As for myself, I'm just looking at what the temps are going to be in south Texas where I live for the next week or so. Let's see . . . I'll get there on Friday. . . Here's the temps for the Houston area where I live for a week starting on Friday: 102/103/103/103/104/102/102. Can you see me smile because I don't have to be here when that's going on.
Looks good to me!
Mark:
Day 3
Tuesday August 4th - I’ve added the date simply because we’re losing track. That’s a good thing for the first few days as we are spending pretty much all day practicing. Today was our first FULL day of practice for everyone. To give you an idea of our schedule, we met for breakfast at 6:30am and were on the road to the practice field by 7.
It’s an hours drive out to the site we’re flying at, but it’s a nice drive through the Swiss countryside. You can’t help but mentally revisit the Sound of Music in your head as you pass some of the small towns and villages that dot the landscape, nestled into the hillsides. The field is a small grass strip (Emphasis on small… I think there’s a theme forming for this trip) about 40’ deep and 250-300 feet long with corn on three sides and a road on the 4th. It’s a very nice field, albeit a little tight to get in and out of. One interesting feature is that it’s surrounded by a low electric fence that we had to shut off before entering. Apparently they have some trouble with wild pigs getting on to the field through the corn and digging big trenches through the runway! I must say, I’ve seen a lot of interesting things at flying fields over the years, but that was a first.
While we were trekking to the field, Brett and Bryan were at the airport securing his airplanes, which finally arrived. All was in good order and they eventually made their way out to the field as well.
Andrew was in the air by 8:15 to begin the rotation. The morning air was cool and reasonably calm… until he got to about 150’ up and it became apparent that there was plenty of wind pushing in. Joseph flew next, followed by Jason. Everyone is flying extremely well. Andrew’s flying is an exercise in consistency. Baselines, toplines, radii, and roll rates are consistent not only within each maneuver but throughout the entire flight. Jason is presenting the new Epic Bi-Plane (Contra-Drive) on the poles and slow. Joseph spent the first few flights with some final trimming while it was still relatively calm, but then settled in later in the day with some very solid flights.
Bryan and Brett showed up around 11:30 from picking up Brett’s plane. Another interesting nugget of information about these remote towns is that they basically shut down from noon – 1pm everyday. All the stores close for the lunch hour. In addition, it’s “Quiet time”, so we were also not allowed to fly glow aircraft during that time. Brett was able to get one quick flight up before the noon church bells but had to do most of his flying in the afternoon.
Off track from flying, I was able to spend a few hours out and about with one of the local club members shopping in search of folding chairs and power adaptors. We had very limited success but I enjoyed driving through the various small towns and visiting a number of small specialty stores in the area. They do not have anything remotely similar to Walmart or any of the large “one stop shopping” big box stores that we are so accustomed to.
Some rain moved in for part of the afternoon which ended most of our flying for the day. Brett and Bryan stuck it out for a few more flight but they too eventually wrapped up around 4pm.
I’ve noted repeatedly on Facebook and here that the prices over here are outrageous. Candy bars are $4, a can of coke is $5.50, etc etc. Well in discussion with some locals, the primary reason for that is extremely high base wages for unskilled labor (upwards of $25/hr as a minimum wage). I mention this only because a stop at McDonalds revealed a little of how this manifests in the form of all automated ordering! (See photo of Jason at the touch screen order counter). The entire McDonalds had a grand total of 3 employees, with everything else being automated. It was actually pretty cool, and was very helpful to us since the system was available in 6 languages.
Tomorrow will begin anew at 5:45am with another 7am departure for the flying site. Things will start to get picky tomorrow as we start to really focus on the P-15 pattern for the first 4 rounds.
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Cindy: Tomorrow I'll be in power packing mode, but will try to pass on anything Mark sends me.
Until then . . . .