What day is it? I'm not sure, but I do know we made it to Switzerland. Let's see, we left the house Thursday at 11:00 a.m. and arrived in Zurich approximately 13-1/2 hours later the next day, which would be 8:30 a.m. Zurich time. I'm posting this at 6:00 a.m. on Sunday morning, the day of Opening Ceremonies. So, I'm a day behind and will try to catch up.
Here's what Mark wrote about the day:
Mark:
Day 5 – Thursday Aug 6th
Today was the first official day of the 2015 F3A World Championships!! Ok, it was just team registration day, but still…it’s official!! The guys were up early again and off to the practice site. It’s an hour drive each way and we all know the route by heart (including where to detour to get McDonalds or stop at the grocery store).
Mark:
Day 5 – Thursday Aug 6th
Today was the first official day of the 2015 F3A World Championships!! Ok, it was just team registration day, but still…it’s official!! The guys were up early again and off to the practice site. It’s an hour drive each way and we all know the route by heart (including where to detour to get McDonalds or stop at the grocery store).
Today I went the opposite direction to check out the contest site and get the team registered. The site is Dübendorf Air Force Base and it’s HUGE. Yes, contrary to the theme of this trip, this place is big. They didn’t quite have everything laid out yet, but it’s clear that this is an extremely organized group and they intend to put on one top notch WC event.
Registration was smooth, FAI cards, US Flags, National Anthem (a HORRIBLE recording of it I might add…we need to fix that for future events), Confirm time slots for our official practice flights, Model processing, etc etc etc. There was a little shock when I told them we had 17 people here. Clearly the largest attendance from any country, but hey, it’s Switzerland, who doesn’t want to go???
From there I headed west again to meet up with the guys at the practice site. Now that I know the way and don’t have to pay hyper attention to where I’m going, the drive has become an enjoyable site-seeing drive. Every trip reveals new sites. One of the more impressive things to see here are the cars. LOTS of very cool cars. Today I was sandwiched between a Lotus Elise, and a McClaren (don’t know which one) while I drove my little rented VW Polo. Let’s just say the hamster’s running under my hood had a rough go of it. Audi’s, Mercedes, Porsches, Ferrari’s, Aston Martins, Bentleys, and VW’s seem to rule the roads here. We’ve even seen 2 Rolls Royces thus far, and only one corvette. Clearly we’re not in Kansas anymore. Or Detroit.
By the time I arrived at the field the temps were well into the 90’s and the guys were getting a little baked. This country seems to be devoid of that magical substance we call “ice” so we’re stuck trying to hydrate with air temperature water. I can’t really tell if the European’s have a strange aversion to ice, or if North Americans (yes Canadian team, I’m including you…) have an unnatural affinity for it, but regardless, we miss it.
Everyone is starting to get their game face on. For the most part each is focusing on the preliminary sequence, but today they also ran through a few final’s sequences and a few unknown’s as well. It’s taken a couple days to get everyone set up and comfortable (repaired planes, different fuel, different altitude, time change) but it seems that we’ve finally hit a good groove.
As a side show, we were treated to another airshow from the Swiss national full scale aerobatics champion as he is getting ready for their world championship. We were somewhat empathetic to see him bail out of a maneuver that didn’t go quite right and start his sequence again. We were also treated to two different F-18 flybys. Not really sure where they came from or where they were going, but hey, it was cool ☺
At the end of flying we spent some time doing sound checks of all the aircraft to make sure all the planes were well within the limit prior to tomorrows inspection.
Rule changes this cycle have the noise tests being done as part of the model inspection rather than prior to each flight.
We all headed “home” to the hotel to cool down and relax and then decided on Mexican for dinner. The food was great, but it was a little odd ordering Mexican food labeled in Spanish, with English descriptions to a Swiss (German speaking) waiter. It’s important to note that “Margarita” appears to be globally consistent.
Tomorrow will be our first day to dress as a team and represent the US at the event, so I’m sure I’ll have few pictures of that and even more when the opening ceremony commences on Saturday. It’s another early start tomorrow to practice, with our official practice and processing later in the day, and then team manager’s meeting, and flight order drawing at 7pm. Should be a busy day!
Registration was smooth, FAI cards, US Flags, National Anthem (a HORRIBLE recording of it I might add…we need to fix that for future events), Confirm time slots for our official practice flights, Model processing, etc etc etc. There was a little shock when I told them we had 17 people here. Clearly the largest attendance from any country, but hey, it’s Switzerland, who doesn’t want to go???
From there I headed west again to meet up with the guys at the practice site. Now that I know the way and don’t have to pay hyper attention to where I’m going, the drive has become an enjoyable site-seeing drive. Every trip reveals new sites. One of the more impressive things to see here are the cars. LOTS of very cool cars. Today I was sandwiched between a Lotus Elise, and a McClaren (don’t know which one) while I drove my little rented VW Polo. Let’s just say the hamster’s running under my hood had a rough go of it. Audi’s, Mercedes, Porsches, Ferrari’s, Aston Martins, Bentleys, and VW’s seem to rule the roads here. We’ve even seen 2 Rolls Royces thus far, and only one corvette. Clearly we’re not in Kansas anymore. Or Detroit.
By the time I arrived at the field the temps were well into the 90’s and the guys were getting a little baked. This country seems to be devoid of that magical substance we call “ice” so we’re stuck trying to hydrate with air temperature water. I can’t really tell if the European’s have a strange aversion to ice, or if North Americans (yes Canadian team, I’m including you…) have an unnatural affinity for it, but regardless, we miss it.
Everyone is starting to get their game face on. For the most part each is focusing on the preliminary sequence, but today they also ran through a few final’s sequences and a few unknown’s as well. It’s taken a couple days to get everyone set up and comfortable (repaired planes, different fuel, different altitude, time change) but it seems that we’ve finally hit a good groove.
As a side show, we were treated to another airshow from the Swiss national full scale aerobatics champion as he is getting ready for their world championship. We were somewhat empathetic to see him bail out of a maneuver that didn’t go quite right and start his sequence again. We were also treated to two different F-18 flybys. Not really sure where they came from or where they were going, but hey, it was cool ☺
At the end of flying we spent some time doing sound checks of all the aircraft to make sure all the planes were well within the limit prior to tomorrows inspection.
Rule changes this cycle have the noise tests being done as part of the model inspection rather than prior to each flight.
We all headed “home” to the hotel to cool down and relax and then decided on Mexican for dinner. The food was great, but it was a little odd ordering Mexican food labeled in Spanish, with English descriptions to a Swiss (German speaking) waiter. It’s important to note that “Margarita” appears to be globally consistent.
Tomorrow will be our first day to dress as a team and represent the US at the event, so I’m sure I’ll have few pictures of that and even more when the opening ceremony commences on Saturday. It’s another early start tomorrow to practice, with our official practice and processing later in the day, and then team manager’s meeting, and flight order drawing at 7pm. Should be a busy day!