We are officially in hell. Ok, that’s maybe a little harsh; we’re merely experiencing what it’s like living on the surface of the sun (WITHOUT $%*ing ICE) and being tortured buy some demi-god named Murphy.
But let me back up a little. Today started early again, 5:45am wakeup, breakfast and off to the practice field. It was a beautiful clear and cool morning and our drive was greeted by a fleet of hot air balloons off in the distance directly in line with our destination. Mountains, cool castles, f-18 flybys, impromptu full scale aerobatic flights, Lamborghini’s and now hot air balloons… surely Switzerland is my new favorite place! Ok, so maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to try and take photos of the balloons out the driver’s side window while Darin “held the wheel” on the highway, but I’ve always espoused that bad decisions make the best stories, soooo… But alas, Darin ended up taking the photos as my better senses kicked in.
Our arrival at the practice field (following our daily grocery stop for pringles, red bull and peanut M&Ms) yielded a spectacular view of the Alps in the morning sun. Today’s goal was to get in a few good flights before we have our official practice at the contest site later in the afternoon, so we got right to it. In a few hours everyone had put up 4-5 solid flights in the nice morning air. In addition to the hot air balloons we’d seen earlier, we also had another pair of F18 Hornets rock by, several passersby on horseback, and a visiting stray cat that simply wandered out of, and back into the corn. The morning was cool and overcast, but once the sun came through, it warmed very quickly and looked to be severe clear the remainder of the day. We opted to pack up early so as not to be rushed getting back to the field for our practice time slot.
The drive back was somewhat uneventful with a brief stop at the rest area for a quick McD’s lunch and to refuel the car and vans for the first time since getting here. Fuel, like everything else here, is a bit pricey. 1.65 CHF/Liter which translates to about $7.30/gallon. A fill-up for the car was around $65, and the vans, which all run on diesel, cost over $100. Thankfully they all seem fairly efficient and I don’t think we’ll need to fill up again. Or so I thought…
When we finally got to the contests site, it was bustling with activity. We were plenty early for our 2:55pm practice time slot so we parked in the general lot and proceeded to wander around a bit and meet and greet the friends and acquaintances’ we’ve come to know over the years. Then the fun began…. “you were notified that the processing schedule has changed right??” Um… noooo….
At this point it was 96deg outside, with hardly a breath of wind, so adding a panic attack to the mix made it seem unbearably hot. All was well though as we had arrived early enough to still be ok on the schedule. Our processing had been moved up ahead of our practice time and they were ready for us as soon as we could get our planes together. Time to move the vans down to the processing area and unload.
Houston, We have a problem… One of the vans won’t start. Huh?
Now I don want to say which one of the drivers opted to put regular gasoline into a diesel van, but you can be szczur that they won’t be living it down anytime soon.
4 hours , 11 phone calls, significant translation assistance from the event director, and one flat bed truck later, we had a new van, and the old one had been hauled off the contest site. We’ve elected to hold off on the public flogging until after the event, but it’s clear that all those stories about studying hard at the library in college did NOT include…reading. What can I say.
All the while that was going on, we managed to process all the airplanes without issue, and all the guys flew very solid practice flights. The flying site is very nice and overall venue is fantastic. It does appear that the sun will be an issue, being IN the box for the first 2-2.5 hours of flying each day as the field faces NNE. We will just have to wait and see how that plays out for the contest.
Don I mention that szczomeone put regular gas into the well labeled diesel van? So yeah, THAT happened.
At this point we were all more than a bit over heated and baked from the sun. We weren’t done yet though. The Team Managers meeting was held (The flat bed truck arrived just as we were supposed to start) with all the teams to go over any site issues and discuss the contest format and procedure as a whole. That 90 minute meeting in a small room with 50+ overheated people was followed by a dinner and initial flight order selection out in a VERY hot tent where the overheated people simply melted and washed away.
Our flight order draw is a reasonably good one. There are 4 panels and our guys are split 2 and 2 on panels #2 and #4 with good spacing between them so we won’t be racing from flight line to flight line.
Tomorrow will be more practice in the early morning, with the opening ceremonies starting at 1:30pm. We’re excited to see what they have prepared with rumors of both full scale and RC demonstrations.
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Cindy: Intersting day they had!