World Championships, Day 2

We had a hell of a monsoon last night! After the day’s task was cancelled the storm clouds moved in, and it was only a matter of time before the deluge arrived. We got about 34 mm of rain in 3 hours; it was so wet that huge puddles were forming since the ground couldn’t absorb that much water so quickly and we had to rescue Conrad’s tent from the rising waters (actually Will ventured out to rescue it, along with Bill; the rest of us watched from the dryness of the camp kitchen and cheered them on). Fortunately for those of us in caravans we just had to close the windows and ride it out, watching episodes of “Heroes” on Will’s computer.

The morning actually dawned cloudy (!) (the first cloudy-in-the-morning day since getting here) with super-high humidity, so there was no rush to get up the mountain (apparently the road up is susceptible to rain, becoming very slick, so when it rains, you have to get your vehicle down asap or else risk having to leave it up there until the road dries out enough to drive it down safely). However it’s still 30+ degrees here, we’re all wearing shorts and tees, and everyone’s tans are coming along nicely (gloat gloat J.

The team leader briefing this morning consisted of discussion about the whole end-of-speed-section issue, GPS error when calculating who came in 1st, 2nd, 3rd vs. visual confirmation, etc., and the launch pre-queue methodology. Despite the flavour of the team leader briefings (with lots of politics), I’m actually learning a lot about international comp flying issues, since the viewpoints being brought forward are coming from a variety of nations. It’s very interesting to see exactly what issues the Swiss, French, Germans, Brits, etc., have, and how they go about presenting their arguments and defenses. Once a protest gets submitted (and I’m sure there will be several over the course of this comp, there were several brought forward at the Brazil Worlds) it will be very interesting to see what the energy in that room is like. (PS the daily morning briefings are open to everyone, but most pilots are happy to leave that job to their team leaders, and sleep in a bit longer, and do other things with their morning. So pilots interested in that kind of stuff are certainly welcome to listen in.)

OK, so the day has just been cancelled, due to impeding rain and embedded cu-nims in the surrounding area. The overriding reason for this wet weather is a bunch of low-pressure systems forming way to the north of us, one of which is predicted to develop into a typhoon (hurricane) in the next few days or so. These weather systems usually pass through northern Oz in Dec/Jan, but this year they are late. A comp must be happening in the area! The Canadian Team is glad we got a solid week of flying in already during the XC Open, so the possibility of a few days off here and there does not irritate us as much as pilots that only just arrived for this comp.

Nicole