The New F1 has arrived!

After a six day delay while Customs in Montreal held the container for inspection, the new F1 has now been unloaded from the container and is waiting patiently in a Montreal warehouse.  While I sit impatiently at home.

I will be driving up to Montreal the weekend of 31 March for the Cross-country seminar and will bring the glider home.

After that, the scramble begins to finish installing the instruments, and then get the import inspection done so I can leave for the first contest of the year at Perry on 11 Apr.

Things are about to get busy.

Dave

Aeroplan Miles

A big thanks to Kris Yeates and Dan Daly, over 100,000 Aeroplan Miles were donated to the team during our February Aeroplan donation drive.

We are already sorting out the schedule and getting ready to book flights for some of the volunteer crew members who will be helping in Uvalde in August.

Thank you everyone who donated miles!

Dave

Aeroplan Donations

The team has set up an Aeroplan Charitable Pooling Account that allows mile donations to be made from individual's accounts into the team's account.  Miles donated to the team will be used to fly volunteer crew members to Texas during the World Gliding Championships and any leftover miles will be saved in the team account for the 2013 World Juniors and 2014 WGC scheduled for Lesno Poland.

Aeroplan Miles in your account work on a first in, first out basis so if you have miles that are about to expire, instead of letting them go to waste donate them to the team account.  At the moment they are transferred into the team account by Aeroplan, their expiry date is reset for another 7 years.

The donation period that has been established with Aeroplan is from 1 Feb - 1 Mar.

Miles can be donated by filling out and emailing the Donation Pledge Form that can be found on the Team Website.

XG's trip to Uvalde

Due to internet problems I wasn't able to post my updates about
Pre-Worlds earlier.
My trip to Uvalde TX started early as I went to Logan Utah first
to fly 15 Meter US Nationals and then traveled directly to Uvalde.
Scenery of flying in Logan was great as picture shows , but
flying was very demanding and it was new experience for me .
Most of the flights were done by using ridge lift generated by
sun not wind. Thermals were broken and climbing after tow to
start altitude was taking up to one hour of hard work.
The contest was great practice of patience and centering broken
thermals. In addition very hot days in Logan prepared me and
Maria for Uvalde heat perfectly.

At the beginning of Pre-Worlds in Uvalde soaring conditions
were as I knew from 2006 US Standard Nationals, but we had
several blue days later which gave substantial advantage to
Australian pilots which are used to fly in blue and strong
conditions.

Contest started very good for me as I took second place on day
one and first on day two , which put me on second position
overall for the most days of the contest .

Contest winner Bruce Taylor from Australia flew perfect
contest winning six days out of eight . American pilots Bill
Elliot and Gary Ittner worked very hard to pass me and they
succeeded on the last two days finishing ahead of me and I
finished as third loser on fourth positions after eight days of
flying. On the worst days winners had speeds of 136km/h and
average task speed of day winner was 145km to 148km/h.
In such situation one mistake and speed was down substantially,
recovery was impossible.
Lucky me as we were flying just Pre-Worlds, I hope I will be
able to do less mistakes next year.
To date this season gave me good contest practice before
Worlds as I flew total five contests, winning three of them.

Statistics from 33 days trip:
20 days of flying .
In the glider - 80 hours, 8,000 km
My personal best task speed using thermals- 153.4km/h (Uvalde)
Two land-outs ( Logan )
One flight trough thunderstorm ( never again) ( Logan)
Car travel- 9 days 12,000km trough 18 states.
Days with trace of rain- two
Days with temperture above 36C- 30
Jerzy

On the road

We left Uvalde this morning at 10:40 am. I was a bit concerned that Sonia who had made so many friends and had reconnected with her Texas roots, would bail and stay in Uvalde.

As usual, when one drives back from a contest, we looked at good cu all day.
We expect to be in Ontario Wed mid-day.