I headed off to the team captain's prebriefing at 9:45 where we were informed that their would be a task, and given an overview of the weather. It didn't look too bad with 1.5-2.0m/s climbs expected to 1500-1700m.
As an aside, I seriously worried Hanno, the contest director the other day when he asked me how I was going and I said "not too bad." When I had done this twice, on two separate occasions, he asked my what was wrong. He thought "not too bad," meant it was still bad. I had to explain this bit of colloquialism to him, and at the weather briefing he announced that today "didn't look too bad."
After briefing we had a meeting at Aussie Base , and the reat of the team sat quietly while the pilots completed their planning.
On the grid, what had looked like an ideal sky of white puffy cumulus had deteriorated into grey urk. The organisers assured us this was just a narrow band and that good weather was behind it, but in the mean time, the launch was delayed several times and the task changed from A through B to C (essentially the same task with a change from fixed to Assigned Area).
They proved right and our girls launched into another nice looking sky.
Back at the clubhouse, the place was crawling with people who had come to watch. There were over 70 cars in the public car park (at 1 Euro each) and there was a very nice Motorfalke and Puchacz for them to look at. Food and drink was available as was merchandise for them to buy. Access to the airfield was not available to the public but a large roped off viewing area was full of people with picnic rugs and chairs who were listening to a professional sounding commentator (but I couldn't understand him) and some rather good music.
It meant that I didn't want to forget my ID badge when I went back to inspect the facilities. I might not have been allowed back to Aussie Base where we all assembled to wait.
After some time, a trailer left, then another. We waited anxiously for news.
Unfortunately, then the phone rang -- its amazing how much terror can be imparted by a simple ring tone. Turns was down approx 14 km from the second turn point. Bugger. But the landing was safe in a good paddock. Keith and Mitch hooked on the trailer and headed off.
The waiting had become more tense. More trailers left. Eventually Peter's phone rang and we received the news we had been dreading. Trotts was on the Neuhausen airfield 45km north of Klix. She was also safe.
More and more trailers left the airfield. Swaantje's crew also received news of an outlanding.
Oh well -- better luck tomorrow.