Friday 22.4.2011 – Practice day

Day started with a 30 min walk (I’m trying to have a healthy lifestyle ;-) at 9 we left from the hotel to the airfield. Rumor was that briefing would be at 10, but after sitting in the hangar for awhile and nothing happened, they came to tell us that briefing is at 10:30 after all. This wasn’t the first official briefing, but still we heard all important things about safety etc. All the pilots haven’t arrived yet, so on Saturday we will see a re-run of this show.

It was a surprise to everybody that the task was so long, 563 km. And that towings started early, so leaving to the task happened in a bit hurry feelings. Some who are here for the first time were overwhelmed of Cmelaks’ towing show: all of you who know what a big radial engine sounds like, you can imagine having three to four huge yellow planes in front of the grid, all having radial engines making their powerful sound. When one Cmelak takes off, other one is ready to take off and two Cmelaks are waiting for their turn. And there are only few quiet moments, so efficient are these charismatic planes.

During the task we girls went to do some shopping, the weather is so warm that we “had” to buy some summer clothes. Pilots managed to finish the task, but not on very high speeds, and it was again a good lesson how to fly in this area.

I guess (=I know) that competition organization had some (normal) first day problems, as there aren’t any results yet. Actually situation is funny, since on Soaring Spot the results are updating just fine, but not on competition website. Reason is a network problem.

At the dinner we all were asking the same thing: why did organization put themselves and pilots under unnecessary stress by starting towings early and setting so long task. After all, this was only a practice day.