Ugly Sky

....sure hope things get better fast.

Day 6

The sky looks just awful this morning, not at all as was forecast.
Despite the look if things, the task committee is taking us up to
Moultrie, 231km to the north. In all likelihood it will end up being
an open distance sort of day.

Briefing at the Oh So Sweet cafe this morning.

Pippo wins the day!!

....at least a dozen at goal.

Young Alex is full of enthusiasm!

....first to go today, hopefully first to goal!

Finally we rally!!!

At last we get to move north. Today's task is Williston - 109km.

Riots breaking out here...

Most everyone has landed in the high wind and at last the safety
committe stopped the task. Look like we will hang out here one more day.

Not much lift....

...and plenty of wind. Davis is calling very light lift on the radio
and so far no one is getting any reasonable altitude :-(.

Sent from my iPhone

87km to the north!

Day 3

Wind is thankfully forecast to be lighter today, so I hope to have an
easier time with personalities and emotions at launch. But the task
call will be difficult. The committee is meeting now and trying to
find a solution to the west wind problem. Unless we push crosswind, we
won't be heading in the northerly direction we would like.

Should be interesting.

Day 2

Day two is looking very windy.  We have called a couple of potential tasks, one to the north and one to the northwest if we can get off the ground safely.  I'm not optimistic, but I wasn't optimistic yesterday either and we ended up having a very nice task.  The forecast is calling for 20 knot wind by launch time.  

Check out all the other blogs because there are heaps of interesting retrieve stories.  Shapiro landed next to an 8 foot alligator :-/

Here are yesterday's only two goal finishers relaxing in the pilot lounge at goal.  

Dustin and Jonny at goal

....they are likely the only ones there. Zippy landed about 2km short,
Carl about 20km short. I'm driving along the courseline now and seeing
many pilots down beside the road. OB, Shapiro and Derreck down along
with many others.

Sent from my iPhone

Hot and Humid

.....John Simon opted to skip the clothing.

Most seem to be sticking, but conditions definitely aren't optimal.
Derreck Turner has landed :-(.

Flytec Race & Rally - Day 1

Not the best looking conditions for day 1. I guess it was asking a lot
to hope for the same great first day we had last year. It is flyable
and we have called a 67km task to the northeast around Lake
Okeechobee. But, Jonny T. has been up and there is little lift and a
fair amount of wind. Either way, we will make our way to Quest today,
by car or by air. Meanwhile, Davis is as (overly) optimistic as
ever ;-).

Short Again

Another gorgeous Florida day. 129km task to the northwest. I got off
to a very slow start after needing a second tow so I ended up pretty
much on my own most of the way. Luckily I hooked up with Alex halfway
into the flight and we shared an amazing low save from a few hundred
feet. Spectacular day even having landed 24km short. I love Florida
flying!!

Got to land with Mikey....neener neener neerer Maria ;-))

The 5km Short Crew :-(

Five Reasons to Take up Archery

Although Damien hasn't been on his best behavior this week, he was back in tip top shape today.  Unfortunately, I'm not exactly in tip top shape and have been thinking perhaps archery is my sport.

I'm not sure what else to do as I seem to find a new and interesting mistake to make each day.  Only two days remaining and if I can't redeem myself, I'm sure Carlos will be finished with me.

Meanwhile, we're having better than expected weather overall.  Instead of the wind that has plagued this meet for the last few years, we've just had rain....plenty of rain, but thankfully most of it at night which leaves us getting in the air each day.   The landing fields are huge, but many are swampy, so we're having to steer clear of the "sparkly" fields.  The next two days are looking great though and the conditions for first day of the Rally might be just perfect.

Choose your tandem pilot well....

With rain early today and no task, there are quite a few tandem instructors hanging around.  Two Brasilian girls arrived for tandem flights and the fighting over who got to take them up began.  Why not let the girls choose for themselves?  We lined up like a bunch of bachelors and the questioning began, but  I was quickly eliminated when they asked who could keep it up the longest ;-).  The finalists were the four young boys - Jonny, Alex, Zippy and Eric.  Jonny couldn't resist slipping in his world ranking and that scored him the first girl.  Alex's boyish good looks got him girl number two.