ESCAPING
The gust front was clearly visible with the rain behind it forming a wedge shape that was moving towards us. The winds were perhaps 30-40 km/h within the gust front. In a situation like this the worst thing you can do is try to big ears or spiral down to land because you ll be in lift and it will probably take longer than you expect to get down. Therefore, as you can t be sure you ll get down before the gust front hits you, you risk landing at the worst possible time. So instead the three of us decided to turn south and run for it. There was plenty of lift around as the gust front was undermining all the air ahead of it and pushing it up and the storm was growing bigger at the same time. We needed to fly fast to stay ahead of the gust front and the storm. We soon found that the storm was moving forward at about the same speed as our trim speed, we could only get ahead of it by accelerating and it would catch up with us if we slowed up. Getting sucked into cloud was also a real danger as cloud base was lower when the gust front arrived and there was heaps of lift everywhere. We found there was smooth lift everywhere to the right and behind us but sink in front and to the left of us. By understanding this and staying away from the strong lift we were all able to fly safely away from the storm and control our height well enough so that we could reach a suitable and safe place to land that was also far enough from the storm and its gust front.