The morning started with Pascal V, Emi, Grzegorz, Alex, Laurent (Lolo) and myself getting a penalty for illegal early practice only for this to be revoked half an hour later! My current 3rd place wouldn’t have been affected though thankfully.

First, in a great series of events was the 5 slowest pilots in a shootout for two places to join the top 10 to make a 12 pilot quarter-final. Dhiego unfortunately sucked a line from his Revo2 into his propeller on launch taking it down to four with Emi and Raul getting through.

We then had some dramatic action during the next two tasks of the semi-final with Grzegorz catching and breaking his little finger in the propeller on launch but still finishing the first task but unfortunately not able to continue from there.

Alex had a big, downwind collapse and had to land, sadly breaking a propeller and ending his task prematurely.

Lolo and I both flew fast and smooth with my result taking me into first place!!

The wind then picked up quite strong with the pylons dancing around and collapsing all over the place and there was word that the competition was valid at this stage and could be stopped with the top five pilots taking the podium positions and me being the winner.

Needless to say I was hoping and praying that it would not continue but it was decided after 20 minutes that it would go on.

I flew the first part of the task well but made an error coming downwind that put me too close to the last pylon. This sent me beyond where I wanted to be to slingshot myself to the finish and possibly the win.

The miscalculation cost me vital seconds and allowed 3 of the other pilots to make better times giving me 4th overall.

Laurent, flew the perfect head-to-head race with Alex, flooring him down the straights with the speed of his GTR18 and covering the corners well. It was very close at the end though with Alex making some aggressive tight turns to close on some of the distance but by the end of the race Lolo was there in front, a fairytale ending for him as he hadn’t received his engine until Friday night and got just a 10 minute practice in the dark!!

-Dean Eldridge

AccuWeather – is nice because it will show you the forecast by the day you can better predict morning and evening wind speeds.

With this jet stream analysis animation you can make your own animation showing progressive weather conditions over multiple days.

XC Skies – Nice Google map overlay but not as easy to navigate.

RUC Soundings – Supplies interesting information but must read instructions to use and is pretty advanced.

National Weather Service – More basic mapping and quick glance for the days forecast, not the most visually appealing but looks like there is a RSS feed available which could be nice to add into your preferred feed reader for better updates.

US Air Net – Very useful forecasting by hour and region, pretty easy to use but the adverts get a little annoying.

This website is great for looking at overall conditions; a person needs a little knowledge to navigate – animated.

Thanks Wayne for the website links.

Wayne is an instructor out of Canada and spends several months of the year traveling and flying the US. For more information on Wayne and his training…

Wayne Mitchler
SKY-BIKER Aviation Inc
http://www.paracruiser.com/skybiker/