
Task 6 and Australia Day!
A 127.3 km task South to Stockinbingal for the Open Class and 53 km task to Gooloogong for the Sport Class
A super final task of the competition with Guy Hubbard on fire, charging and winning the 1000 point day! Ollie Chitty – UK 2nd, Lukas Bader – Germany 3rd. Corinna Schwiegershausen - Germany in goal too for the Women's Day win. Richard Hughes takes the day win in Sport Class!
All the pilots make it back to the Aeroclub for our Australia Day presentation BBQ!
Our presentation was made that much more special with a surprise visit from 3rd times World Champion Tomas Suchanek!
The amazing people that come together to put this show on for us is what makes Forbes so special.
A big Thank you to:-
- Meet Director & Scorer - Wesley Hill
- Tug pilots - John Blain (Blaino), Marco Carelli and Bruce Crerar
- Launching crew - Greg Cain, Michael White, Alan Bond & Rob Van Der Klooster and a host of helpers!
- Steve McCarthy - for the week's preparation work before the comp!
- Jonny Durand for MC'ing for me
- And all the pilots that came from all over the world!
- And the drivers-do an amazing job caring for their pilots
- The task and weather committee of Attila Bertok Ollie Chitty , Jonny Durand and Alexandra Serebrennikova did a super job to set challenging tasks , dodging storms to keep everyone safe.
Congratulations to the winners!
Open Class
1st Attila Bertok – Hungary – 3rd time winner
2nd Olav Opsanger – Norway
3rd Ollie Chitty – UK
Women
1st and 5th time World Champion Corinna Schwiegershausen – Germany
Sport Class
1st Stuart McElroy
Our landowner prize was won by the Woods family nominated by Craig Taylor from Task 5 near the Boorowa goal.
Thank you to our sponsors Forbes Shire Council and NSWHPA for making this event possible
Special thanks to my mum and dad - Bill Moyes for supplying the paddock and the 3 Dragonfly's and Molly Moyes for the cookies and for booking the weather!
An extra special thank you to my hubby, Greg Cain, for supporting me on our 18th Forbes comp together. That's what I call #Flymoyes #nswhpa #moyesdeltagliders
6 tasks in 8 days, over 200 tows and 30 pretty happy pilots and crew!
We are already working on ways to improve next year's comp.
And are considering to including a single surface glider category and or a mentoring category.
Till next year!