When I wrote my last report about yesterday’s weather and task I was sure that the fleet would be scattering plastic in amongst the local farm fields since the sky was overcast and there were no Cu’s. Of course, I said this is England and the only constant about the weather is that it will change, usually a few times a day. Well it did!!!!. Mike and Garret launched into that mass of low-lying grey, but an hour later the sky had half cleared and was full of cumulus. Before the start Mike reported that he had found ½ a knot, but after they went out on course they reported 4 knots. I stood on the finish and watched both come in dropping their water and later when I asked Garret how he had done, he said that he had a sloppy flight and had deviated much too much. He estimated that he might have gotten 15th. Luckily, he is a very poor prognosticator. He won the Day and was 30 points over second place. I told him that if he continued that brand of sloppy flying I would not complain. Mike had some trouble in the second sector and struggled a bit but he got home and came in 19th. At this point the USA has won two out of seven days and taken a second. Not bad considering we are competing against Europe’s best juniors. I have attached both flights so you can see how they do a 2 ½ hour assigned sector task. Garret’s speed was 90.7 K/hr and he came in 41 seconds over the 2 ½ hours. Pretty close planning!!! Garret's log.  Mike's log.

In terms of overall placing Garret is 15th and Mike 23rd. The Brits have taken the first three places which indicate that they are very talented pilots and local knowledge must also count for something. In addition, the British like many of the European teams are selected from a large pool of pilots who are supported by their clubs and sometimes from government funds. They have an excellent development program and I wish we in the US were able to do that.

At today’s briefing Garret was asked to the podium and recognized for his win. He gave a nice talk telling about his flight. As his prize he won a dinner for four at a local pub restaurant so now the team is even more excited about his win. 

Today is completely blue, but the thermals are supposed to be stronger, perhaps and 3-4 knot average. The fleet was given a 373 kilometer task that takes them a bit north and then a long ways south almost past the London airspace. Again, they will have to be very careful as there are 3 active parachute zones, a few 3500 foot areas and the London airspace to keep out of. They left at 1338 and we estimate it to be a 3 1/2  to 4 hour flight.

This morning we had an example of typical British understatement as we listened to the morning news. The announcer reported that there had been an accident on the M6 motorway. He continued, “That report was phoned in by the local undertaker who said he had taken care of everything”. They didn’t go into specifics about how it had been taken care of, so one is left to one’s imagination.

Cheers,

Bob Leve
Team Captain