3 August, from the crew dude

Yep, back again!

Well, by now you'll know that Eric dropped yesterday.  And he shows his actual track, which is - well - nearly some sort of approximation to where he actually wanted to go, apart from the end when he actually wanted to get home but didn't.

This meant I had to get him.  So - I had to cope with a left-hand-drive car (done before), towing a trailer (done before), drive in a foreign country (done before), navigate using pilot directions (done before) and put all that together (not done before).  I got to the town he specified without too much drama, and fortunately he had the foresight to include a detailed paper map in the car which made navigation without a GPS device much easier.  But I ended up not following the road which would've got me there, and by the time I reached the next town I knew I was too far and along the wrong track. [Halfway through writing this Windows pops up a dialog from a save operation I initiated in something else 20 minutes ago, so that what I was entering into the blog went into specifying the filename instead - that's Windows for you.]  Eventually, after phoning Eric - good job we got local Polish sim cards - I deduced the correct road, so backtracked and took it - and found several gliders in the one paddock.  And apparently several more had just been retrieved from the same paddock!  (The new Leszno Gliding School...?)

De-rigging into a Cobra trailer is a delight, and once done we were out of there big-time and on the way home.

Back to where the Brits had put on a good feed for us using all our leftovers from the International night.  Before that, however, we dropped the trailer off somewhere.

OK, now to today.  Up at 0630 - it's light by then - to re-rig, clean and water-up the glider, then tie it down temporarily for briefing.  Fortunately briefing was at 1030, which gave us plenty of time.

Then back for lunch followed by towing out and weighing, then taping up.

Then first launch was on time - and no deferrals! - at 1230 and everyone's away.

The day is blue again.  Even bluer than yesterday if that's possible.  And warmer.

Oh, and driving that VW that Eric got is a delight, even with a full trailer on behind.  You wouldn't know that the engine's a diesel, it has the performance of a well-spirited 4-cylinder petrol engine (without the fuel consumption!), and the attention to detail is quite phenomenal.  Can't wait to open it up on the autobahn!

Stand by...