pulled over

This was the weighing station on the last day of the nationals. If this is not an awesome sense of humor then I don't know:

we were even asked to blow into the straw!

The day was blue and low but the air was really clear and even with the simple little camera I was able to take a few nice shots.

our new gliding home

find a glider and tug!

We drove back to Horsham today. I asked Ziggy to stop and check out the strange mango-like-looking balls on the side of the road and in the fields. It must be some kind of pest growing uncontrolled in certain spots but it looks bizarre just lying on the ground and rotting away. It's kind of hard to tell where it's coming from ...

We are now back home and have extremely busy times ahead with everything changing very soon. All these changes are for better which gives me motivation to go through.

day off

I had to have a forced day off yesterday, the best day of the competition. That was planned and there was nothing to be done to change it so I just take it as it is.

I had a quite good and enjoyable day before yesterday. Having Mak looking at my traces and commenting on them is of a great value. I'm trying to address his comments as good as I can in following flights. I'm starting to feel more and more comfortable with the glider too :)

http://soaringspot.com/ausmulti53/results/double-seater/daily/day2.html

And here is the day that I missed yesterday:

http://soaringspot.com/ausmulti53/results/double-seater/daily/day3.html

Today is the last day of the comp. It's going to be blue and the models are confusing so we don't really know what's going to happen. The task is a racing task set over unlandable area to the west which is quite unusual. I'm staying relaxed because I'm out of the comp anyway so I will see how we go and how I feel about it. One thing is for sure - I have the best looking and funniest crew on earth!

Zig this morning

he seems to be having fun

Richard found another little friend in the hangar today. He's just a baby and doesn't even know how to bite yet. Gorgeous little thing.

are we in Europe?

Now this is getting ridiculous. South Australia hasn't seen weather like this for 40 years and the last time the whole fleet landed out was 1990. We are breaking serious records here.

Here are the results:

http://soaringspot.com/ausmulti53/results/

The following pictures show yesterday's cloud base just below 3000 ft MSL and going down... By the time our gate was open, the rain started closing up from N and NW:

our new base - YWKI

looking north

rain bands approaching

Another tough day tomorrow but we WILL fly. We just have to - to make this comp a valid one. We seem to have too much fun on the ground though.

let's try again

We did try. Gridded in the morning, gave up @ 3 pm as the sky turned black again. Sniffer reported 0.7 kts up to 2500 ft and then fell off the sky. That was the end of this game. Does this sky look familiar or what?

enthusiastic crew

XM

There was one great event though. Richard saved this cute Bearded Dragon from the road and brought him to release in the bushes at the airfield. He was just gorgeous but a bit scared. He's got his safe freedom back now :)

Tomorrow doesn't really look promising so we'll have pilot's meeting in the morning. This can get energetic ...