A wet day in Prievidza

Hi all,

well no flying today, although it did improve a little in the afternoon and was probably briefly soarable. We awoke to a drizzly morning and decided to make use of the time by rearranging the glider seating position, installing a 'relief' system, and setting up new cables for the PDA. Meanwhile at the airfield, a massive party was going on - we're not sure what the occasion was, but the huge sound system was belting out dance music all afternoon, the local travelling funfair had shown up with dodgems, bouncy castle etc, and a lot of the visitors were assuming that my partly-rigged glider was part of the occasion! I had to disappoint several people who were hoping that something worth watching was about to happen!

This evening over dinner, I was reminiscing with Peter and Mandy about my first sight of snow (don't ask how this came up) and flung my arms out to highlight a point, just as the waitress arrived with a tray of drinks. The drinks ended up all over Pete and Mandy, but fortunately Dave and I were undrenched. It was the highlight of an otherwise dull day. (Sorry Pete!)

Hopefully there will be some flying to report tomorrow.

Taipei

Mike and are in Taipei at the Novotel Hotel resting up after our strenuous flight from BNE.    We initially thought the flight would be entertainment free, however early in the flight a bump of turbulence, or similar, did the magic trick and fixed the system, so the flight became a 3 movie sector.   This morning we went on a tour(!!!) of some of Taipei’s special sights, the usual ancient temple, the oldest street in Taiwan and a visit to ceramic  heaven where it seemed that every shop produced its own pottery.

 

After we arrive in Vienna tomorrow morning we expect to bus to Nitra by lunchtime, where we will pick up our car and then drive to the Czech Republic to collect Mike’s glider, the same one he flew last year.    With some luck we will be in Prievidza by nightfall where the serious stuff begins.

 

From Dingo Charlie

A bit out of sequence but Captain Chaz and Mike left Brisbane yesterday.

Made it!

Hi all; after a smooth flight, followed by a drive up to Wolfsburg in the rental car, Helge met us and we swapped some instruments around in UX (the LS1-f I'll be flying). Unfortunately the 3 loggers I was to be using were delayed in the mail, so Helge will be sending them on with the South African pilot who is flying VS. The weather looked fantastic - at least 5000ft cloudbase and beautiful cumulus all over the sky.

The glider looks great, and after a good night's sleep at Swaantje's house we set off in the Opel Omega that is to be our transport for the next month. We got almost to the Czech border before the first little problem hit - overheating! The temp was sitting above 100 degrees but we found we could nurse the car along by keeping below 90kph on the flat and about 60 on hills. After a very slow patch of heavy traffic near Prague we decided not to attempt the whole trip in one day, and pulled into a motorway motel for pizza and bed.

Next morning an early start saw us on the road by 7am, but the Czech motorways are real boneshakers in places and we found that in combination with the overheating we were only making about 70kph average. Then problem number 2 hit - after pulling over to investigate a strange scraping sound, we found that the jockey wheel must have hit the highway on a particularly rough patch, and the plastic wheel had been bashed off on the road surface!

The border with Slovakia eventually passed, and the weather was rapidly deteriorating. We hit the rain shortly after and it stayed with us for the remainder of the journey. In one place one half of the road was completely washed away.

We finally arrived in Prievidza in torrential rain, parked the glider, booked into the Oaza hotel (very pleasant) and found Peter and Mandy for dinner. Unfortunately the forecast is for more rain for the next several days, so there might not be a flying blog entry for a while!

Brisbane to Taipei - We're on our way

Capt'n Charlie and myself left a dreary Brisbane day to start our Wgc2010 adventure. After a delayed departure due to the in-flight entertainment malfunctioning (what, no movies?) we commenced our 1st leg of the outbound journey. Before long the in-flight system came back to life and we all breathed a sigh of relief. 3 movies, an arcade space invader game and some music later we arrived at Tiapei.
Nicely summer here, 28degrees at 9pm and that lovely Asian diesel fume atmosphere. A short shuttle bus ride later and here we are sitting in the Novotel with free internet and a toilet with more buttons than Captain Kirk's seat.

Many thanks to all the well wishers today and especially Leschy for greeting us at the airport, possibly just making sure we left the country.
Tomorrow is our courtesy tour of Taipei and a late departure on the leg overnight to Vienna.

Yesterday I received an SMS from the intrepid Allan and Dave, they had only 400km left to drive and so are probably happy at Prievidza.

Mike

They're off!!

Allan and Dave departed Brisbane this afternoon.

We've arrived

I'm sending this from the airfield restaurant, with tugs launching gliders into a Cu filled sky.
Our glider is due to arrive at 2pm today, a little delayed due to the flooding, and Pete is hoping to fly tomorrow.