Things
are getting back to normal after the unfortunate
death of the photographer who was hit by one of the
gliders on final approach. The police, and there
were many, are gone and I'm sure the organizers were
quite busy coping with that unfortunate situation.
All flags at the site have been lowered to half mast
as a sign of respect. The situation is still unclear
as to what happened, but at a captains meeting we
have agreed that the contest will continue and that
the scores of that day will count in the official
standings. There was some disagreement on this last
issue from a minority of team captains, but after
serious discussion in which I was an active
participant the majority voted to retain the
days scores. We also agreed that the next day would
be a non-flying day out of respect to the individual
who died and because the contest organizers were
quite busy dealing with administrative details
.
On
our rest day, yesterday, we became tourists and went
to visit the great English historical site of
Stonehenge. I am sure it was very impressive to the
Druids who built it, but not being an Orthodox Druid
myself I was not quite so impressed. Perhaps it was
the hundreds of tourist who were walking about, or
the fact that it was smaller than I imagined from
the pictures, or that it looked like a very large
bunch of rocks which is what it is. I guess the
impressive part is that the rocks are arraigned in a
circle and that some have other rocks on top. At any
rate, now the team has seen the great Stonehenge and
that is something one should do when one is in
England.
On
the way back we stopped at Oxford and walked about
that very enchanting town and to my delight we
toured Oxford University and the famous Bodelian
library. Unfortunately, it was closed but I would
have loved to look at their collection of ancient
manuscript such as original copies of Newton's Principia
and Darwin's Origin of Species.
Our
last stop in Oxford was for dinner and we managed to
wander about looking for a suitable pub. I led the
team into two, that politely told us they didn't
serve food which was confusing to me as the sign
spoke of home cooked food. I was rather clueless,
but after we left the guys informed that I had
wandered into two local gay bars. I did wonder why
there were no women in the places and why there were
so many rainbow signs about. We ended up in the
local Chinese restaurant and had a very tasty meal.
I
was very proud to watch Garret and Mike called to
the stage to receive their awards for placing first
and second in their flights. Garret got a bottle of
red wine and Mike, as day winner, went through the
usual winners procedure. He was offered three
envelopes which contained a meal at a local
pub, a cuddly toy (a bear), or a bottle of wine.
Mike won the cuddly toy.It is named Nobby according
to a tag on hois dierriere. Mike then had to
describe the days flight and even though he is not
someone known for his verbal loquaciousness, he gave
a fine talk describing his flight.
Today's
task ia a 275 K flight to the south and comes very
close to 3500 foot control zones and parachute
areas. The guys will have to be very alert not to
infringe those areas as it is an immediate land out.
In fact the task almost looks like an obstacle
course in terms of avoiding areas, but there is
little they can do about that as England is a mass
of restricted airspace and to set a reasonable task
given the weather they need to thread the obstacles.
It brings home how much less cluttered our airspace
is in the USA. I wish I could put a reproduction of
the area map on this website. I have never seen
anything so complex with so many marks, figures and
boxes. Just to navigate the local area is an
impressive task and Garret and Mike deserve
compliments by just coping with such a foreign
complexity. The southern end of today's task goes
quite close to Oxford and I have told them that
there will always be a thermal over Oxford because
as a professor I know that the faculty of all
Universities produce a great deal of hot air.
The
last piece of good news is that upon a re-scoring of
the overall results Mike has moved into 14th place
and Garret in 15th. That is steady progress
from the 23rd they were once at.
Before
the launch today we were treated to a glider
aerobatic demonstration which was spectacular. In
addition to some really well done hammerhead stalls,
the pilot came across the field on tow doing
continual snap rolls. I guess he had a strong tow
rope.
From
the UK,
Bob
Leve
