DAY6 Contest DAY5

There is a provision in the local procedures to extend the contest a day if only four days have been flown by Friday. Completion of a task today will make the contest official and we will have all day Saturday to prepare for the end of contest party Saturday night.

Although English is the main language members of different countries communicate in, I have been in a few situations when another language was more useful in making a clearer communication. Just this morning I was talking with one of the French crew members and after establishing Yannick lived in Strassboug to his amusement and delight we carried on our conversation in German.

Someone seems to have taken a fancy to our flag as it has gone missing from the flag pole, I have brought a spare ensign to reestablish our presence on the flag line. I guess we should be pleased someone felt the Canadian flag is unique or valuable enough to steal. Of course it might just be that the flags were purchased on the government's best price criteria from a far east supplier and that the grommets didn't hold when a front went through a few nights ago.

We have two tasks today to the west in anticipation of weather problems in the east. Task A is a 320km assigned task and Task B is a 3.50hr area task 259-575km, both tasks are squeezed in between the opposing terminal airspace areas west of Tampere. At 11:05 I was summoned to a Team Captain's meeting at the front of the grid. The standard Class are being moved to another runway because we have a slight tailwind component and we have received confirmation we are flying the assigned task A. First launch is scheduled at 12:15.

At this moment David Bargainnier father of Devin of the USA team is adding a bit of big city flavour to the warm summer weather on the ouside terrace of Café 26 with renditions of familiar tunes on his harmonica.

It is 5:15 a few landouts have been reported we are getting ready just in case as cmost of the pilots are in the same area about 30 to 40 km from the finish. Re the contest finishing Friday or Saturday that has been updated we will fly Saturday if it is flyable.