A late start to the day after it rained for most of the morning. When we went up around 1pm it was pouring rain, and we were laughing that we were actually going to fly, let alone get a task in. But up on launch the skies finally cleared, and we started to get excited.
A short task north to Wellington and then goal southwest to Donatos was called. But a huge cell was approaching as the window opened and it was pushing wind ahead of it, and the early launchers were reporting strong winds lower down and not fun flying. Several people got low and ended up landing in the Hunter LZ going backwards as the cell moved overhead.
I had watched the cell develop and get a bit shelf-cloud-like, so I wasn't about to launch. After several reports of people not really liking the conditions in the air, Mike cancelled the task.
Even though it was too strong to fly, we thought it would mellow out in an hour or so, and indeed it did. Around 5pm it got really sweet-looking so a bunch of us launched for a short free-fly, and it was nice conditions. Not too strong and the winds were manageable, and a bunch of us went for Longswords LZ. A couple of pilots attempted to make the 1st TP of the previously cancelled task, but never got there and ended up landing short. So in the end it was a nice free-flying day, but not taskable.
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