The only balloons spectators in Canowindra saw take to the skies this morning were black ones.
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Turbulent winds have grounded the Canowindra International Balloon Challenge two rounds running.
This morning's tasks were cancelled after a SIGMET warning of severe turbulence was extended until midday today.
Yesterday afternoon's flights were also cancelled due to looming clouds and choppy winds.
Director Gary Lockyer told pilots and crews this morning that the wind speeds more than 1000 metres up exceeded his own personal rule of thumb.
Safety officer Grant McHerron said while Cowra was the northern border of the weather warning, they couldn't take the risk by sending pilots up.
Balloons can only safely fly in calm, light conditions.
Landowner relations official Kel Lewis said while it was serene on the ground, the director made the right call in canning the morning's competition.
"Standing here you'd think they'd be right to fly but it's a different story up there," Mr Lewis said.
"The director has to make it fair for all the competitors to try and complete the tasks he's set."
Media, marketing and Balloon Glow official Jan Kerr said competition earlier in the week has been incredibly fast-paced with pilots forced to think on their feet.
"We had great conditions on Wednesday. We've had a really interesting competition so far, there's only 200 points between the top five so far," Mrs Kerr said.
"You only need five tasks to make a competition and so far we've had 10, 11,"
Leading the pack "by a whisker" in her own estimations is current Women's World Champion Nicola Scaife.
She said it'll be a "battle" to retain top spot in the competition in coming days.
"[On Wednesday] we had some really quick winds and it was really nice to cover pretty well the whole competition map from north to south, it was a great flight," Mrs Scaife said.
"There's been really good task setting by the event director and they were all achievable, it's just because of the quick winds, you had to make decisions pretty quickly."
"It's been challenging," former World Champion and balloon manufacturer Sean Kavanagh added.
"The pressure was on. It is quick up top, but we're really hoping to fly today, we're always hoping to fly."
Despite this, Mr Kavanagh said safety is their first concern at the moment.
"It's a bit messy with the weather systems coming through at the moment so it's making it hard to look more than 12 hours ahead," Mr Kavanagh said.
"If the upper winds come to the surface too early, and we're flying in them, we have to land at that speed so that's what they're wary of ."
Mrs Kerr said the competition this year has a "really good international flavour".
Competing in Canowindra for the first time this year is Russian pilot Sergey Latypov, who said the conditions earlier in the week were perfect for competitive flying.
"We're just playing games with the pilots, [they are] really great. We're enjoying it," he said.
The next session gets underway at 3.30pm today.
The competition wraps up on Saturday.
You can keep up-to-date with the Challenge by clicking here.
You can also check out our spectator gallery from this morning by clicking here.