ACTION got under way on Tuesday afternoon in the ninth AIF Junior World Gliding Championships at Narromine, with 61 pilots from a number of different countries taking to the skies above Narromine and other parts of the central west.
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With the potential for a cold change and thunderstorms, organisers elected to move the start time forward and prepare a shorter course in the hope everyone would be able to return before any change in the weather occurred.
The pilots were deployed south from Narromine to Parkes before turning around and heading north, before eventually swinging back and returning to their original starting point.
Late on Tuesday the results for the first round were being collated, but John Styles from the Gliding Federation of Australia said he expected some competitive gliding across the different classes.
"Being a shorter course it means the pilots don't have as much of a chance to build up a gap in their times compared to their rivals," he said. "Overall the course was about 300 kilometres or thereabouts and it's not a case of who finishes first, rather it's who records the fastest time.
"There is an imaginary start line identified in the sky and each pilot's time doesn't start getting recorded until they have passed that line and then returned.
"There's GPS logging in each glider that records where the glider has been to make sure they have correctly followed the course, so when they get back all of that information is collated and checked before results are published."
The first day of competition followed a highly-successful opening ceremony held at Payten Oval the previous evening.
Each of the competitors paraded around the oval behind a banner featuring the name and flag of their country, similar to what they do at the Olympic Games.
"We had a good number of people from the town of Narromine come along for the evening, and (Deputy Premier and Member for Dubbo) Troy Grant was there and gave a speech to the competitors and those in attendance," Styles said.
"It was a really successful evening. Everyone stayed back after the official ceremony had concluded and spoke for a while, just mingling, and it was a great atmosphere."
The Narromine event is the first time the Junior World Gliding Championships have been contested in the southern hemisphere, with competition set to continue until December 12.
